The big news this past week is the display that the tarpon were putting on along the beach. I was driving home from Daytona on Saturday when I got a call from Capt. Chris Herrera. Chris was on the pier telling me about the aerial show the tarpon were putting on. I turned my truck and headed north along A1A. When I reached Flagler Beach you could see large pods of pogys everywhere. As I proceeded north to the pier there was a very large pod about 300 yards off the beach that had a lot of action in it. It only took a couple of seconds and tarpon were busting on them. A couple of times there must have been close to 10 tarpon busting at once. The sight was so incredible that cars were pulling over to view the spectacle and people across the street were on their decks watching. It was something to see. I called Chris back and we planned a trip for the next day.
I met Chris and Tommy Derringer at Bings landing the next morning and we headed out of Matanzas inlet in search of the silver king. We stopped on a small school of pogys to fill the live well then went to look for the mother load. We found a large school of pogys with tarpon rolling and crashing on them. We quickly baited up and cast into the school. It took about fifteen minutes and Tommy was hooked up. The fish made it’s first jump and it was a beauty, about ten feet in the air. None of us had ever seen a tarpon jump that high. After about 20 minutes and six more jumps the tarpon was boated, photographed and released. No other tarpon were caught that day but there were a couple of breakoffs. I don’t expect the tarpon to be around much longer as they are on their migration south so this could be the last hurrah until next year.
Snook season opens next Friday so you should be reminded that there are new rules on size limits and how you measure the fish to be able to keep one. The minimum length has been changed from 26” to 27” with the maximum size still being 34”. When you measure the fish you must now squeeze the tail and measure it from the tip of it the jaw to the tip of the squeezed tail. If your not sure how this is done go to www.myfwc.com and click on fishing and then on measuring.
Roy’s Bait House reports king mackerel in the 20 lb range are being caught from the pier and that whiting, small pompano and some small cobia are in the surf. Corky Giddens had a 22” redfish and Rick Fisher landed 50 whiting.


Photo: Bob Rees shows off a 7 ½ lb trout that he caught in the back waters using a plastic jig.