# What was your first Tarpon experience?



## deerhunter5 (Oct 12, 2011)

What was your first Tarpon experience that gave you the bug? I hooked up with one on the Port Aransas jettie last summer while fishing for bull reds and I can't wait until they move in this summer.


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## clint623 (Jan 31, 2012)

I hooked up with one just outside of the big jetties in POC fishing for trout. I had her on for about 10 seconds as she jumped and finally broke my 12 lb line.... I can still see her.

I was 7 and have been trying to get out their again ever since


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## GSMAN (May 22, 2004)

Back in the early 80s a buddy and me took off to the beachfront on his 17' Lamar to fish for some ling around the beachfront wells. Stopped by the jetties on the way out and picked up some sandtrout. We tied up to a gas well off the beachfront and were catching spanish macks on spoons. I baited a 4-0 Senator with one of those sandies I had caught. Set a line out and within a few minutes a massive tarpon explodes out of the water and the 4-0 starts to sing! We both jump off the well and jump in the boat. We let the tarpon drag us around for about 45 minutes when my buddy asked, "hey, can I fight the fish/". What was I going to say? lol! His boat. So I hand him the pole and the tarpon makes a surge and my buddy points the rod right at the tarpon where the stress was totally on the line and not the rod. Pop! That's what I remember hearing. My buddy looks at me and says, "hey bait up again, we will hook another one!" It was a quiet boat ride back!


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## rat race (Aug 10, 2006)

GSMAN said:


> Back in the early 80s a buddy and me took off to the beachfront on his 17' Lamar to fish for some ling around the beachfront wells. Stopped by the jetties on the way out and picked up some sandtrout. We tied up to a gas well off the beachfront and were catching spanish macks on spoons. I baited a 4-0 Senator with one of those sandies I had caught. Set a line out and within a few minutes a massive tarpon explodes out of the water and the 4-0 starts to sing! We both jump off the well and jump in the boat. We let the tarpon drag us around for about 45 minutes when my buddy asked, "hey, can I fight the fish/". What was I going to say? lol! His boat. So I hand him the pole and the tarpon makes a surge and my buddy points the rod right at the tarpon where the stress was totally on the line and not the rod. Pop! That's what I remember hearing. My buddy looks at me and says, "hey bait up again, we will hook another one!" It was a quiet boat ride back!


I am no expert but I think your buddy did the right thing. You should always bow to the king.

I hooked on fishing in the surf our of Port A in the early 90s. I was soaking croaker around an old recked shrimp boat and a tarpon grabed my bait, jumped 3 times and was gone. All I could do was stand there in amazement.


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## GSMAN (May 22, 2004)

*Well.....*

You are right, you do bow down to the king when he is *airborne*. Not when he is diving deep.



rat race said:


> I am no expert but I think your buddy did the right thing. You should always bow to the king.
> 
> I hooked on fishing in the surf our of Port A in the early 90s. I was soaking croaker around an old recked shrimp boat and a tarpon grabed my bait, jumped 3 times and was gone. All I could do was stand there in amazement.


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## rat race (Aug 10, 2006)

GSMAN said:


> You are right, you do bow down to the king when he is *airborne*. Not when he is diving deep.


AHH I got ya. Probably not the best thing to do.


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## sferg (May 26, 2004)

We were trout fishing with small shrimp late one evening out of a boat about 9 miles east down Matagorda beach when low and behold a 5-6 footer jumper beside the boat and to our surprise it was attached to my buddys rod. It started spooling the 15 lb line but I managed to crank up, pull the anchor and give chase. We kept it hooked for an hour and ten minutes and just could not get it close enough to grab the bottom jaw. If we would have had a gaff we could have mouth gaffed it and got us a guitar pick. The tarpon finally gave one quich burst of energy and broke the line. It was certainly a spectacular sun set for sure. It led us off shore about 4 miles to where the old 440 rigs used to be.We now have a gaff but have never been in that situation again.


