Juvenile Tarpon In The Creeks

Catching juvenile tarpon in the creeks is always a blast and although late October is usually at the end of the bite, this afternoon turned out to be worthwhile.

It was raining off and on all morning and I just had to get out of the house to wet a line.   I asked Karen if she wanted to go fishing with me, knowing that she doesn't like fishing in the rain, and when she said she would sit this one out, I tossed my rods into the truck and headed out to the MINWR.

I thought about fishing Gator Creek but since it was Saturday, I assumed that there would be a lot of pressure in that area, so I headed to the Volusia County line to fish the shallow creeks in the northern part of the Indian River.

It was around 4:00 pm when I got to the first culverts and it was raining just enough for me to put on my Frog Toggs.

There was a lot of topwater activity on the south side of the culvert which looked like a school of juvenile tarpon.

When I spotted the fins breaking the surface, I was positive and pulled out a spinning rod with a small Chug Bug.  (Click on the pic above.)

I smeared up the plug with some Pro-Cure Inshore formula gel and on my first cast briefly hooked into a small tarpon which I shook off at the bank.

After hooking up and losing three more fish, they lost interest in the Chug Bug, so I switched to a green and black patterned Creme paddletail bait.

After several casts around the rolling tarpon, I finally hooked into another larger  tarpon that I took a quick pic of and also released.

When the fish lost interest in that bait, I tied on a Mirrorlure suspending twitchbait that I picked up in Mobile, Al. at the Bass Pro shop there.

Evidently the tarpon hadn't seen one of these baits because my first cast picked up a larger tarpon that was about 3 feet long.  The fish jumped four times before throwing the bait back to me.

After another couple of casts, I landed and released a smaller version of the fish that got away.  After taking a quick pic, I released the fish and continued fishing.

When the rain stopped, the water became dead calm and the tarpon bite came to an abrupt halt.  It was like someone turned off the switch because I couldn't buy a bite.

Finally, when the gnats started getting to me, I decided to head back to the house.

I took a couple of pics of the area before leaving which are below.

Till next time,
Tight Lines.