Hunting for tarpon in the shallows

I have been getting calls and seeing social media about tarpon being caught all along the local beaches. I have caught two tarpons between 3- and 4-feet long in my lifetime — on accident — but have never targeted them.

So I decided this year I was going to target them and see if I could get a full-grown one around 5 feet or plus.

From what I could tell by talking to people and doing research, they run the sand bars along the Gulf, around jetties, and sometimes on the flats in the bay. They eat live white baits, crabs, shrimp and big paddle tails or mirrolure 52M.

I had two big spinners and two small spinners loaded. Big spinners were rigged with DOA swimming mullet and one with a circle hook. The small spinners were rigged with a Mirrolure Lil’John and a sabiki rig.

I left the landing at 7 in the morning and stopped by the dock where I have a bait trap set. I collected about two dozen pinfish and headed for the beach. Coming out of the pass, there must have been 30 boats between the last channel cans and the pass. I was going to head to the channel cans and jig sardines and cigars, but not with that many boats. Instead, I headed down the beach looking for tarpon and bait.

I was slowly cruising down the beach, moving back and forth between 10- and 16-foot depths, and moving between the valley and the shelf looking for any life. First, I saw something big and black, grabbed my swimming mullet and got close enough to see it was a shark. I decided it wasn’t for me after the previous trip catching a shark offshore.

Roughly 20 minutes later, I came across something else big and black — about a 30-pound cobia. I threw at it; it nosed the swimming mullet, then headed to the shelf and was gone. Apparently, it had seen one of those before or something spooked it.

I kept heading down the beach and came across a big bait ball of sardines. I put down the trolling motor and set the anchor lock. I threw the sabiki a couple of times and caught six sardines and a cigar. As I was getting ready to pull the trolling motor and keep moving, I saw a tarpon roll and get a big gulp of air.

I threw a live sardine on a circle hook over in the direction of the roll. I waited and saw my line take off. I set hook and off went the drag. The reel started clicking, grinding, and making weird noises.

The tarpon jumped. He was every bit of 5-feet or more. It took off again and the drag stripped and locked up. I held onto it for about 10 more seconds and the line broke.

I wasn’t thinking when I put the sardine on the setup I did, since the reel is about 15 years old. It’s a Quantum 6000 and hasn’t been right in a while. I should have put the live bait on my Penn Spinfisher 6500, since it's newer and has a better drag system.

I re-rigged on the Penn setup and threw out another cigar, but the tarpon had moved on. The bait ball had pushed shallower and was in about 9 feet of water. So I grabbed my cast net out of the storage bucket under the portside transom seat, moved close to them with the trolling motor and cast. I pulled up around three dozen sardines and threw them in the live well.

I spent the next two hours cruising the beach looking for another school of tarpon or more cobia. While cruising, I saw lady fish, Jack Crevelle, Spanish, blue fish, a king fish and some more sharks. Never saw another cobia or tarpon.

We were ready to head in. I took the remaining sardines, put them in a gallon freezer bag and put them in the deep freezer. Next time I go chasing tarpon, I will be taking the sight tower. I probably missed some fish just trying to see while standing on the deck.

Anthony "A.J." Watson shares his fishing adventures with readers each week in the Entertainer.