Well the tarpon bite in Boca Grande this week just plain got weird.
They didn’t really want to chew the first part of the week but according to Capt. Mike Thursday was pretty good in the harbor, the best all week. For the past couple of week’s threadfin herring has been the bait of choice up there which is weird because we all know that tarpon come to Boca to spawn and eat crabs, go figure. Off shore was pretty insane on Thursday as well. We fished Jim and Kim Crawford of Kansas City, MO our first stop yielded Amberjacks up to 40 pounds. Jim kept on getting robbed or school girled (which ever you prefer) by a huge Jew fish every time he’d hook a grouper. One of the smaller Amberjacks came up and looked like he’d be through an electric scaler our Volkswagen sized friend tried to eat but it didn’t work out for him but it did for us. The next stop brought more AJ’s, Scamp, Yellowtail Snapper, Lesser Amberjacks, Mutton Snapper, Mangrove Snapper and Vermillion Snapper. Earlier we had caught plenty of American Reds on this spot but I guess someone told them the season was open. Captain Gunner Gause is absolutely hammering the big snook on the beaches with his client’s wade fishing using live green backs with fish over the forty inch mark. It’s pretty much that time of year when you can do it all.
I spoke with Captain Rodney Martin of Tampa and he reports that the tarpon fishing in the bay is quote, “Off The Hook!” fishing the sky way they’re catching plenty of tarpon mixed in with cobia, king mackerel, and grouper. The cool thing about fishing there is as hot as it is you get to sit in the shade until your line gets tight. But according to Rodney there hasn’t been much sitting in the shade with all the hot action.
