It was another good weekend of fishing in the Boca Grande Fl area. Saturday we solely targeted tarpon. We started off in Gasparilla Sound but there were few fish around. We headed down to Boca Grande Pass (tarpon capital on the world) and soon found thousands of fish. When fishing the pass, we prefer to use conventional reels and drop bait to the bottom. This allows us to know where exactly our baits are when presenting to the tarpon. We use either a 2 or 4oz lead, depending on current and conditions and have a 6-10ft leader with a 6/0 circle hook. Baits vary from crab, shrimp, pinfish, squirrelfish and more. We dropped baits down and within a couple drifts we hooked into our first tarpon. In the remaining 5hrs of the trip, our customers hooked into 8 more tarpon and missed a few more bites. The Boca Grande tarpon bite was hot that day.
Sunday we had a scheduled goliath grouper trip. Like always, we started out bowfishing for stingrays for bait. We put a few in the livewell and headed to Boca Grande Pass to catch the big dogs. Ben wasn’t on the fighting seat long before laying into his first goliath grouper. This was a little guy, estimated around 100lbs. We put on another bait and sent it down…bam! Goliath grouper on! Ben battled this one with all his might and we could tell it was a bigger grouper. He finally got it to the boat and we estimated the weight was 300-350lbs. After that fight with a giant goliath grouper, Ben called it quits and we headed to the dock.
