Tarpon Fishing in Key West Florida

The tarpon is one of the world’s finest sporting fish. Stunningly beautiful and known as the Silver King, their aerobatic leaps make them a favourite of fishermen worldwide. Each spring thousands of tarpon pass through the harbour in Key West on their way to the spawning grounds and fishermen flock into town for the chance to do battle with them.

There are many varying fishing styles for hunting tarpon, the method varying depending on the type of water that you are fishing. Tarpon can be caught in shallow river inlets and also on sand and mangrove flats. In this case the favoured method is either fishing a lure or a fly (with a strong fly rod. At other venues such as Islamorada the preferred method is livebaiting with small fish such as pilchards or herring. The preferred method in Key West is chumming with shrimp boat trash. Let's explain what is meant by shrimp boat trash. Many shrimp fishing boats work the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and apart from catching shrimp they also catch a lot of small fish called menhaden. These are sacked up and sold as bait to the light tackle fishing boats in Key West.

The method involves the skipper cutting the manhaden into chunks and continually throwing them behind the anchored boat to attract the tarpon. The anglers fish with a whole menhaden on the hook, and it is drifted back in the tidal flow towards the feeding tarpon.

The tackle recommended for Key West tarpon fishing is very simple. Our favourite tarpon fishing rod is the ABU Conolon Boat, 7’9” 12-20lb test curve. It retails here in the UK at £74.99. ABU also offer a 3 piece version (the Conolon Boat Traveller) which probably better suits the jet-setting traveller. That one retails at £79.99 in the UK. By the way, I use that very same rod to fish for sturgeon in British Columbia and last year landed my biggest ever fish measuring 9ft 1inch and weighing…who knows, with only two of us fishing there’s no way you can lift such a beast but we estimated it at around 400 lbs. Anyhow, back to tarpon fishing. The most widely used reels for tarpon fishing are the Shimano TLD 15 or TLD 20 lever drag multipliers. The TLD 15 retails at around £80 in the UK, whilst the TLD 20 is about £15 dearer. Whatever reel you decide on, it has to be super free running, because you’re attempting to make your bait run down in the current at a similar speed to the bait being thrown in by the Captain. I prefer to use the larger TLD 20 because the larger spool revolves slower when you are running your bait down in the tide with the other advantage that it takes less turns to reel in when the bait has drifted as far you want. You’ll need the reel fully loaded with line, I go for the Ande grey in breaking strains of either 15 or 20 lbs. At the end of the line is tied a 10 foot leader of 50 lb fluorocarbon and a large circle hook. Of course all of the fishing boats have first class tackle available free of charge if you don't have your own.

OK, now down to the fishing. Your captain will have taken you to one of the top tarpon spots, maybe the entrance to Key West Harbour, the yacht basin, the North West Channel or maybe Bokacheeka. The boat is anchored at the bow and if there are other boats fishing they’ll very likely be only a few feet to one side or the other. The idea is that if every boat is chumming then there should be a steady stream of food going down to the fish, keeping them in one substantial shoal rather than splitting them up. The skipper will start throwing in the pieces of menhaden and you’ll put a whole fish onto your hook. There’s a definite way to put these baits on the hook but don't fret, the captain will demonstrate how it's done. You now let your little fish drift down the current, paying very close attention to your line as it leaves the spool of the reel. A bite can be quite gentle and will normally be just a speeding up of the line leaving the spool. As soon as a bite is seen you need to reel like hell….don’t strike !!. The magic of a circle hook is that it seemingly hooks the fish itself once you tighten the line by turning the reel as fast as possible.

Once a fish is hooked things will suddenly become hectic, the tarpon will almost certainly leap out of the water and it will certainly start running towards Cuba !!. Remember when playing a tarpon that if he jumps he’ll get rid of the hook unless you immediately lower the rod to ease the tension on the line. This dropping of the rod is known as “bowing to the King”, and you’ll get plenty of comments from everybody else on board if you lose a fish because it jumped and you forgot to bow. If the hooked tarpon is of decent size the Captain will release the anchor and set off to follow the fish. I’ve released fish that were hooked a mile or more away from where they are finally released. It can be a tiring and long fight but with any luck you will eventually have the tarpon alongside the boat ready for a quick photograph before it is safely unhooked to fight again some other day. I remember a ‘first-timer’ fishing with us one year. He hooked his first tarpon and as it jumped he excitedly asked “how big is that” to which one wag replied “about forty minutes” !!.