Carrabelle report from Capt. Bob Soderholm

[SoleSearcher]

After a cancellation and a little juggling of the schedule, I made several fine trips this week with fair to good flats action. Tarpon are roaming and eager to strike a wide selection of baits. When site fishing, I like to use plastics. One of my favorite rigs starts with a Gorilla XXX hook and 3 feet of 120 LB leader, with a large Berkley Powerbait (minnow) threaded onto the hook. Dark reds, rootbeer, and grape colors work well. The finished rig has plenty of weight to cast a good distance on 30 LB line.

For those who prefer natural baits, a Tarpon can't resist a juicy chunk of fresh Ladyfish suspended under a float. There's no problem finding Ladyfish. Just look for small schools of fish busting glass minnows on the surface around bars, passes and current rips and you'll find all the Ladyfish you need. Cast a noisy Topwater lure into the Ladyfish and you'll get great action.

Greg Austin fished with me on Wednesday for his second trip with hopes of landing a Tarpon. Strong SE winds and flood tide made for a slow morning on the flats. Topwater fishing was near impossible and jigs didn't do the trick. So the morning was spent fishing live baits from Lanark eastward to Turkey Point with little success. By noon, the winds let up a bit and allowed us to run across the bay to work the flats behind Dog Island where we found a few Trout, Blues and Ladyfish.

On the tide change, we headed back to the flats along Lanark and came across our first Tarpon siting of the day. A quick cast by Greg was immediately hit and thrown by what I estimated to be a 30 LB fish. We continued west along the flats fishing with Topwater plugs and jigs until another Tarpon jumped behind the sand bar in the Hockey Hole. We were unable to get a hookup on this fish so we headed into Poston Bayou.

To my surprise, we hooked up on several Trout and Ladyfish deep in the Bayou...in less than 2 feet of water. The action wasn't great, but it was pretty good and yielded a few keeper sized Trout. Just when the Trout action was getting good, we spotted another Tarpon near the mouth of Carrabelle River.

I slowly headed the Sole Searcher to the South end of a sand bar to the west of the river entrance and allowed the wind and current to drift us into position for a stake out. Several Tarpon were chasing LY's in the current rip outside the river entrance. I rigged a Penn Powergraph with a large Pigfish under a flat and cast into the current rip. Within seconds, the line was slammed! I powered up for a chase but the fish threw the hook without a jump.

I rigged up another large Pigfish and Greg made a cast. He didn't even flip the bail on the Penn reel when another Tarpon hit! This one gave us a pretty good fight before heading too close to Range Marker and cutting the line. I rigged up another large Pigfish and headed back into the current rip. Greg made the cast, but nothing hit. Figuring that we spooked the fish, we let the line stay out and hoped for the best.

A short time later, and near dusk, the line started screaming off the reel and a loud splash broke behind the boat. I powered up for the chase and followed the fish eastward down the flats outside the Hockey Hole. After about 15 minutes, the fish surfaced and revealed its bright silver sides and massive body. I estimated it to be well over 100 pounds.

The chase went on for another 30 minutes with the Tarpon making frequent runs followed by a mixture of meandering and erratic moves. One thing was obvious, the fish was not even beginning to tire and this was proven by several strong, fast runs. However, I was beginning to have high hopes of a landing due to the fact that we held the fish for over 45 minutes.

The Tarpon continued to make a few more strong runs and finally began to show signs of weakening. Greg was able to lead the fish and applied some "Down and dirty" technique which really took the wind out of the fish. It looked like Greg was going to surface the fish when suddenly it made a violent turn and burst away from the boat in the strongest run of the fight. It made a right turn and made another violent run which snapped the 30 LB line.

With darkness falling, we headed home. I was really hoping to land that Tarpon but Greg was satisfied with the fight. He'll be back next year for another round of Carrabelle flats action.

Thursday afternoon I had the pleasure to fish with Michael Dean from AL. Mike is an accomplished Bass fishermen and was eager to try his skills on the flats. With an outgoing tide, I headed to the East end of Dog Island and was greeted by schools of Ladyfish busting minnows all over the place. Working Topwater plugs near the Ladyfish, Greg nailed a nice 4 LB Trout on the edge of a grass patch which was a good addition to the numerous Ladyfish hammering our lures.

I made a quick stop on the grass just to the west of Dog Island Harbor and found several nice Trout and a few Blues which kept the action going. After playing with the Trout, we decided to hit Dog Island Reef to try for Mackerel.

Upon arriving on the reef, we found numerous patches of fish ripping through baits on the surface which turned out to be big Blues in the 4 to 5 LB range. I searched for Mackerel but none were to be found.

With the sun setting, we headed back to Lanark in search for big Gator Trout. Slow presentation with spooks or dark colored plastics are effective on big Trout at dusk. However, we only managed to get a few strikes and near misses before the action shut down at dark. Still and all, it was a pretty good outing with plenty of action.

On Saturday, I'll be fishing the Timber Island Yacht Club's annual Youth Tournament with a boat load of kids. Hopefully, the weather will hold out and give the kids a fun day on the flats. This is something I look forward to every year. There's nothing like watching a kid catch their first "Big one"!

Until next time, Take a kid fishing. It's well worth it!

Capt. Bob Soderholm
Sole Searcher Charters
Carrabelle, FL
(850) 899-0455
Member, National Association of Charterboat Operators