It's Tarpon Time around Tampa Bay!
For today's Color Challenge I present some photos from my last two Tarpon fishing trips. The first two images are of me hooked up with about a 90lb Tarpon off the beaches off Boca Grande. This area is world famous for it's amazing Tarpon fishery during early to late Spring into Summer.
Above you can see the fish jumping out of the water in the distance. These elusive sportfish make high-flying acrobatic jumps out of the water in an attempt to get free. I worked the fish for about an hour and got him close to the boat eventually getting a good look at him in the crystal clear waters before he broke me off. Might have been an inshore light-tackle record if I was able to land the fish since it was only on 20lb leader and 15lb test braided line.
Eventually the large pods of Tarpon move north towards the Tampa Bay area. On this other trip we were fishing off of Egmont Key which is at the very southern end of Tampa Bay. There's a very deep (80-90 feet) cut off Egmont Key where the Tarpon like to hang out. We baited up some pass crabs and threw them out waiting for a bite.
There were so many Tarpon rolling it didn't take long to get a bite but it did take about 45 minutes or so to get the fish close to the boat.
This fish was about 150lbs probably, look at the girth on it! Once these majestic fish, also known as the Silver King, reach a length of over 40in you are not permitted to remove them from the water. You just have to de-hook, revive them and send them on their way.
I can't wait to get out and target some big Tarpon again here in the next couple weeks!
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