Fishing Key West Florida, On the hunt for Tarpon.

We began planning this event months before it actually happened. What I found out was that typically April is usually a great time to start to target the fish. This was great news because we were going to be in Key West the second week of April. Tarpon like the water temp at around the 85 degrees fahrenheit mark and this is usually the case in April.

The next item in preparation was to find someone that knows how to find these fish and the setup for catching them. That person was Captain Tommy Z. nicknamed Jester. He is part of the Dream Catcher Charters in Key West. I will include contact information for captain Tommy and Dream Catchers charters at the end of this Blog.

So finally the big day comes. We met Captain Tommy at the Sunset Marina situated on the north east side of Key West. Getting around in Key West is pretty easy without a car. We found that walking, biking and Uber was sufficient. We used Uber to get us to the marina.

We found our captain with ease and began talking about what our day would be like and what to expect. The picture to the right are tarpon that were swimming around in the marina.

Captain Tommy asked us about our fishing experience and what type of fishing we were used to. The captain quizzed us on these issues so that he would have a better idea on how to coach us once we got into a fish. Let me make a quick note that the Dream Catchers charter service offers spin fishing and fly fishing for the Tarpon. My friend Wayne and I both love fly fishing so we encountered about fly fishing for Tarpon. The captain ran up to his truck and grabbed the 12 wt rod in the event we would have a chance at getting close enough to the Tarpon.

We were done with all of the safety talk and we were ready to go fishing. We started out of the marina heading out to the flats to begin our adventure. Once we were out of the marina I would say that it was no more than ten minutes until we started looking for the Tarpon. Something that I did not know about Tarpon is that when the water temperature gets in the upper ranges the oxygen supply in the water gets depleted and the fish actually come to the surface to take a gulp of air. This is what we began looking for. Within minutes we had spotted our first tarpon on the surface. Captain Tommy positioned the boat so that the current would swing our bait into the area where we had found the tarpon. Let me add that we were fishing on the flats and the water depth was in the five to seven foot range.

We began fishing with live bait. Casting the bait out into the channel we were working, allowing the bait to be taken by the current into the area where we had spotted the Tarpon. My friend Wayne was fishing at this time and felt something chasing his bait.

We waited a few minutes and decided to check the bait and found only half the bait was still on the hook. Time to put on fresh bait and try again. While Wayne was still fishing the live baits, Captain set me up with a spinning rod set up with with a 3/4 oz jig head and a 10" long black leach. I started working that into the channel and retrieving over and over for about 15 minutes. Finally, the captain said that we were at the end of the high tide and we're going to have slack water so we needed to move. We proceeded to a few more spots looking for fish. We were not seeing anything, so we ended up back where we started and tried bait again. This time I had the bait rod and Wayne had the jig head. I cast the bait out into the channel and let the bait drift down and got a hit. Following the Captain's instructions I was able to hook the fish. It was a pretty good fight but not what I was expecting from a big Tarpon. I am thinking I hooked into a small Tarpon but it actually was a Jack. Nice fighting fish.

The captain got excited and said, "Well the Jacks hang out with the Tarpon so let's see what we have." Unfortunately, that was the last of the catching for the day. Throughout the morning the captain was telling us the the water was about 10 degrees colder than it typically is this time of year and that could affect things. Also the moon was in full phase which is not typically good for day fishing. We had those two things stacked against us. Also, another thing I would like to mention, we only did a four hour charter. The Captain told us never do less than a 6 hour charter. The main reason is that if you land in a unfavorable tide situation there should be enough time in 6 hours for the tide to change conditions for better luck. Also if you book a four hour charter the captain will most likely have another charter scheduled for that day after which makes it impossible to extend your charter. This was our plan that if we needed to extend our charter we would just pay more and keep fishing. Unfortunately, I think you can guess what happened. Captain had another charter after us so our day was over.

The day ended with the Tarpon mocking us.

Dream Catchers Charters contact information below. Ask for Captain Tommy Z.

http://www.dreamcatchercharters.com/admin/about-us.html

Phone 305-292-7212