My dream fish to catch has always been a tarpon. Now that im a little more expierienced at fishing(if you could call it that) i think im ready to tackle on these silver kings. I’ll be getting a penn fierce 5000 to put on a 7ft med heavy rod that ill spool with 50lb braid by the summer. we have 2 penn reels on xtrra heavy rods that my dad and i would put 50lb or mono on. We really want to catch one, me more than him. i know the best month is in august but when do you guys start your first tarpon fishing in the summer? i know the tarpon fishing around here is not the best compared to other parts of the lowcountry but we would like to fish around charleston. I do wanna make the trip to bulls bay sometime this summer though to catch bull reds and tarpon there just to say i have been there but i would really like to catch tarpon around here without having to drive to edisto or mclellanville(sp?) so my questions are what areas do they frequent the most(not asking for spots just general areas to cruise with the depthfinder to find a different hole or ledge) and what tactics and baits and tackle do you use? do you just cruise around until they start rolling or do you bottom fish em? do the tarpon around here ever get up on the flats? if the poon are rolling can i throw an 8wt at em or just leave it to the heavy duty gear?
There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the mud minnow.
HAHA(not laughing at you, the idea of a 120lb tarpon on a 8wt) If you were going for tarpon you’d need a 12wt flypole. As bait goes i’ve heard a lot of people use large mullet or pinfish under a heavy tackle cork, but thats the extent of my knowledge. I too dream of landing one of these mammoths, but i gotta crawl before i can walk…
I hooked a huge one, my first, last year on a croaker on the bottom. Hw jumped and landed on the line and that was the end of it. Really exciting. i cant wait to try again!
I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
fish the inlets
if you arent catching sharks then you wont catch tarpon
have a rod rigged up with a float, one with a bottom rig, and one freelined. Then add more depending on which seems appropriate.
best baits are snicker bar sized mullet, croaker, whiting, blue crabs, pinfish. They will pretty much eat everything, but you have to put your time in for them.
Best time is the last 2 hours of incoming and around high, any other time, the current will be to strong and this is when the water is the clearest.
You will need 100 pound leader with a 8-10/0 circle hook.
Tarpon fishing takes time. I have tarpon fished a bunch over the past few years, almost every weekend and i have only gotten one to the boat. Just don’t expect it to be like the videos you see from florida, it is nothing like that at all.
Dead menhaden on the bottom has always worked for me or live menhaden under a float as well and free lining cut menhaden behind the boat. You dont really need 50 lb line, i usually use 30 lb lever drags on the bottom and 30 lb spinners when free lining. Chum is a necessity, net yourself a 5 gallon bucket and take a good pair of scissors to cut menhaden into 2-3 pieces over the side to chunk, drift your cut bait back with that with no weight. If you are where they are you will have them feeding behind the boat. Keep the bail on the spinner open letting the current take the bait back. Do not put any tension on the line as this will cause the bait to slow and move up causing the tarpon to refuse. They have big eyes and the drift bait needs to move as natural as possible. When they take the bait the line will spurt off the reel, with a circle hook just flip the bail, reel until you feel the wait of the fish then raise up and youre hooked. As for leader i usually just use 60 lb mono and will use 80 lb every now and then. If you are using a circle hook you should be hooking them in the corner or roof of their mouth so there is not much risk of fraying through, but it does happen sometimes, thats fishing. As for hooks i use a 5/0 circle and sometimes even use a 4/0, they are plenty big enough and strong enough to handle tarpon. Most people use these big gawdy circle hooks which are unnecessary. The smaller circle hooks actually set better and dig in on the hook up better than a bigger circle, dont believe me, try it and you will see. Not to mention the smaller circle hooks allow the live baits and drift baits to move in a more natural manner. Another tip, tie a boat bumper or float to your anchor line in case you have to ditch your anchorage and give chase on a big fsh. Im not saying my methods are better than anyone elses, but this is what i do and what works for me and i have hooked and landed quite a few tarpon in charleston over the years.
