May is the month of big Tarpon cruising the beaches…Well, as it stands, Mother Nature continued to be her same old fickle self, bringing us many days of high winds, which made it difficult to fish for Tarpon on the outside. Now I’m not saying that the 20+ knot winds altered their well known annual migratory patterns, but they did make it much more difficult to get out there and sight fish.
Keeping in mind that this is all just theory… it seemed that on those windy days, the choppier water on the bays helped to conceal certain oddities the Tarpon may notice when approaching ones bait; mainly that of leader and hook. If you’ve ever targeted this particular species, you’ve probably noticed from time to time that they have a particular knack for frustrating the best of us, especially in calm clear water. I mean you can throw them the most beautiful buffet of live threads and mullet, only to wonder why it is that you haven’t gotten a bite in 3 hours. This is due, in my opinion, to their keen visual acuity. There are days when I could swear that these goggle eyed silver devils have the capacity to spot no-see-ums crawling up an angler’s leg at a thousand paces. To whit, the only way to truly test the bionic vision of such an admirable adversary is to conceal, as well as possible, all signs of the terminal tackle that will undoubtedly send this well known acrobat into a tizzy, mainly by dropping the size of said terminal tackle until the optimum result is achieved in the form of a launch! More to the point… reduce the size and/or type of leader and hook! For those wondering, does this really work? The answer… it did this week!
If fishing is more of a numbers game for you, then May/June should be your months. Although season is closed, Snook have been and will continue to be abundant in almost every place that one would see as being Snooky. I have been having particular luck taking clients out at night. Fishing dock lights at night happens to be one of my favorite ways to target Snook for two reasons. Firstly you can sight fish, which really never gets old… secondly, you can escape the sweltering heat and humidity brought to us by those southerly Caribbean breezes. All in all it’s a win win!
