St. Marks Tarpon!

[Algaegator]

My Dad and I went fishing today to celebrate Father's Day. Storm clouds were piled up South so we decided to stay inshore and try for trout and whatnot. The trout bite was fair. Around midmorning I saw two large fish foraging close to the boat and I thought they were cobia. I chunked my gulp shrimp to them and surprisingly one of them ate it. As soon as I set the hook the fish jumped completely out of the water and I yelled at my Dad, "Holy crap, Pop, it's a tarpon". This fish was at least 5 ft. long and we estimated the weight at about 50 or 60 lbs. The fish immediately started taking drag and Pop fired up the engine to follow. My rig consists of 30 lb. power pro braid, swivel, and 20 lb. mono leader. We took turns fighting the fish for at least 45 minutes, and although we were able to stay on top of him, we couldn't even begin to control him. He surfaced several times during the fight but never jumped again after the first time. We finally decided to end it and with a slight increase to the drag the leader broke. We ended the day with 7 keeper trout. We saw several other large fish throughout the day some of which were definitely tarpon. We were fishing the West flats in 3-5 ft of water.

[BAD BEHAVIOR]

Great report!! Thanks for the report!!

[rocket]

Nice hook up

[birddog]

Sweet! Smart move breaking him off. You'd had your fun by then. I've seen several Tarpon on the west flats over the years. Congrats.

[tin can]

Tarpon!

[Reel Cowboy]

Don't get any better than some poonage on Fathers Day.

[whitebc]

Congrats on the hookup!

[Talltails]

Very cool

[SHOWBOAT]

Congrats.

The poons were definitely thick yesterday. I managed to hook one myself and get a couple good jumps, probably saw 20 fish.

[ak man]

Congrats on the tarpon! Just to make your story a bit more dramatic, if it was around 5 ft long, it probably weighed more like 90-100 lbs. Great catch

[jsuber]

I was informed this weekend by someone who catches a lot of Tarpon that they jump up to 2 times, the first time, and the last time. Some times that is the first time. Thanks for the report and that sounds like fun.

[Eerman]

Sound like a blast

[Sharkman]

Great job! You had him on a lot longer than the 1 I lost after the 2nd jump and a few seconds of fight a couple of weeks ago. Mine threw the hook immediately. Once again, great job getting the hook set in that cement mixer mouth!!!