Areas to look for them are the bars and sloughs off the b
I had the same experience as jimmyaadams posted. My first experience with tarpon in charleston was when we were targeting jacks one morning without any luck and settled on bottom fishing in a deep hole. He hit like a freight train, peeled off line and then broke off. After that I was hooked on tarpon fishing. The take away was that you need to ensure that you have heavy enough tackle/ experience. My setup is a BG90 with a heavy boat rod.
I talked with an employee of haddrells yesterday and he said he had never caught a tarpon until June with aug/sept being the most productive. I’m sure there have been poons caught before then however it doesn’t sound too productive. One thing i have learned though is that in the heat of the moment of having a poon on, remember to LOWER the rod tip when he jumps and head shakes. They do it on TV and everyone I’ve talked to says its imperative to give the fish slack during these spectacular moments. I have never hooked one either but I have a feeling that I’ll be making more than 4 trips this year for them so hopefully I’ll land one or two
I fish out of Hilton Head mostly, and a little in SWFL.
I have caught and jumped tarpon on all kinds of baits from live peanut pogies to full Spanish carcasses. Most of my bites have been of dead baits on the bottom. When I fish rips, I’ll fish live pogies and greenies under a 1oz sinker to keep it up but away from the birds.
When I fish creeks and river mouths, I fish dead baits on the bottom (big headless mullet is my favorite) and finger mullet free-lined way behind the boat (that’s when those spinning rods with the braid are great.)
“double dead down” and “pogy bombs” are a good bet. Don’t forget to chum chum chum!! Just because they are rolling doesn’t mean they are eating and just because they aren’t rolling doesn’t mean they are not there. Put in your time, catch a bazillion sharks and use good hooks.
I can’t attest to tarpon fishing in Charleston, but I can tell you what I do down here in the Keys for them. I like to tarpon fish with spinning reels and braid. Many people will say mono and conventional reels, but it’s all personal opinion. I jumped a 150lber today and we would have had him whooped if the leader did not break. I use a 7’ 15-30lb Star Stellar Lite with a Daiwa Saltist 4500 and 50 lb braid. If (more like when…) I get a set of rods specifically for tarpon fishing, I’ll stick with my 7’ 15-30lb Stellar Lite and get Shimano Baitrunner 8000Ds and 40 lb braid. I like the 8/0 Owner Inline Circle hooks and a 60 lb leader. The leader that broke today was a piece of 40 lb flourocarbon that we already had rigged on the rod when we found the schools of tarpon feeding. I have no doubt that we would have landed the fish if I had the 60 lb on as we had the fish boatside a few times.
I’ve always heard the inlets and holes are the place to be for the tarpon in Charleston. I would use pinfish, whiting, blue crabs or horse mullet for bait and bridle the baits if possible to keep them lively. For the baits in the top of the water column, I use balloons instead of corks as they’ll pop and not give resistance as the bobbers would.
And as everyone has said, bow to the king. Give him slack when he jumps as he’s trying to shake the hook. If you’re tight on him when he jumps and shakes his head, you’ll probably pull the hook out yourself. Notice the slack in the line as the fish is jumping in the picture below from today.
quote:
Another tip, tie a boat bumper or float to your anchor line in case you have to ditch your anchorage and give chase on a big fish.
If the fish had not of landed the line last year this would have been my downfall. I did not have much line at all left on my old penn 10. You live and you learn.
I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
You want to use a leader the length of the fish you are trying to catch. I typically start with 6-7ft of 100 lbs mono. That way you don’t have to re tie ever time you catch a shark and don’t get you hook back. I will re tie when it gets under 5 feet long. You can use heavy leader here in the lowcountry due to the murkiness of our water. Down in Florida they are typically using 40-60lbs fluorocarbon.
We’re going to the Keys in June too. I’m sure the tarpon will be there, especially under the bridges. We’ll be fishing offshore for meat fish, but the tarpon will be there.
