Topwater Fishing For Juvenile Tarpon

This afternoon seemed like a good time to head out to the river and do some tarpon fishing, so I grabbed my fly rod, a couple of boxes of flies and headed for the last place I caught some fish.  Or, at least had some hits.

Open flowing culverts are usually magnets for fish, so I headed to the same area where I lost several juvenile tarpon yesterday afternoon around some open culverts.

When I eased up to the spot, a fisherman was just preparing to leave so I asked him if he had caught anything.

He told me he had a couple of hits but could not hook anything.  Kind of like what happened to me yesterday at the same spot.

I took a couple of short videos of the fish rolling and dimpling on the surface until he left and then rigged up my fly rod with a heaver leader than I was using yesterday and tied on a dark patterned tarpon fly.

After a couple of casts, I briefly hooked into a small tarpon that flipped the fly after the first jump.  I was hoping today wouldn't be a repeat of yesterday but it was too early to make any rash judgements.

I spent the next half hour or so casting several fly patterns and missing three more tarpon.  I just could not get a solid hookup to save my life and after a while, I couldn't buy another strike either.

As I was thinking about tying on another pattern, a guy pulled up with a spinning rod and a gold spoon and asked me if I minded him fishing the area.

I had no problems with that, especially since the fish seemed to have developed lockjaw.

His name was Kirby Laneau, and we spent the next hour or so trying to catch the tarpon that were in the area on a variety of artificial baits.

I spent a lot of time on my cell phone trying to get a shot of him catching a fish but although he was willing,  the fish weren't so much.

He had a few strikes on his flies and after some time he switched to a popping bug, and finally a topwater frog colored Torpedo propeller bait that finally snagged a fish; below.

Kirby knew his way around a fly rod and we had a pleasant discussion on a variety of topics while trying to catch a fish.

I intermittently tried a gold spoon, a swim bait that I had a few hits on, and finally as dusk came upon us, a Chug Bug that I normally used for spotted sea trout and redfish along Peacocks Pocket Road, when it used to be open to vehicle traffic.

After Kirby hooked and landed his tarpon, I broke down and tied on the Chug Bug with only about a 20 inch piece of fluorocarbon leader between the lure and my 40 pound Power Pro main line.

I wasn't convinced that I would be able to catch anything with the short piece of leader but I didn't have time to tie on a longer piece.  It was getting dark.

I had three or four decent hits on the Chug Bug, but I still could not sink a hook into a fish.  I'm beginning to think I have some kind of  "fish hooking curse" or something.

Anyway, as we were casting the area, a large oversize snook jumped at least 6 feet into the air as it was chasing something for dinner.  The fish looked like it was between 3 to 4 feet long as it splashed back into the water.

As luck would have it, I couldn't get it on my cell phone however, I did compile these vids of this afternoons fishing excursion.

I really need to remember to bring along my Go Pro next time.

When the mosquitoes started to fatten up on the blood from my legs, I finally decided to call it a day and head back home.

I bid farewell to Kirby and took his pic before he left so I could post it here tonight.

Till next time,
Tight Lines and Bent Rods.

 

Tarpon Hunting On The Fly

Late Saturday afternoon I decided to go Tarpon hunting in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

I've been out of town for a few weeks and with another hurricane brewing in the Gulf, I decided to take advantage of the high water levels, the Harvest Moon, and the barometer to get some much needed fishing in.

The last time I tried Tarpon hunting, conventional lures were pretty much useless, so this time I brought along my 8 wt fly rod and a few flies to augment the 7' spinning rod that I always carry in the truck.

As I crossed the A. Max Brewer Causeway bridge I was beginning to think I made a drastic mistake. There were tons of people on both sides of the causeway fishing and kite surfing.

Although the wind was brisk, the weather was gorgeous so I continued driving past the refuge entrance towards Bio Lab Road.

The barriers are still up on Gator Creek, East Gator Creek, Catfish Creek Loop, and Peacocks Pocket roads, and although you can still walk the areas, nobody had cars parked so I can only assume that nobody was bothering to walk the areas.

Too bad, there's some great fishing along most of the roads, especially when the water levels are up like they are right now.

Park your butt next to a flowing culvert and you usually have some good fishing in store.

I drove past Black Point Wildlife Drive towards Bio Lab road and was surprised at how many parked vehicles there were along the road.    Probably due to hunting season..

Anyway, the water levels in the Mosquito Lagoon were way up and because there were people fishing the creek at the Bio Lab boat launch,  I decided to head towards Patillo Creek to see if the barricades were still up there.

 

I noticed that Beacon 42 boat ramp road was still closed and when I made the left turn into Patillo Creek, it also was closed to vehicle traffic at the second entrance.

I stopped at the barrier, strung up my fly rod, tied on a black and white Lefty's Deceiver and headed towards the first set of culverts.

When I lived in Pennsylvania as a youth, I grew up with a fly rod in my hand and even though I'm out of practice and don't use a fly rod all that much in saltwater, I picked it up almost immediately.

My first cast into the area at the culvert hooked my up with an almost gator sea trout of about 25 to 27 inches. The fish hit the deceiver on the second or third strip and after a very brief run, broke off in the brush along the bank.

Lesson number 1. Use a heavy leader in salt water.

I made several more casts with another deceiver fly on both sides of the culvert but the fish weren't interested, so I headed back to the truck and decided to run towards North Shiloh Road.

As I drove up Shiloh Road, I spotted a group of fishermen about to leave the area I planned to fish.

When I asked them how they were doing, they said they hit a few small tarpon that would not take anything but a small original floating Rapala.    The one guy said he caught a tarpon in the 24 inch category and the other wasn't specific about the size.

When they saw me pull out my fly rod, they both said that the fish were hitting small minnows and that they wished they had brought along theirs.

After the group left, I started casting against the wind into the open culvert side where I expected the larger fish to be holding, but after making what seemed like a million casts, I never got a hit.

The other side of the culvert was where all the activity seemed to be.   There were dimples in the water with rolling tarpon all over the place and occasionally, a larger fish would blow up along the submerged banks to attack the baitfish that were holding there.

I spotted several redfish or snook wakes along the banks, but most of the fish in the area were Tarpon. Just what I was interested in.

I started pitching another deceiver pattern with a blue back and white feathers into the area and almost immediately had a juvenile tarpon hit the fly, jump, and break the fly off the leader.

I was silently cussing myself for not bringing along my GoPro.   It's impossible trying to get a video of jumping tarpon on a smart phone when you have a fly rod on one hand and the line in the other.

I tied on another streamer pattern that was in a redfish and speckled trout selection of saltwater flies from  Orvis and after several more casts suffered the same results.   A larger juvenile tarpon of around two feet jumped once and immediately broke off the fly.

During the course of the next hour and a half, I hooked six more juvenile tarpon which broke off after jumping or after making short runs, and had a slot size snook follow this white Conehead Bunny Muddler.

The snook followed the minnow imitation all the way up to the culvert but turned off twice. I guess it saw me?

Anyway, as it started getting toward dusk, I ran out of flies and decided to start pitching a Johnson's Sprite gold spoon that I had on my other rod.

I had two or three bumps on the spoon, but no solid hits.    I believe if I had a smaller sized spoon, I would have caught something, but the 3 1/2" gold spoon just didn't "match the hatch".

As the sun started to set, two guys on the way out asked me what I had caught.   I told them and they replied that they caught a tarpon of about 26" and a small snook, both on a fly.

The mosquitoes were finally driving me crazy, so I packed up, turned the truck around and headed home.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.