South florida freshwater tarpon

[Emonahan]

Hey guys I live in sout  florida and have been trying to catch a tarpon for a while. I wss messing around with some snakeheads today when i saw a tarpon so i cast at it and he hit my frog but i didnt get a solid hookset. Does anyone know a better way to catch them?

[Seaworthy81]

Watching this thread closely! I'm also in Coral Springs and Snakehead fish quite a bit. 

[basscrusher]

Tarpon are notoriously hard to hook up...so I'd imagine hooking one on a frog, notorious for a relatively low hook up percentage,  would be even more frustrating.   I've only hooked 3 ever...1 on a live pigfish, the other 2 on 4" Yamamoto grub in luminous white (key west after dark but near dock lights that got the grub glowing real nice).  Anyway, almost any bass or snakehead lure will work, but personally I'd use something like a grub or swimbait with exposed hook if the cover will allow it.  And use stout hooks, even a small tarpon will straighten out a light wire hook quickly.   And finally...bow to the king.

[Captain Phil]

I grew up fishing in South Florida.  Tarpon are very hard to land on lures.  You would do better with a fly rod, but that comes with a whole other set of issues.  The absolutely best way to catch tarpon is with live bait.  In fresh water, they are suckers for big shiners.  In salt water, you want to use live mullet or a large shrimp for bait.  When fishing for tarpon with live bait, you don't jerk the rod to set the hook.   You let "Rodney" do it.  This means you wait until the rods bends before you jerk.  In any case, you will be lucky if you land two out of ten fish.

[mrmacwvu1]

any swimbait that looks like a pinfish will work

[Captain Phil]

52M-11 Mirrolure 

 

 

[N Florida Mike]

The only one I ever caught was on a live finger mullet.

[Captain Phil]

The best Tarpon fishing I have seen is on the outside of Government Cut in Miami slow trolling a live mullet after dark.  You can catch them in the summer in the 10,000 islands on half a fresh lady fish or mullet fished on the bottom.  Tarpon are tough fish.   I suggest going to the gym to tone up a bit before you take one on.   

[gim]

6 hours ago, mrmacwvu1 said:

any swimbait that looks like a pinfish will work

When I was in the Keys in April 2018, we used pinfish to target them.

 

On 12/27/2021 at 12:31 AM, basscrusher said:

And finally...bow to the king.

 

LOL every time one would jump that my Father or I had hooked up with, we would just stare at it when it went airborne.  Our guide kept yelling "bow! bow!" but its hard to do that when there's an 80 pound silver king doing acrobatics.

[TnRiver46]

I hooked one in John pennekamp state park in key largo, couldn’t have been fresh water tho. I tried shrimp and they just watched it. Put the shrimp on a hair jig and whammy. Notice I said hooked not caught, haha. The fish wanted into the mangroves really bad and I knew that wouldn’t be good so I put pressure on him, snap. Normal bass spinning gear is no match, even for the small one I hooked. 
 

I’ve tried pin fish and those darn catfish always eat them 

[avid]

I too live in south Florida   I have hooked into tarpon on six occasions and have not landed one yet    So keep at it ‼️

[Chris at Tech]

Try soft plastic jerkbaits too

[Junger]

I had a lot of luck getting them to bite the 1/8oz Pop-R's.