Post-Spawn Tarpon Free-for-All

The tarpon spawning migration may have ended, but the fun is far from over.

August 27, 2024 By David A. Brown

When the annual clockwise migration of tarpon along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts gets underway in late spring, the action varies from spotty to pretty darn intense. But after spawning, which occurs between May and July, the tarpon encountered during their return pilgrimage—northbound along the Eastern Seaboard and westward along the Gulf Coast—are often more willing to accept a wide array of baits, lures and flies. Some say it’s a post-spawn recovery thing, but perhaps once the sexual urge fades after the silver kings’ peak reproduction period, the fish simply focus more on the basic requirements for their survival and feeding again becomes a priority.

“Tarpon travel so far and spend so much energy with the rigors of spawning. Afterwards, they want to eat,” says Capt. Jim Ross, who guides along Florida’s east-central coast. “They’re happy, they’re not fussy, they’re the perfect tarpon. When they come back to the beach after the spawn, we typically see some of the best feeding of the year and often hook 10 to 12 tarpon per trip. In 2023, we hooked 18 in one day.”

“Later in the season, the fish are definitely more willing to eat,” says Texas tarpon guide Capt. Brian Barrera, agreeing with Ross’ assessment. “It could be due to greater feeding competition, because I see larger schools when tarpon return from spawning. During the spring, I may go a few days without seeing a tarpon, but I expect to hook at least one fish every day in August and September."

Regional specifics vary and everyone has their favorite point, channel or bar for intercepting fish, but each of the experienced guides we talked to shared useful suggestions for post-spawn tarpon fun.

FLORIDA’S EAST-COAST PARADE

Spending most of his fishing time in the Cape Canaveral area, Ross expects post-spawn silver kings to start showing up in June, but the procession continues through late summer, with the most consistent fishing taking place in the inlets and along the beach, where tarpon chase schooling menhaden.

As Ross explains, with the increased water movement in inlets, the fish approach from multiple directions. On the beach, where the current is generally weak, the fish roll up in one direction to feed and down the opposite way after. He trolls a live menhaden or croaker when tarpon are on the move. If they’re holding steady, he drifts the area instead.

“I use my trolling motor because we’re usually in less than 30 feet and they respond better than if I use the big motor,” says Ross.

Fishing from Sebastian Inlet north to Ponce Inlet, Ross favors the tip of Cape Canaveral and the sandy shoal that extends several miles offshore. This scenario and others like it create a natural feeding station where the water goes from 5 feet on top of the shoal down to 20 or even 30 feet along the sides.

“This creates a natural upwelling that congregates baitfish and also tends to have tarpon schools around it,” Ross explains.

For trolling and drifting, the veteran Sunshine-State guide uses heavy spinning outfits with 30- to 40-pound braid and conventional gear with 50-pound monofilament. Both get 80-pound fluorocarbon leaders and 6/0 or 7/0 VMC 7385 Tournament Circle hooks. The hooks have a thinner diameter that penetrates a tarpon’s bony jaw more easily than the heavy-gauge wire counterparts, plus a wide gap that helps them really latch on well. In super-clean water, however, Ross will drop to 50- to 60-pound fluoro to avoid detection from the sharp-eyed tarpon.

“The fish tend to bite pretty good in the morning,” he says. “If it’s really rough, they don’t bite as good, nor if the water is slick, when they appear to sense that baits are attached to a line.”

Ross points out that it’s imperative to read the fish and get the boat ahead of them rather than chase them from behind.

The Georgia coastline, comprising several islands and a number of rivers and creeks flowing into the Atlantic, features a smattering of shoals and bars with significant but condensed depth changes that serve as feeding stations for tarpon. Capt. Greg Hildreth likes to target such areas, where the depth ranges between 6 and 14 feet, around the mouths of various sounds.

“Some of those shoals and bars run out 2 miles before depth suddenly drops to about 35 feet. We see big pods of pogies (menhaden) on the beach and along the shoals and bars, and post-spawn tarpon follow them in and out with the tide,” says Hildreth.

“When I’m live-baiting with pogies, I get on the front or back side of the shoals and keep my baits right on those tide rips. You see the pogy schools coming and you gotta get in front of them and let them come through your baits.”

