After getting some good reports of Tarpon at Playalinda beach we decided to head south and give it a try this morning.

The surf was reasonable but after checking all of the beach accesses we could not spot any bait or tarpon activity. The report I received was that the sharks were thick as flies and getting a bait to the tarpon was almost impossible. The water clarity has been exceptional and the report was that the tarpon could be seen hanging near the bottom. As soon as no sharks were visible you send a bait down as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, all of my sabiki jigs for catching bait were not in my offshore box? With no schooled pogies to snag a bait from and no jigs to hook and line any….we decide to go ahead and fish inshore. We ran back up to the north end of the lagoon. pretty much killed most of the morning but caught some pinfish, mullet and mud minnows for live bait.

I Talked to a guy at the launch that was waiting on his buddy….said he did not do to well this morning but had a really good day saturday. We ran into his buddy on the water and said he had a great morning caughing 7 redfish on a skitterwalk (top water). He also related that he had caught a 13lb trout on Saturday morning.

We caught a few ladyfish and catfish in a couple sand holes and started to head back towards the launch after about and hour and a half. I was paddling a Line where the grass turns to sand bottom that is 30-48″d. when I saw a slight indention in the grass line ahead with an extra white bottom. I casted a small live pin fish into it and let the kayak glide ahead. As I reeled up the slack I could feel something heavy on the live moving off. I let him pull the rod down and set the hook. The reel started screaming and the battle was on! When fishing in the flats you can get by with some pretty small equipment. I was fishing an Okuma Epixor 30A spinning reel loaded with 30# Power Pro. Not that I am a big fan of braid…..It is so limp it is just terrible about getting knots in it and they are difficult to get out most of the time.

Well, the fish turned out to be a nice 30″ redfish! After some give and take he finally succumbed.

It’s time for the tarpon to be here in the surf off Flagler Beach feeding on pogies. Actually, they have been here in small numbers for a little while. I even got a first hand report last week from a friend that caught a baby 27″ tarpon that was busting bait in the breakers. He actually caught the little tarpon casting from the beach.

For the second Saturday in a row I loaded up the yaks and beaded to flagler beach to look for some Tarpon. Last saturday morning there was a decent amount of pogies flipping here and there but they were scattered to thin to really fish effectively. Water clarity was great however and that is very important for the fish to actually find your bait. I probably saw 10 tarpon strikes all morning but never got a bit. By 10:30 AM the pogies had all but disappeared from sight.

This saturday my brother joined me but there were so few pogies we did not even launch the boats.
We saw no striking fish action at all.

The west winds have started and it is time the things to be kicking off here. The morning rains we have been getting are unusual for this time of year and should be letting up also.

A couple of members of the OKFC club have landed a couple tarpon off Playalinda and Cocoa beaches.

Larry S.