The last couple of weeks have seen some decent fishing here at Flagler Beach. The bait schools, mainly pogies have been showing up in good numbers and as usual, they are followed by things that like to eat them! The schools have generally been scattered and not bunched up in the normal tight cloud of flipping bait that we are used to seeing but they are there. This has made the tarpon more scattered and difficult to hook up with.

What has been here is big numbers is the Sharks! They are averaging much larger than normal also. All the sharks I caught Last Week exceeded 42″ with the largest being around 5’…..that’s  a real beast when hooked to your kayak.

For those that follow my blog you probably know that I really enjoy fishing for Tarpon from my Kayak in the ocean. Most of ocean adventures take place here off the beaches of Flagler County, particularly Flagler Beach. Sharks are a particular nuisance when tarpon fishing. They just wreck your leaders and you loose more than a few costly and valuable hooks to them. I would just as soon not be bothered with them when I am targeting Tarpon.

From my trip last week I came away with a little different outlook on the Sharks. I must have caught (10) or more that morning and I did not want to quit. By 12:30 it was getting late and time for me to be getting to work but the pogies were starting to bunch up and the fishing was picking up. All of the sudden it hit me that I was having a ball catching these larger sharks. I did not hook up with a Tarpon that morning but I did get to see a few roll here and there along with a few massive strikes.

As far as how to catch the sharks, you basically go about that the same way you would a Tarpon. I use a smaller spinning rod with a treble hook and egg sinker to cast into the pogy school and snag a bait. When the pogies are scatterd and you get a good opportunity to snag some extras it is a good idea to stock up. Once you have your bait you want to keep it in the school. I will slowly troll through the school and try to stay just in front of them with my bait behind me mixed in. I prefer to free line the bait with no sinker or float, etc. If you hook a tarpon you don’t want any of that extra rigging on your line. If the pogies are scattered I will try to stay somewhat in the middle of them and just move along at the same pace, which is typically pretty slow. Mullet on the other hand are a different story. They tend to swim so fast they are hard to fish. I much prefer to fish pogies over mullet.

Another thing I like to do is keep my drag set really light so the fish don’t steal the rod right out of the boat. I will open the bail to free spool, tighten the drag, then let the fish pull down the slack and set the hook.

Another problem comes with, what if it’s a legal shark I want to keep?  This technique works well for me. I will whip the fish down, lighten my drag paddle for the beach. the shark will swim in the same direction with tension on the line. I paddle up behind the breakers, wait until I see a lull, flip the bail open to free spool and stoke hard for the beach. Once you secure the boat ware it won’t float off you can work on fighting the shark. The last step takes a little care. once he’s in shallow water where you can catch him by the tail you can drag him onto the beach. Just be careful, a shark is fast and can whip around and catch you if your not paying attention.

Also, if you have been watching the local news lately, the beach patrol is flying the purple flag, warning of dangerous marine life present. Sharks are all over the place here right now and you might want to get out there and take advantage of the fun while it lasts.

Here’s some photo’s from the last trip……

Larry S.

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.