Last minute fishing charter produces tarpon! Anthony, Ross and Josh called me for a last minute fishing charter, and we decided to head out today at 3 after the rains passed. ‘Oh yeah, we’re artificial guys from North Carolina’, they said! Oh boy I thought, and I said, well let’s fish live bait and pretend its a swim bait. But they stood their ground, and I finally said let’s go!
They were tarpon virgins, so of course we started waaaaay back in the creeks skipping jigs and top water plugs under the mangroves. Then we slowly worked our way south towards Marco. Its now 730, and their casts we’re getting impatient. As we headed to a big snook shoreline, Anthony finally broke, and offered to fish with bait. If I could catch it. Sweet, I thought, I’ll go load up real quick and put em on a giant snook and then go hammer some tarpon on the sweet outgoing tide sunset.
But The Bait Gods laughed in our faces and said ‘Nope, you guys dissed us early, you’re gonna live with it! Fish with your fake stuff!’
We’ll, I know the NLBN jigs and the yozuris on top will get the tarpon at the mouth of the creeks, so we said lets go.
What started with a boil here and a missed explosion there, turned into a full bore fun sized tarpon (20-40 lbs) git down for the next 2 hours. It continued until we and the boat were covered in slime. A pile of tarpon had sore lips. It was way past dark. A tarpon who broke off with a sweet plug in its mouth was still jumping every few minutes still trying to shake it. And everyone got their first tarpon. Everyone also learned the hard way about the ol Bow to the King adage. And Anthony earned a new nickname (I won’t repeat here) on the last lost tarpon. Check out this tarpon slinging the lure on this my Instagram post!
Epic evening! Especially when a last minute fishing charter produces tarpon! It was so fun to watch these fish dance with some good fisherman for the first time. And another reason to appreciate the magical world we live in down here in Naples!
#silverking#tarpon#tarponfishing#funsizetarpon#naplescharters#charterfishing .
