Trout or Tarpon?

Report by Rich Morgan Jr, Photos by Josh Maitland

The South Shore Anglers Club was putting on a longest trout tournament with proceeds going to Florida Diabetes Camp. The captains’ meeting was held the night before at Beanies, with an impressive turnout. I had a great time chatting with the people I already knew as well as meeting others that I didn't know.

Mike and Josh, my fishing partners for this tourney, were discussing a game plan. I could only fish until noon. Since the rules were that you could fish anytime after the meeting, we decided we would go out early to make the run to the Skyway to get bait, and while there we would see if the reports of Tarpon at the bridge were true.

We met up at CRB ramp at 5:10am (thanks CSX for parking your train on US 41 at 4:30am making me 10 minutes late). With the winds up and the air temp lower than I care for we made the cold ride to the bridge to look for bait. It took some searching and patience, but we managed about a dozen threadfins caught on a sabiki rig. I have a particular spot on the north side of the bridge I like on an incoming tide, but we were on the south side and Mike had a spot he wanted to try on the south side.

Air temp =48°, water temp.=65°. We set anchor on a stall and Mike had the first bait in the water. Not 5 minutes later it was "fish on!” We threw the anchor and followed the fish with the boat. After 10 minutes, we weren't positive it was a tarpon until it finally came up and gave us a look as it skied out of the water. After 10 minutes of heat from Mike we made it official, our first 'poon of the year.

One bait, one fish was way too easy, even for us weekend warriors, especially this early in the season. We had a trout tournament to fish, so we set back up for a shot at another tarpon. We set anchor a couple of more times but decided we should participate in the tournament that we paid to enter. We tried for trout in Joe Bay with no results. Moved outside of Bishops Harbor, nothing. Went inside of Bishops Harbor and after 30 minutes of bouncing jigs Mike finally found the way they liked it. The trout we were getting were all on the small side, so we moved north to an area south of CRB. Idling in to the flats we started to see trout, good size trout, scatter from the potholes. With only a few minutes left to fish Mike (kicking our butts all day on catching fish) upgraded his trout to 17".

We did not even place with a 17" trout, but were satisfied with one of the 1st tarpon stories of the year, and the fact that we contributed to a worthy cause.

Rich Morgan, Jr.
www.keepmbent.com