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Launched at 3:30pm to a high tide with a freshman buddy of mine who has never fished in this region of the state. We are from the Space Coast, so we are used to fishing Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River. We ran out to one of the boundary markers east of the bird rack. We set into a drift, and started picking off trout and spanish mackerel. After seeing a few scallops from the boat, we threw out the anchor and put up the dive flag and hopped in. In about 45 minutes we had three dozen or so. Nothing crazy, but I did notice that the scallops were larger than average. We proceeded to move back towards shore and picked up three small keeper reds and some trout in the mouth of a creek out by Stoney Bayou. The highlight of the day came when my buddy was working his Gulp in and something smacked it and started screaming drag. Out of the water three or four times quickly came a tarpon probably around 12-15 pounds!! Three or four quick jumps was all the silver king was willing to give us, and spit the hook. First time I have ever seen a tarpon in this region. Great day, and needless to say my friend is now hooked on fishing here.

Whoa! Besides Gulp what other baits were you guys using? What tide? Thanks for the great report!

jslorenz3 wrote:.... The highlight of the day came when my buddy was working his Gulp in and something smacked it and started screaming drag. Out of the water three or four times quickly came a tarpon probably around 12-15 pounds!! Three or four quick jumps was all the silver king was willing to give us, and spit the hook. First time I have ever seen a tarpon in this region. Great day, and needless to say my friend is now hooked on fishing here.

are you sure it wasn't a poor man's tarpon... aka massive lady fish!?

(kidding!) those juvenile tarpon are a blast to jump around

CoastalPirate wrote:Whoa! Besides Gulp what other baits were you guys using? What tide? Thanks for the great report!

Pretty soon... as in the next week or two, it almost wont matter what you throw at them!!!

Cool

That is cool, didn't know that juvenile Tarpon came this way, thought only momma and papa visited our area. Sounds like a good day.

galantnole wrote:

jslorenz3 wrote:.... The highlight of the day came when my buddy was working his Gulp in and something smacked it and started screaming drag. Out of the water three or four times quickly came a tarpon probably around 12-15 pounds!! Three or four quick jumps was all the silver king was willing to give us, and spit the hook. First time I have ever seen a tarpon in this region. Great day, and needless to say my friend is now hooked on fishing here.

are you sure it wasn't a poor man's tarpon... aka massive lady fish!?

(kidding!) those juvenile tarpon are a blast to jump around

My first thought was ladyfish, just because of course it's a ladyfish. But after a few jumps, it became clear that it was a tarpon. The fish was tall and thin, not as rounded as a ladyfish. Besides the cobia I caught last year in two feet of water, this was the craziest thing I've seen out of the NWR.

CoastalPirate wrote:Whoa! Besides Gulp what other baits were you guys using? What tide? Thanks for the great report!

I forgot my tackle box at the house so the only thing we had on the boat was jigheads and gulps.