Sunday morning Captain Steven could do no wrong. At the crack of dawn white baits were easily captured along the Skyway Bridge. 2 tosses of my 10’ 3/8” net was all it took to fill the live well. Remember to let your net sink all the way to the bottom before retrieving. Needing a small quantity of big threadfins for Tarpon was even easier as the tell tale showering water effect on the surface gives these large baits away. I shut my motor down and drift into the school. Cast a heavy net and retrieve.
On the way to the beach we easily scooped several blue crabs. Bait should always be this easy! Captain Steven turned the corner and started looking North along the beach. Not 5 minutes passed when we ran into a large pod of happy Tarpon. First bait in was golden with 5’ of Silver King exploding towards the sky. In shallow water Tarpon jump over and over and as luck would have it one of those jumps with huge head shakes sent the hook flying!
It didn’t take 10 minutes to get back on another pod. First cast in again sent another Silver King into the morning sun. 100 yards of 50 pound fluorocarbon screamed off the Cabo Quantum 60 spinning reel. Chasing the Tarpon we gained back most of the line only to have another jump result in a lost fish. Our 3rd Tarpon can just minutes later and the jumping ballet started again. This Silver King 100+ pounds quickly broke the 85 pound fluorocarbon leader.
Moving off the beach back to the inside we ran into a pair of Cobia while on the way to my redfish area. Both fish turned on the first white bait in the water with the bigger fish 45” winning the battle. The Cobia went nuts and ran across a sand flat with less than 2’ of water on in. Now running right to left the big bruiser ran us right into a crab trap. Captain Steven has hooked more Cobia the last 30 days than the last 3 years. It seems they are everywhere this year.
