Tarpon In The Creeks

Late this afternoon I decided to get out to North Shiloh Road this afternoon to see if there were any tarpon in the creeks.

I brought along four rods tipped with topwater baits; a Johnson Sprite gold spoon, a Creme paddletail bait, a Badonk-A-Donk, and a SkitterWalk that I caught some nice sea trout on the other day.

There was almost no wind over the water when I started fishing and the air temperature was still around 93 degrees. 

When I pulled up to the culverts I spotted a couple of fish blasting baitfish along the shoreline so I grabbed a rod with the paddletail bait and started casting ahead of the marauding fish.

On the retrieve I immediately had a hit that I missed hooking up with so I continued fishing with the bait for a while.  After several more casts and three more misses, I switched over to the SkitterWalk and tried the other side of the culvert.

That bait proved to be worthless.  No bites or even a followup, so I switched rods again and after smearing the Johnson Sprite spoon up with some Pro-Cure, I resumed casting to the fish that were tearing up and down the bank.

On the third or fourth cast I had a hard bump on the spoon.  I knew it wasn't a redfish, or I would have had a hookup; so I continued casting.

Finally after casting ahead of another fish that was feeding along the bank, I hooked up to a tarpon that immediately jumped and broke off my spoon.

The fish was easily three feet long and would have weighed in at around 25 pounds, so I didn't feel too bad about losing the fish.

I didn't expect a juvenile tarpon that large to be in the shallow creek this time of the year.

I continued casting with another silver spoon that I juiced up with Pro-Cure, but I never got another hit.

My arm was getting tired from casting and a large green horsefly was feasting on my ankles so I decided to head for home and hit the area tomorrow.

Hopefully, the fish will be more eager to eat.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.