Fort Myers To Boca Grande Tarpon Fishing Report

The tarpon migration started moving into our area in late Feburary but I didn't start targeting them until late March. The tarpon are running early this year just like all of the other species that we have. The fishing has been fantastic when the weather and the conditions are good. We have had an abmormal amount of wind for the past four weeks and that has made alot of the water of southwest Florida less clear then i would like. This has made sight fishing difficult to say the least and has concentrated lots of boats near the passes and other known tarpon areas due to the fact thats its so difficult to locate loose schools of tarpon that aren't surfacing. Deep difting the passes with crabs or a variety of live baitfish has been productive in the passes including Boca Grande but the jig fishermen are still very aggressive in the mornings when the tarpon are schooled up very dense. The jig fishermen use a 6 oz lead attached to a large hook and try to get the tarpon to run into the monofilament line and then foul hook the tarpon in the edge of the face. To do this the jig fishermen must run his boat on top of the school which elminates everyone else from fishing around them especially when you get 20-30 boats driving on top of the fish. Its amazing how the tarpon are always biting a 6 oz piece of lead while they turn their noses up to fresh crab and live threadfin herring. Since the tarpon tend to fan out on the bottom of the pass in the afternoons and the jig fishermen are not successful once the tarpon are not in a dense school they all but go home in the afternoons. This is when we have been able to hook good numbers of tarpon with live crabs and baitfish. This year baitfish have produced almost as good as crab.