Key West Tarpon Fishing

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

There are a number of varying fishing styles for hunting tarpon, the method changing depending on the type of water that is being fished. Tarpon can be caught in shallow river inlets and also on sand and mangrove flats. For these venues the favoured method is either fishing a lure or a fly (with a strong fly rod. At some venues such as Islamorada the favoured style is fishing with small live fish such as herring or pilchards. The preferred method in Key West is chumming with shrimp boat trash. Let's explain what is meant by shrimp boat trash. Lots of shrimp fishing boats work the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and apart from netting shrimp they also catch a lot of small fish called menhaden. These are bagged up in onion sacks and sold as bait to the light tackle fishing boats in Key West.

The method sees the Captain cutting these small fish into small pieces and continually throwing them behind the anchored boat to attract the tarpon. The fishermen use a whole menhaden on the hook, and it is drifted back in the current down to the feeding tarpon.

The tackle suggested for Key West tarpon fishing is very straight forward. Our favourite rod for tarpon fishing is the 7ft 9in Conolon Boat  12-20 lb test curve rod from ABU. It sells here in the UK at £74.99. There is also a 3 piece version of the rod (the Conolon Boat Traveller) which might be more suited to the visiting angler. That one retails at £79.99 in the UK. Incidentally, I use that Conolon Boat rod whilst fishing for sturgeon on the Fraser River near Vancouver and last year landed my best ever fish measuring 9ft 1inch and weighing…who knows, there was just the two of us fishing and there’s no way we could lift such a beast but I'd put 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 sells for 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 trying to make your bait run down in the tide at the same speed as the bait being thrown in by the skipper. I prefer to use the bigger TLD 20 because the larger spool spins more slowly when you are drifting your bait down in the tide with the other advantage that it needs less turns of the handle to reel in when the bait has drifted as far you want. You will need the reel fully loaded with nylon, I go for the Ande grey in either 15lb or 20lb breaking strain. To the end of the line is securely knotted a 10 foot leader of 50 lb fluorocarbon and a large circle hook. Of course all of the fishing boats have prestige tackle for you to use if you don't have your own.

Let's now take a look at the actual fishing method used in Key West. Your skipper will have taken you to one of the favourite 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 people tarpon fishing, their boat will very likely be only a few feet to one side or the other. The plan is that if every boat is chumming then there will be a steady supply of food going down to the tarpon, keeping them in one substantial shoal rather than splitting it up. The captain will start chumming with the pieces of menhaden and you’ll hook a whole fish onto your hook. There’s a definite way to put these baits on the hook but don't worry, the skipper will show you how. You now let your bait drift down the current, paying particular attention to your line as it leaves the reel spool. A bite can be quite gentle and will normally be detected by the spool of the reel suddenly running faster. As soon as a bite is seen you need to reel like hell….don’t strike !!. The beauty 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 all hell will be let loose, the fish will almost certainly jump clear of the water and it will definitely 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 lessen the tension on the line. This lowering of the rod is known as “bowing to the King”, and you’ll get plenty of comments from anybody else on the boat if you lose a fish because it jumped and you didn’t bow. If the hooked tarpon is of decent size the skipper 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 long and hard fight but with any luck you will finally have the fish beside the boat ready for a swift 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” !!.