A live shrimp suspended under a popping cork, with a split shot just above the hook to keep it below the surface, will pass the eye test of most tripletails. (Photo by David A. Brown)
December 17, 2024
By David A. Brown
On the way to his next snook spot, Capt. William Burbach spotted a crab trap buoy out of the corner of his eye. While passing the Styrofoam sphere off the starboard bow, Burbach caught a glimpse of a dark silhouette suspended just below the float. Instantly, he knew just what it was: a tripletail.
Isolated on a nondescript stretch of Old Tampa Bay’s northwest corner, this lone buoy—possibly marking a pinfish trap set by another fishing guide—offered surface cover, the one thing that frequently attracts tripletails.
Idling back to the buoy with the sun at his back, Burbach pinpointed the fish’s position then tossed a live shrimp with a cork above it past the target and slowly retrieved it into the tripletail’s field of view. The result was a nearly instantaneous hookup.
The tripletail gets its name from the location of its rear dorsal and anal fins near the caudal fin. The fish often resembles a clump of sargasso floating in the water. (Photo by David A. Brown) HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT “I once found tripletail beneath an algae-coated pallet with blue crabs hitching a ride about 20 miles southeast of the Mississippi Delta. I had to do a double take to confirm what I was seeing,” says Burbach, who will gladly take the fish as a bonus when he’s not targeting them.
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With tripletails, so named because their rear dorsal and anal fin lobes closely flank their caudal (tail) fin, camouflage goes beyond the fish’s shape and coloration, which help them pass for floating sargasso. Their tendency to hover near the surface in the oddest of angles also deceives potential prey and predators into thinking they’re nothing more than floating debris. Of course, the moment a baitfish or crustacean ventures too close, that seemingly harmless hunk of flotsam suddenly comes to life and moves in for the kill without wasting any time.
VORACIOUS SEA GYPSIES There’s no doubt that Lobotes surinamensis is one tricky predator. To lull its victims into a false sense of security, it plays possum and relates to buoys, lobster and crab trap floats, sargasso clumps, pieces of lumber and any other floating object likely to attract forage looking for cover.
One of the most interesting details about tripletails is their incredibly broad range. While most often targeted by anglers nearshore, they’re also found out in deep water at considerable distances from the coast. And while tripletails are not really considered inshore gamefish, it’s not unheard of to find some of respectable size inside bays and estuaries.
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Practically any natural or man-made object spotted adrift along deep Gulf current lines is worth checking if you’re looking for tripletails. I’ve seen some holding under drifting palm trees, life jackets, coolers and even a captain’s chair that somehow lost its ride.
Capt. Brandon Branch, out of Crystal River, Fla., can attest to the tripletail’s predilection for floating cover. During a spring snook outing, just outside the area’s treacherous, rocky shallows, Branch found a floating bucket with a shadowing tripletail. With only snook-sized baits onboard, his offerings were heavier than he would have preferred, and the fish quickly grew leery of the loud splashdowns.
“I wish I’d had a smaller jig,” says Branch, who adds that a subtle presentation with a lure or bait that lands softly is best for tripletails. “If you spook them, they’ll usually come back up. But once they dive down deep, they’re done.”
At least he got a free bait bucket, complete with a new aerator, out of the encounter.
PEAK SEASON Conventional wisdom states that tripletails migrate northward in the Gulf of Mexico as spring warms its waters and southward with fall’s cooling temps, but recent tagging studies hint at more of an inshore-offshore movement. And while tripletails can be a happenstance at any time of year, anglers throughout the southern and central parts of the Gulf Coast have come to expect predictable nearshore aggregations from mid-October through the beginning of May.
That’s because stone crab season in Gulf waters runs from Oct. 15 through May 1. With thousands of deployed crab pots comes an equal number of lines and buoys marking the traps and creating a plethora of temporary hangouts and feeding stations for the fish.
