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.