Outdoors Column | There’s no reason to believe tarpon season is over yet

Most anglers picture tarpon season at the peak from the middle of May through the middle of June. But for Captain Todd Romine, tarpon fishing started to hit its peak right before onshore winds kicked into high gear last week.

“Leading up to that full moon they were feeding heavy,” the veteran captain explained. “The theory is they feed heavy before they go offshore and spawn. But I noticed we had a lot of fish that had already spawned. Those fish also bite good when they come back to shore. We had an amazing amount of fish on the beach for late season.”

The exceptional fishing occurred right before the 4th of July holiday which coincided with the full moon and a strong west wind pattern that has persisted since. At it’s best Romine said that tarpon were ravenously attacking his baits.

“There were two or three large groups of fish that would come down the beach each day. We would get on the head of fish and cast threadfin to them. Two or three fish at a time would come out of the school and fight over the baits, that doesn’t happen often!”

On a day he had only two anglers, each bait they cast was eaten. By 10 a.m. they had hooked six fish, landing three and headed home. The next day the wind picked up from the west at 15 mph with three to four foot seas, putting a halt on the good fishing.

After fishing tarpon as a captain for 35 years, he’s seen just about everything. This season Romine noticed a few unusual circumstances taking place.

“This year was interesting because it was almost all threadfin we used for bait. There just weren’t that many crabs flowing,” he explained. “Early in the year the beach was choked with threadfin, they were solid. The majority of the bait dropped offshore and that’s when the tarpon fishing started to get good. They finally didn’t have an easy food source.”

For tarpon fishing Romine finds himself getting away from the pack. While many boats are anchored up around Bean Point, he likes to chase schools of fish on the beach. But with so much pressure, that was even difficult this year.

“Unless you’ve got a late evening to yourself it’s hard be the only one out. So many people drive up and fish right on the fish. That makes it hard to work a school by yourself and get a bunch of fish in one day.

“As the season got later we finally got more fish to the boat as the pressure lowered.”

For now the strong wind has him back to fishing inshore, catching snook, trout, snapper and mackerel. But he doesn’t think tarpon season is over quite yet.

“When the wind lays down I’m going to peak back out there. I’ve caught fish all the way into August before.”