Anyone here ever caught a tarpon?

[Gobbla2001]

this has been a dream of mine ever since I was maybe 14... watched some dude on a saturday mornin' fishing show hook one on a fly-rod... drug the guy around in his small boat for nearly three hours... under a causeway, back under the causeway, across some island, under some bridge in London then back to Florida...

it doesn't have to be really large but I've always wanted to catch one...

any of you ever catch one?

[ASUFrisbeeStud]

No I haven't.

With all the talk on here lately I looked and at first I thought the title of this thread said tampon.

I haven't caught one of those either.

[Gobbla2001]

Originally posted by ASUFrisbeeStud
tampon.

I haven't caught one of those either.

I've seen some pretty big ones down at SPI

[44INAROW]

I haven't but my husband has in Florida - said it was a lot a fun -

[AP Panther Fan]

Originally posted by Gobbla2001
I've seen some pretty big ones down at SPI

That's pretty neat because I think they are practically non-existent in Texas waters these days....lots in Florida though. Wonder why that is?

[TarponFanInNorthTexas]

I've hooked one before, but didn't land it.

Was fishing off the Jetties at Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island. Was fishing the beach side (north) for trout, hooked the Tarpon instead. Fought it for about 4-5 minutes before it snapped my line. I was working with 8lb test line so I didn't have much of a chance.

[Gobbla2001]

Originally posted by AP Panther Fan
That's pretty neat because I think they are practically non-existent in Texas waters these days....lots in Florida though. Wonder why that is?

you can find 'em in Texas waters from right about now through October... a lot of tarpons that have been caught have been tagged with GPS etc... people are trying to study them... there are actually still tarpon fishing tournaments based out of Texas and Tarpon guides... one catch has already been reported near Galveston (key word reported, most are catch and release because #1 the angler may not have purchased the $30 tarpon tag and #2 until we know more about the tarpon population that hits Texas a lot of people are pro catch and release)....

The following is all theory, but very good theory...

once water temperatures get to below 75 during the fall the Tarpon vanish from the gulf-coast from Texas to Florida (except for the smaller ones which use the mangroves/swamps of Florida to grow and mature, which it is believed to take 10 years, these guys may get up to 4 ft in length before leaving with the big dogs... they are believed to head to the warmer waters of the gulf-coast to the very south... during the spring most make their way straight to Florida and are believed to spawn in between there and the mississippi river ("believed") before making their way back around the coast coming back through Texas...

there are believed to be two different populations of Tarpon in the Gulf of Mexico, one population will make their way up the Texas coast instead of heading straight to Florida like the others... why we don't know, but that is what is believed...

also a lot of people who have kept log books of their tarpon catches over the past 20 or so years find that summers that are following springs with large amounts of rain in Texas are the best Tarpon years on the Texas coast... Studies also show that post-spawn Tarpon are mostly found around Louisiana because of the Mississippi's habit of holding bait near the fresher water... add the mississippi's fresh water with the logs showing big spring rains n Texas produce large numbers of summer tarpon catches on the Texas coast, and you may have some confused Tarpon:

salmon find the same stream they were born in by scent after spending years in the ocean... it is theorized that the Tarpon who come to Texas in numbers after a rainy Texas spring are actually searching for the Mississippi river, and all of that fresh water that was once pumped into the Texas bays by run-off and now running out of the passes confuses them... the larger school may think they're at the Mississippi...

the only reason they find Florida in the spring is because the water is a lot warmer there... they find the southern shore of the gulf-coast during the fall by following the coast-line until the water is the right temp for them...

it's very interesting... the population is said to not have gone down, they just stopped coming this way and/or people just stopped fishing for them...

they're out there, just gotta find 'em they always seem to be on the move...

[AP Panther Fan]

Interesting....you are a wealth of knowledge on this particular subject:thumbsup:

My mother-in-law lives on the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers which dumps into the Gulf of Mexico. It is not uncommon to see Tarpon in the river near her house and the mangroves. I guess this might be one of their estuary areas.

Too bad we don't have more rivers (fresh water) that would make re-populating Texas waters a reality.

Can you imagine hooking one of those in a kayak?:eek: Tighten your lifejacket and just hang on.:D

[Gobbla2001]

Originally posted by AP Panther Fan
Interesting....you are a wealth of knowledge on this particular subject:thumbsup:

My mother-in-law lives on the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers which dumps into the Gulf of Mexico. It is not uncommon to see Tarpon in the river near her house and the mangroves. I guess this might be one of their estuary areas.

Too bad we don't have more rivers (fresh water) that would make re-populating Texas waters a reality.

Can you imagine hooking one of those in a kayak?:eek: Tighten your lifejacket and just hang on.:D

there's a guy from Florida on a message board who has landed 20 tarpon in his kayak... forget how big the biggest one was, but he said he took a nice ride...

the tarpon don't actually spawn in the fresher waters/mangrove areas of Florida etc... that's what was believed because that's where you'd find the little ones all year long (little ones up to 4 ft yikes), but it is said that they spawn in the deeper waters and the currents carry the larvey/eggs/whatever it is and however you spell it into those areas and that's where the younger ones stay until they reach maturity...

everybody's still learning, everyone has theories... they don't like the fresh water, but they like the mississippi river area because of the bait, and when we get the rains during the spring we have a better shot of keeping tarpon on our passes etc...

TPWD and some university (maybe A&M) and maybe CCA are going to try to stock tarpon one of these days... they just have to find the best way of doing it without throwing nature off...

[Gobbla2001]

here's an article from last month

---

TPWD News Release

AUSTIN, Texas — Tarpon reign as the supreme nearshore gamefish from Florida to Panama; that’s been the case at least since Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt did battle with “silver kings” in Port Aransas, Texas, in 1937.

Despite the longstanding — and fervent — interest anglers have exhibited in the species, surprisingly little is known about tarpon life history and their suspected migrations throughout the Gulf of Mexico.

A partnership announced this month between the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Saltwater-Fisheries Enhancement Association, the University of Texas Marine Science Institute and the University of Miami could help change that.

Together, TPWD and SEA are contributing nearly $100,000 to a study by researchers Scott Holt of UTMSI and Jerry Ault of the University of Miami.

This summer Holt and Ault will undertake the most ambitious Texas tarpon tracking study to date. Using pop-up archival tags, or PATs, these researchers hope to enlist recreational and tournament anglers to tag a total of 20 mature (60-inch or longer) Texas Tarpon.

This research builds on similar studies undertaken by Ault in Florida and Mexico.

“We are trying to establish the migratory routes of the fish; that’s the primary objective,” Holt said. “Fish we catch in Texas, we expect go back to Mexico in the winter. Jerry has tagged seven or eight fish in the spring, in Mexico, that have come up here in the summer. Our expectation is that they will return to Mexico in the winter. As an ancillary benefit we get information about daily activity — diving depth, temperatures they prefer.”

The PATs collect and archive minute-by-minute data on depth of the animal, water temperature and light level (used to determine the daily location of the tagged fish). The tags are pre-programmed to release from the tagged fish at a specified time and date, usually 3 to 6 months after deployment, and they pop-up to the ocean surface where they transmit their stored data to an ARGOS satellite network passing overhead. The data retrieved by the satellites are then forwarded to research labs for analysis.

"This is a great opportunity to advance our understanding of tarpon along the Texas coast," said Larry McKinney, Ph.D., director of Coastal Fisheries at TPWD. "This effort will generate the type of information we need to manage the fishery for these magnificent fish and help assure their future in our coastal waters.”

The TPWD Coastal Fisheries Division also is in the initial stages of developing a web-based Tarpon Observation Network that will reside on the TPWD website. A Beta version of the site should be up-and-running before the end of June, with a full version coming online within 12 months.

The design is simple. Anglers who land, hook, observe or otherwise come into contact with tarpon will be asked to enter various aspects of the observation into the TPWD website input device. Known information (e.g. time, date, location, length, weight, water temperature, etc) will be gathered and entered into the website.

After the data has been verified, the information will be graphically displayed in various formats, such as a map with that particular observation indicated by an icon along with past observations in an easy to use design. Participants will be able to see their observations alongside previous entries.

“Tarpon are a unique species and we don’t know as much about them as we’d like. This gives us more information to use in our management practices,” said Art Morris, TPWD Coastal Fisheries outreach specialist. “We see tarpon from the mouths of creeks to 20 miles offshore. People net juveniles in bar ditches, and we hear reports of tarpon from all over. This will give us a database to work from that organizes all that information, and because it’s web-based researchers from all over the world can use it.”

Morris said he got the idea for the web-based, volunteer system after seeing a presentation about eBird (http://ebird.org/content/).

“We are very excited about this program, if successful, the program could be expanded to include other states, Mexico or additional species,” said Morris. “Ultimately, the program will help researchers and anglers alike in understanding this unique and popular species.”

[Old Tiger]

one of my friends caught a 410 lbs. Marlin

[footballgal]

What? .... Did some one say Tarpons?

:D