Key West Tarpon Fishing
The tarpon is one of the world’s favourite sporting fish. Stunningly beautiful and known as the Silver King, their aerobatic leaps make them a favourite of fishermen worldwide. From March to July thousands of tarpon travel through Key West Harbour on their way to their breeding areas and anglers flock into town in order to pit their wits against them.
There are many different methods for targeting tarpon, the method changing depending on the type of water that is being fished. Tarpon can be caught on sand or mangrove flats and also in shallow river inlets. In this case the favoured method is either fishing a lure or a fly (with a strong fly rod. At some venues for example Islamorada the favoured style is livebaiting with small fish such as pilchards or herring. The preferred method in Key West is using a by-product from shrimp fishing. Let me explain what we mean by shrimp boat trash. Lots of shrimp fishing boats work the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and besides netting shrimp they also catch a lot of small fish called menhaden. These are bagged up in onion sacks and sold as bait to the light tackle fishing boats in Key West.
The method sees the Captain cutting these small fish into small pieces and continually throwing them behind the anchored boat to attract the tarpon. The anglers fish with a whole menhaden on the hook, and it is drifted back in the current down to the feeding tarpon.
The tackle recommended when fishing for tarpon in Key West is very straight forward. Our favourite rod for tarpon fishing is the ABU Conolon Boat, 7’9” 12-20lb test curve. It sells here in the UK for £74.99. ABU also offer a 3 piece version (the Conolon Boat Traveller) which might be more suited to the jet-setting traveller. That one sells for £79.99 in the UK. By the way, I use that very same rod whilst fishing for sturgeon on the Fraser River near Vancouver and last year landed my best ever fish with a length of 9ft 1inch and weighing…who knows, with only two of us fishing there’s no way we could lift such a beast but I'd put it at around 400 lbs. Anyhow, returning to tarpon fishing. The most widely used reels for tarpon fishing are the Shimano TLD 15 or TLD 20 lever drag multipliers. The TLD 15 retails at around £80 in the UK, whereas the TLD 20 is about £15 more. Whatever reel you decide on, it has to be super free running, since you’re attempting to make your bait run down in the tide at the same speed as the bait being introduced by the Captain. I prefer to use the larger TLD 20 because the larger spool spins more slowly when you are drifting your bait down in the tide with the other advantage that it takes less turns to reel in when your bait has drifted as far you want. You’ll want the reel fully loaded with line, I go for the Ande grey in either 15lb or 20lb breaking strain. At the end of that is securely knotted a 10 foot leader of 50 lb fluorocarbon and a large circle hook. Naturally all of the fishing boats have first class tackle available free of charge should you not have your own.
Let's now take a look at the actual fishing method used in Key West. Your captain will have taken you to one of the favourite spots, perhaps the entrance to Key West Harbour, the yacht basin, the North West Channel or maybe Bokacheeka. The boat is anchored at the bow and if there are other boats fishing they’ll very likely be only a few feet away. The idea is that if every boat is chumming then there should be a good supply of bait drifting down to the tarpon, keeping them in one big pod rather than splitting it up. The captain will start throwing in the pieces of menhaden whilst you hook a whole fish onto your hook. There’s a particular way to put these baits on the hook but don't fret, the skipper will demonstrate how it's done. You now let your bait drift down the current, paying particular attention to where your line leaves the reel spool. A bite can be quite subtle and will normally be detected by the spool of the reel suddenly running faster. As soon as a bite is detected you have to reel like hell….don’t strike !!. The magic of a circle hook is that it kind of hooks the fish itself if you simply tighten the line by reeling in as fast as possible.
When a tarpon is hooked all hell will be let loose, the fish will likely leap out of the water and it will certainly start running towards Cuba !!. Remember when playing a tarpon that if he jumps he’ll throw the hook unless you immediately lower the rod to ease the tension on the line. This dropping of the rod is known as “bowing to the King”, and you’ll get plenty of comments from everybody else on board if you lose a fish because he jumped and you didn’t bow. If the hooked tarpon is of decent size the Captain will let the anchor go and set off in pursuit of the fish. I’ve released fish that were hooked a mile or more away from where they are finally released. It can be a tiring and long fight but with any luck you will finally have the tarpon alongside the boat ready for a quick photograph before it is safely unhooked to fight again some other day. I remember a ‘first-timer’ fishing with us one year. He hooked his first tarpon and as it jumped he excitedly asked “how big is that” to which one wag replied “about forty minutes” !!.
