Now’s the time, if you get a chance, to get out and hook up with a tarpon. The pogy schools have been so thick early in the morning it seems you could almost walk across them. Sitting along A1A in Flagler Beach you can see tarpon busting in the schools. At times you’ll see them come completely out of the water. Also mixed in are king mackerel, jacks, bluefish and sharks. A word of advice for surf anglers, if you are wading in the surf and a school of pogys comes by get away from them, there’s usually sharks around them.
The best time to go out for tarpon is early in the morning, especially if you have a shallow draft boat such as a flats skiff. The sea is usually at ait’s calmest in the am until the breeze kicks up the sea as the day goes on. Find yourself a school of pogys and cast net a bunch. Most of the time one throw of the net will do. Keep the water in your live well constantly flowing or they’ll die. If you’re using spinning gear a reel in the 5000 series is good along with a matching 7 to 8 foot rod. Conventional reels should be in the 20 to 30 lb class with either mono or braided line to match the tackle. Fifty to eighty lb fluorocarbon leader attached to a 5/0 to 8/0 circle hook will do the trick. Place the hook sideways through the nose or the back of the pogy in front of the dorsal fin and your good to go.
When you approach the school try to position your boat to drift with the school. Shut your engine down. Cast the pogy into the school or around the edges. All that’s left to do is hang on and wait. Let the fish run with the bait before setting the hook. Remember to bow to the tarpon when he jumps. This will put slack in the line and prevent h it from spitting the hook. It also takes tension off the line to keep it from fraying the leader.
On the ICW side there are lots of flounder and legal size mangrove snapper being caught. The flounder are averaging 12 to 20 inches and the mangrove 12 to 16 inches. Both fish are excellent eating. Last Thursday Robert Ammon, Mike Bramlett and Heather Bramlett fished the ICW on board my boat. The trio had black drum to 18”, mangrove snapper to 15” and flounder to 14”. Robert lost the big fish of the day when it decided to dive under the boat. Once it did that the line cut and the fish was gone. I think it was a big snook because of the way it was fighting. We’ll get him next time Robert.
Roy’s Bait House reports that Anthony Pantuso caught and released a 125 lb tarpon at the pier. Joe Locote had 10 flounder from the pier and Mike McCray had 3 flounder in the ICW. Hap Meekins was offshore for a 29.14 king mackerel.