A friend and I hit Bushy at first light this morning cause the tides were right for the ramp. For some reason plenty of water at half tide(7.50) all the way out which I haven’t seen in a while. I assume they were spilling water at the Dam since it was only a 5.5 tide rise. Fished hard at all the usual places with no bites on MM. Slack tide gave us a few small catfish. Something then nailed my line and all we saw was a tail, two hands wide that I had for maybe 60 seconds and let go. Re-cast and it hit again and ran towards the boat and broke me off when I got the slack out.
The tide turned and started to go out and I hooked a 3 foot Tarpon that came 4 foot out of the water and tossed my line back to the boat. After that, the trout started biting. 5 in the 20 inch range and got smaller as we went on. Bite was for 30 minutes and then gone. Everything released. Two years ago we had a 4 foot tarpon swim by the boat at the rice field across from Mepkin Abby, but this was the first I have ever hooked one the river. Only one downer, my water pump went out on the way back. Ran a tad warm coming home, failed when I was flushing the engine. I’ll check compresion Sunday.
nice!! also, i hope your motor is ok.
- I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
TARPON in the upper Cooper River???..Really!!!
livin life one day at a time!!!
2006 Seafox172
05 Mercury90hp(saltwater)
quote:
Originally posted by BugsmunnyTARPON in the upper Cooper River???..Really!!!
Couldn’t imagine why they wouldn’t be there. Many have been caught in the brackish waters of the Pamlico River about 50 miles inland from Ocracoke Inlet.
Really!
[:0]…Holy Cow…I had no idea they would be up that far!!!..Interesting info!!
Thanks
livin life one day at a time!!!
2006 Seafox172
05 Mercury90hp(saltwater)
Bugs I saw one 2 years ago in the rice field off Durham creek…
Really…
2008
Ranger Banshee Extreme
Yamaha 60
My wife hooked a small tarpon this past spring less than a mile from the salt ramps at Bushy. We thought it was a huge ladyfish at first, but after 3 jumps we realized that it was a small tarpon (approx. 3 ft.) It spit the hook on the 4th jump but produced a lot of excitement and a few minutes of fun for my wife. (It hit a 3" Gulp! swimming mullet) We’ve also see them busting bait near the sandbar in the middle of the river up by the power lines.
PioneerLouie
Pioneer Venture 175, Johnson 90
Summerville, SC
Did some research, and immature Tarpon can live just fine in freshwater due to their air bladder. Brackish water is no problem at all even for the the larger ones. The tide that I had my hook up on was just beginning to to start going out and was more salt than fresh. Just surprised at getting a hook up where we were fishing. Looking back at the day, I think there were more Tarpon than that one. Lot of big fish gulping air that we thought were Gar and didn’t pay them any mind.
On the plus side, checked my engine compression Sunday morning and it looked good. Cranked the engine and had good water temp with no heating problems. Gonna replace the impeller and thermostat just to be safe.
thats good news! hopefully theyre layin eggs, thats why they venture to fresh water. maybe housing on some kind of discharge, who knows good word my friend!