Patillo Creek Tarpon

Patillo Creek is an area I like to fish when Peacocks Pocket Road is closed for the season and since the "Pocket Road" was closed this evening for repairs, Patillo Creek is where I headed.

I didn't get home from work this afternoon until around 6:30 pm, so I didn't have much time to fish.

I intended to hit Peacocks Pocket road but when I saw that the barriers were up, I headed towards the Boy Scouts camping area to try out that area.

Except for one other truck, the camping area was uninhabited. I drove through some deep puddles to a turn around and started pitching a Chug Bug and a newly purchased Strike King "Sexy Dawg" topwater bait.

I got to practice my "walk to dog" technique but only wasted a lot of time at the spot.  There was no topwater action in the area that I could see, so I packed up the rods and headed over to Patillo Creek Road.

When I drove up to the culverts at Patillo Creek road, I immediately noticed that they were open and dumping water into the large marsh pond.  A perfect scenario for "catching" instead of just fishing.

I turned on the sports cam to hopefully pickup some of the action, if there was any, and recorded the videos below.

I fished the area thoroughly with topwater baits, a ZMann jerk bait and a Johnsons Sprite gold spoon with some success.

Juvenile Tarpon

When I started casting topwater baits, it was apparent that the fish were chasing baitfish just under the surface.

I missed several fish on a topwater Chug Bug and on the ZMann jerkbait before finally connecting with a small Tarpon.

There were several other juvenile Tarpon in the area, along with several nice redfish and small sea trout.

I was targeting the Tarpon with the Chug Bug and missed three fish that hit the bait but didn't get hooked, so I changed over to the jerkbait smeared up with Pro-Cure.

Finally the small Tarpon above gobbled up the bait and danced around the shallow pond before I could land it and unceremoniously release the fish.

Although the fish was only the size of a slot redfish, it put up a decent fight.  Too bad it wasn't one of the big ones in the area.

I continued fishing with the jerkbait and missed a couple more fish before changing back to the Chug Bug.

Juvenile Snook

As I was casting to another rolling Tarpon, I got a hit from what I thought was a small sea trout.

I quickly noticed that it was a very small Snook.  In fact it had to be the smallest Snook I ever caught in this area.

Anyway, I took a couple of pics before putting the fish back to grow up.

A thunderstorm was coming in fast and the fish were getting more and more active, but when a lightning strike hit too close to me I decided it was time to head for home.

By the time I settled into the truck, the rain was coming down in buckets with no sigh of letting up.

I was hoping it would stop, but no such luck.

I drove up to the dead end turnaround at the end of Patillo Creek and left the area towards home.

When I got to the house, it was dark and still raining but I considered the outing a success.

I managed to get several hits from Tarpon and a redfish; caught a Tarpon, a Snook and a small sea trout and all in all had a good time.

Till next time, Tight Lines.