Captain's Corner

What's hot: Tarpon fishing is still red hot in the bay area and with strong tides coming up later this week, look for some of the best action of the season.

By ED WALKER
Published June 12, 2007

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What's hot: Tarpon fishing is still red hot in the bay area and with strong tides coming up later this week, look for some of the best action of the season. On the last set of tides the crab flush at Egmont Key was phenomenal. There were a lot of boats but there were even more hungry tarpon. On the strong outgoing tides in May and June, hundreds of thousands of swimmer crabs, known locally as "pass" crabs, ride the moving water from the estuaries to the open gulf. Their journey carries them past many hungry fish that set up feeding stations. It is no coincidence that the pre-spawn aggregations of tarpon gather in the funnel-like outlets of the biggest west coast estuaries, Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor, every summer. This natural, "all-you-can-eat" buffet likely has fueled the silverkings' journey to the offshore spawning grounds for many years.

Tactics: Knowing where and when this feeding takes place allows anglers to be rigged and ready to drift their own crabs when the bite turns on. Tarpon hunters should, however, show restraint and courtesy. Most important is to not run at high speed where the fish are feeding. It will likely cause many fish to dive back to the bottom and stop feeding. In recent years the infamous "hill tide" at Boca Grande has been reduced to a fraction of its historic levels due to overcrowding and overzealous anglers running on-plane through the primary feeding areas when the tarpon rise to the surface to eat. This has not been the case at Egmont, and hopefully it never will.