Hildreth usually floats two lines with 5- to 6-foot, 100-pound fluorocarbon leaders and 8/0 Gamakatsu Kraken Outbarb circle hooks, but he diversifies his spread by free-lining one live bait near the transom and fishing another deeper in the water column with a half-ounce sinker.

“I get bit on the bottom, but the sharks, catfish and stingrays are so bad that I’d rather keep baits suspended,” says Hildreth, who prefers stout, 7-foot spinning rods with Penn Authority 8500 reels spooled with 65-pound braid for tarpon.

If calm days coincide with having experienced anglers onboard, Hildreth will break out deep-running D.O.A. Bait Busters. When it doesn’t rain hard for a while and tarpon venture into the estuaries, he opts for hard baits like Rapala’s Super Shad Rap and Bomber’s Long A.

“Accurate casting is a must, especially when the fish are in the bait pods,” Hildreth says. “I use the trolling motor to stay near the bait and sit there and watch. Tarpon will come up and lay on their sides like a tripletail. If you can get your lure in front of them, they’ll eat it. But you have to wait until one comes up to feed and then make a precise cast. If you get wrapped up in all the feeding commotion around you and start to cast blindly, all you’ll catch is blacktip sharks.”

FLORIDA’S GULF KINGS

Tampa native Capt. Billy Miller looks forward to the post-spawn push in the Tampa Bay area. While menhaden (aka shad) receive more attention in the northern Gulf and Florida’s East Coast, Miller has been netting and using them as cut bait for tarpon for more than 20 years.

“The fish really eat heavily on the bottom after they spawn, and that’s prime time for dead shad,” Miller says. So he cuts them into silver-dollar-size chunks and slings generous portions around his anchored boat’s perimeter as chum to draw tarpon in. Then, he deploys three to four whole shad (with their heads cut off for maximum scent release), each with an 8/0 or 9/0 hook through its tail.

To keep his baits on the bottom, Miller attaches a 3/4-ounce pinch-on sinker to the leaders consisting of 4 feet of 150-pound mono or 7-strand wire. He crimps one end of the leader to the hook and the other to the swivel affixed to the fishing line to minimize break-offs. To apply heavy pressure on every hooked tarpon, Miller uses stout 9-foot rods and 4/0 conventional reels loaded with 60-pound mono.

“When the fish want to eat but don’t want to chase down their meals, this technique works really well,” says Miller, who also fishes a couple of live threadfin herrings (aka greenbacks) or pinfish under a float off the stern, keeping the livies away from the dead baits to avoid tangles.

While he has compiled a long list of secret tarpon spots over the years, his technique works in just about any hard-bottom areas the fish frequent in Tampa Bay, Sarasota Bay and Charlotte Harbor.

LONE STAR MEGALOPS

Around South Padre Island and in Lower Laguna Madre, where Barrera does most of his tarpon work, he finds his targets at inlets and on the beaches in 20 to 40 feet of water, especially just before the full moons from September through November. He gets clients hooked up mostly by casting D.O.A. Bait Busters, but he’ll also free-line a live mullet on a 10/0 Owner circle hook behind the boat. If the fish snub the artificials, a vulnerable live bait might produce a parting bite as a school passes the boat.

“On really nice days, they get in closer. But as a fishing guide, I’m always looking for more fish, and there are more in that deeper water,” says Barrera. “If I have a fly angler for a day, I might get on the sandbars to sight-fish for singles. But the big schools are normally 600 to 800 yards off the shore.

“After a big storm, sometimes I don’t see fish for a week or two,” the guide says. “It appears they head offshore then. There’s a line of oil rigs about 13 miles out, and I’ve had friends send me videos of hundreds of tarpon around them.”

While the South Texas coast gets plenty of hefty tarpon of 130 to 200 pounds, Barrera laments a common limitation: the wind.

“We have some of the most consistent wind in the country,” he says. “There’s a 4-foot surf at times and I can’t make it out there, but that doesn’t happen too often.”

When it does, Barrera can target 10- to 40-pounders around docks, rock piles and mangroves using D.O.A. Shrimp and TerrorEyz, topwaters and live finger mullet.

“I think that fish on their way south linger until it gets cold—longer than most people think,” Barrera says. “We get about a 2-week period when everyone is slamming them before they high-tail it out of here. After that, we turn to the smaller ones that can’t keep up with the migration and turn into resident fish.”