Tripletails frequently hover close to crab trap floats, navigational buoys and various other objects on the surface that draw the small baitfish and crustaceans they covet. (Photo by David A. Brown) SEARCH AND SEIZURE Capt. Jason Stock of Sarasota, Fla., often follows lengthy rows of crab traps, knowing that any of the numerous buoys could hold one or more tripletails.
Calm water and good sunlight improve visibility, making it easier to spot fish on the surface or lurking a foot or two below it. However, these conditions also enable tripletails to detect an approaching boat with greater ease. Striking the right balance between stealth and efficiency is a day-to-day game, but one certainly worth the effort.
“I run close enough to spot them if they’re on a buoy, but I stay far enough away to avoid spooking them,” Stock says. “If I see one, I keep going a little farther and then circle back.”
When targeting a sighted tripletail, proper boat positioning is crucial. It’s best to set up with the wind at your back and let the boat—with the engine off—drift toward the fish, sparingly using a trolling motor (if available) at low speed to stay on the right path.
A tripletail’s typical diet is varied and consists of shrimp, small crabs and small baitfish, including scaled sardines (aka whitebait or pilchards), threadfin herring (greenbacks or threadies), pinfish and peanut pogies (small menhaden). Let that guide your choices of bait, both natural and artificial.
Running out of Anna Maria Island, just south of Tampa, Capt. Mac Gregory keeps it simple and fishes a live shrimp 18 to 24 inches beneath a popping cork, with a size BB or 3/0 split shot between the two to keep the bait at the right depth. As he explains, instead of bombing a fish with direct casts that may land too close for comfort and cause the tripletail to flee, he prefers to cast past the target and slowly reel the bait into the fish’s field of view, creating a quiet and natural prey encounter with considerably higher chances of success.
Whatever your bait choice, know that it’s not uncommon for tripletails to attack the bright orange or chartreuse floats used to suspend baits at the desired depth. Experience tripletailers, therefore, often color their floats with a black permanent marker to make them less conspicuous and less attractive to the fish.
ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS Anglers who have trouble procuring live bait, run out of bait mid-trip or simply prefer using lures will do well with synthetic shrimp like the classic 3-inch D.O.A. Shrimp , a Berkley Gulp! Shrimp , LiveTarget’s Rigged Shrimp or a Z-Man EZ ShrimpZ of similar size, either free-lined or fished under a popping cork.
Small twitch baits like MirrOlure’s MirrOdine , which looks a lot like several of the baitfish tripletails usually munch on, are an excellent alternative. A small bucktail jig and a 3-inch paddletail, or any of the countless soft-plastic minnow imitations fished on a 1/8- to 3/16-ounce jig head, will also catch their share.
SPIN OR FLY? A 7-foot, medium-action spinning outfit with 12- to 20-pound braid and a 20-pound fluorocarbon leader will handle most tripletails you encounter. Braid’s thin diameter adds distance to your casts, which is important when targeting skittish fish, and fluoro’s superior abrasion resistance will help you survive encounters with barnacle-encrusted crab-trap ropes and other debris.
Tripletails are also perfect targets for sight-fishing fly-rodders. Along Sarasota’s beaches, Capt. Rick Grassett often spots tripletails while looking for mackerel and bonito for his clients, but his location on Florida’s West side requires an easterly wind to calm nearshore waters. When such conditions prevail, he finds tripletails receptive to Clouser Minnows and other small shrimp and minnow fly patterns, like his own Grassett’s Flats Minnow .
For gear, he recommends a 7- to 9-weight fly rod with a fairly stout tip, a weight-forward floating line and a leader ending with a 16- or 20-pound tippet.
Flies must be stripped in across the fish’s narrow radar range to get noticed and provoke a take, so precise casts that land closer to the target than when fishing baits or lures are important, especially when the Gulf is a little choppy. Fly anglers can get away with that because flies are lighter and, cast with the proper care, won’t make a loud splash when touching down on the surface.
This article was featured in the November 2024 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe .
