Fishing in the Florida Keys this weekend has been difficult at best. West to Southwest winds continued, making tarpon fishing in the backcountry a huge gamble. Most opted to test their meddle on migrating ocean poons. Smoky haze from fires in Northern Florida and Georgia added to the difficult conditions making visiblity all but impossible on any bottom other than white sand.

Tarpon really moved on the ocean the last three days with many reports of large, migrating schools from Miami to Duck Key. Many of these schools had 100-200 fish slowly frolicking south towards the annual lower keys worm hatch. These schools are spending lots of time in the mating ritual known as daisy chaining. They have been very difficult to feed the last few days.

Captain Rick Murphy and I finally got on the water Friday for our first official practice day for the upcoming Golden Fly Invitational Tarpon Tournament. Good friend Mike Hamilton joined us for the day of ocean side tarpon fishing out of Islamorada. Seeing was incredible, fishing was tough. We must have had at least 200 shots at singles, small groups, and schools as big as 200 fish. Pathetically, we fed only two all day.

Mike was able to catch his first ocean side poon of his life, making a beautiful cast at a string of 25 and correctly letting the lead fish pass his fly before stripping and hooking the 60 lb second in line.

Rick called my fishing “off”, letting me know that being left, right, left, right of where the fly needs to be wouldn’t cut it in the upcoming tournament. I managed to feed a small north bound single late in the day, but, as much as I hate to admit it, Rick was right. When the poon is in his lockjaw mode, casts need to be perfect, absolutely perfect to be successful.

My fishing stunk, period. I have 3 more practice days to tighten up and improve. Tarpon fishing on the ocean is all about geometry, it’s a game of angles and literally inches. Accuracy is so important. You simply can’t be 12 inches to the right or left and expect to get a bite.

Winds look to be predicted to change out of the east this coming week. This plays perfectly into our game – Rick and I prefer to fish the backcountry if conditions allow. I’ll be fishing starting this Thursday, and then the tournament starts a week from Monday.

So, until then,
Tim (Flatsheadd@aol.com)

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 13th, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Tim's Journal Entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.