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## Bob Haley (Sep 28, 2006)

I caught my first one on the outside of the north jetties and I was with my son who was about 9 at that time. We had a great day and I threw out the last shrimp on one of those Acadamy pre-rigs and using a Black Max real with 12lb test. I heard a huge splash and the fish almost jumped into a near by boat with two old guys that probably really freaked them out. After about 30 min we got the fish to the boat and lip gaff'd her and I remember showing my son the mouth that looked prehistoric. We released her and I noticed that we were now near one of the buoys about a mile from the jetties. Very cool.

I cant wait till they start showing up again around POC. I always say that Im going to really make a effort to target them but then its December and I missed them. I even bought a new rod and real combo at FTU and ready to put it to work. 
Id be willing to get a group together to share expenses when the season starts.


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

The great Tom Gibson told me so many Tarpon stories, in my younger days, that I had to catch one. After searching for them off SLP in the '70's to no avail, on Tom's advice I decided to go to Boca Grande where it was almost a certainty to catch a Tarpon...well, a weather front blew in and killed that theory.

Returned to fishing off Freeport where one magical day we found acres and acres of big Tarpon...we jumped more than we could count and landed only the ones under 100 pounds. Felt kind of weird to have gone all the way to Boca Grande to get skunked only to find all we could physically battle off the Texas coast. 

Found them again and again that summer and later became aware that what we were fishing soon became known as part of Tarpon Alley. 

Have since caught them in Mexico, Belize, and Florida but something special about the first time and a huge school of fish. I mounted that first Tarpon and it was the smallest one in the school. To the best of my knowledge, it was the first and only Tarpon I've killed in some 40 years of chasing them.


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## mustfish (May 26, 2010)

My first hookup was in the mid 1970's at the gulf side of South jetty in Galveston. Live shrimp #10 treble hook ,Zebco 202. About a four footer. Saw her jump once.


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## Law Dog (Jul 27, 2010)

I hooked up with one 15 years old on 91 street Fishing Pier. I had her on for about 30 seconds but if seemed like 30 minutes as she jumped and finally broke my line.


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## Worm Drowner (Sep 9, 2010)

I was 13 years old (1977) and visiting my grandparents in Venice, Fla. I was fishing off the south jetty with a Zebco 404 (!) combo and a 1/2 oz bucktail jig, when my rod nearly doubled over and the line took off for Brownsville. I started yelling and about the time everyone turned to look, a 4' tarpon jumps out of the water. It gave me one more jump and (thankfully) spit the hook before it completely spooled me. 36 years later and I still grin like a little kid when I think of that experience! :biggrin:


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## speckcaster (May 5, 2012)

*ditto......*

Very similar experience.....I was probably around 15 yrs old and wade fishing with my uncle and a friend I had brought along for the weekend.....My uncle had finished with his morning guide trip and had left the fish biting. They had limited out on Reds & Trout and he wanted to scout some areas for the next day.

He said he had seen some nice tarpon rolling on bait earlier that day ..... So we loaded in the boat and headed out into West Matagorda Bay for his scouting session..... he dropped us off for a wade near some guts around the Big Pocket area...

On about my third cast ..... I hooked into something big!!! thought I had the mother of all Redfish on at first....but that changed quick when this 4' long silver torpedo began leaping his body length out of the water....what a show! I slowly gained a little line but on his third or fourth jump he shook his head and actually flung that lead head jig and plastic tout right back at my head! Even though I didn't land him ..... I was hooked and it was an awesome sight I still remember as "like it happened yesterday"!

speckcaster


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## bentman (Jul 23, 2007)

I went with James Plaag 3yrs ago I caught a 100lb 150lb. We had one at the boat that a really big shark bit in-half


