Trip Reports
My Week in Florida
By Brendan Mason
Jun 17, 2007, 08:52

Brian and I spent most of our time hunting for schools of tarpon along the Gulf Coast flats and beaches, but were chased inside Tampa Bay due to wind on a couple of occasions. One of the highlights in the bay was when we encountered a few schools of cobia on the flats. Brian was able to get one to eat a fly close to the boat, but unfortunately didn't connect. This is definitely a fishery that he's going to explore further so that we're ready the next time I visit.

Another highlight was fishing at night around the urban dock lights for snook and occasional redfish. It's incredibly peaceful except for those times when a weirdo tweaker decides that he doesn't want you fishing near his dock and begins flashing the lights and running around like a crazy person.









Our second night mission didn't have the numbers of snook around, and they were being extremely selective, but this 31 inch redfish made up for it.



It wasn't until Wednesday that I jumped my first tarpon; a nice fish we estimated at around 80 pounds. On the second jump, it came loose and we found the tippet had frayed in the class section. Over the next few days we saw hundreds of tarpon and had several good shots, but no eaters. On Saturday morning, it was "now or never" time before I had to fly home that evening. We got out onto the flat and spotted a laid up tarpon almost immediately. A few others rolled and showed themselves. With the sun just coming over the horizon, it was difficult to pick out individual fish, so I just cast to where I thought the edge of the school was. On my third cast, I hooked up, but this fish didn't seem to know it was hooked. It made a slow run and shook its head a bit, but never jumped and eventually the hook pulled. Oddly enough, there wasn't any scuffing on the shock tippet either.

After that, we got back in position and two casts later I was hot into a tarpon! What a way to finish off the week.





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