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Tarpon Time!

Last Updated on May 5, 2009 by Capt. Jason

It took a good bit of work to get our first tarpon of the year this year but we did it this past weekend. We put some long hours in and after seeing everyone around us hook up all afternoon, we decided that there was just some kind of funk on the boat. We hadn’t had a bite for four hours. We decided to stick it out until we got one and the decision paid off. Just as everyone else was leaving, we hooked up with out first fish. It was a large fish that we got one jump out of and she spit the hook. 10 minutes later we got our second hookup and this fish went nuts jumping all over the place. It took us around the boat before we could even unhook from the anchor and broke us off. The third fish came 10 minutes after the 2nd and it tail walked for about 50 yards before spitting the hook. The fourth bite came a few minutes later and jumped on the initial bite and spit the hook. It was getting a little frustrating that nothing was working out for us. I mean earlier in the day we couldn’t buy a bite and now we were getting bit every 10 minutes and we couldn’t keep a fish buttoned on. Just as we were talking about our luck that day, the line started screaming off of a reel. The rod was picked up and the fish jumped… and it stayed hooked up! We threw the anchor rope over the side of the boat and I went to crank the motor and the motor wouldn’t start!!! Dead battery! So now I’m thinking, “Wow, we just can’t catch a break”. So I dropped the trolling motor and we chased the fish with that instead of the outboard. We licked out and the fish stayed away from structure and after 3 more jumps and 25 minutes, we had our first tarpon of the season boat side.

Side note: I added a second cranking battery to the boat today so we won’t have anymore battery issues this summer.