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## El First Draw (Dec 11, 2012)

my first and only tarpon was caught in the harbor at Port Mansfield, mid 1950's. We would always see them rolling out in the middle of harbor. As a 9 year old we would fish along and under the docks, piggy perch, perch, hardheads, sheepshead, you name it, cane pole or just line and hook. The main docks were a long pier running paralle to the bank with these 18' walkways perpendicular about 12' apart for the boats to dock. There were always and empty stall, this one day I advanced from cane pole to my dads trout rod with a Kalamazoo level wind reel,fishing in the stalls. All of sudden something hammers me and at same time this 4'tarpon come out of the water between these two walkways, over one and into back deck area of boat parked next door, an OH SH>>> moment. Started to jump into deck area but had second thoughts, the fish stopped fighting, we unhooked and released him back into water way before CPR.


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## fishingtwo (Feb 23, 2009)

A broken hook..


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## CueroGobblers88 (Apr 1, 2013)

I managed to hook an 80-100 lb. beast in the keys last summer on a fly. We were targeting baby tarpon up in the mangrove at about 6 in the morning. After about 10 min of our guide push poling us down the coastline we came up on a small hole which he had told us was very productive for baby tarpon. So he positioned the boat right on the ledge where the bottom dropped off into deeper water. The tide was surging over the hole creating almost a river like scenario where the water was folding over itself on the surface. As we sat their quietly in the full moon light, I began to strip out as much line as I was gonna need. I wasn't even finished pulling out a good 20 feet of line when all of the sudden out of the corner of my eye I spotted a ginormous silky smooth back emerge from the water following an almost human like "gulp" about 7 ft away from the skiff. The guide then told me to start making consecutive cast with a small black and purple tarpon tickler in that general direction. After my second cast, our guide quickly snapped at me to change the course of my casts and lay a long cast 5 ft to my left. Since it was completely pitch black and the lights from key west and the moon were the only thing I had to see with, I blindly cast where my guide had told me too not knowing if I had done it where he was expecting. I silently hear the light sound of the fly hitting the water, and a loud slurp on the surface and before I could react, the reel just started whaling and screaming out of control. My arm was resting up against the reel when this happened for support, and the knob was spinning so fast that it collided with my forearm and gave it a pretty nice shiner. After a long and hard 1 and a half hour fight and about 6 tremendously huge runs, I managed to get him right up next to the boat. And then as the guide decided to put on his glove to grab the fish, the line just went slack and I saw my prize swimming away mocking me as I stood there baffled about what just happened. From catching tons of small school trout under the lights on a five weight rod one weekend and the next you hook up with a near 11 wt. fish on a 9 wt. rod...it is a truly spectacular feeling.


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## TrueblueTexican (Aug 29, 2005)

*You always remember your "first"*

Fishing off Boca Chica around a flipped over work over rig sanded in just off south jetty - we were catching smoker kings on sand trout fished off the bottom on strong rip tides. Tide slacked and we got in close to the floating barge base, to see a few small ling hanging out in the shade. Thought it would be fun to flip a finger mullet on light gear ( a freshwater spinner with 10# test line we used to catch bait with) and tempt a 20# ling for fun. Casted the mullet in front of one of the ling and it nosed over following the mullet as it swam down. The fish disappeared in the "blue to the beach" water, whereupon I felt a "tap". Expecting a fun battle with one of the ling on light tackle, I was "surprised" when line went flying off the light drag as a tarpon errupted greyhounding east on the opposite side of the rig. The Browning spinning reel had about a 150 yard capacity of ten pound test. Most of that was gone by the time we cranked the motor and gave chase. Had no idea what I was in for in 50' of water, with tackle designed for white bass in freshwater. We clocked the whole ordeal at 2 hours and fourty five minutes before that fish finally tired enough to come to hand and that was with the motor running the whole time staying directly over the fish. We had traveled east and north a distance of ten nautical miles during that battle. The tarpon weighed only 100#, but was the first of many, many fish I was to catch over the years from Brownsville to Florida. Still my biggest fish to this day have come nearshore to Port O Connor with several 90" 175-200# class poons in those thirty some odd years of chasing them.


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