Boca Grande tarpon fishing - Florida Inshore Xtream Fishing Report

Have the tarpon arrived?

Yes! Tarpon fishing is in full swing in Boca Grande. There are currently thousands of fish residing in Boca Grande Pass. The tarpon are 20-40ft thick at times on our Humminbird down imaging sonar. We’ve been averaging 7-13 tarpon per trip this season.

How do your tarpon fishing charters work?

We prefer to pick our customers up as early as possible…around 4am usually. The tarpon feed ferociously in the dark so this gives us a couple hours to target them before sunrise. As the sun rises, the bite usually starts slowing down and the hoard of other boats begin showing up. We usually have hooked at least 4 or 5 tarpon before any other boats have even shown up. Our preferred gear for targeting tarpon in Boca Grande Pass is conventional gear. We use Penn lever drag Fathom reels with 100lb braid, 60lb flourocarbon leader, 4oz lead, and 6/0 4X circle hook. We position the boat up current of the tarpon, lower our crabs or shrimp down to the depth of the tarpon, then drift through the fish. When the tarpon bite, your rod is usually slammed to the side of the boat. Within seconds, the tarpon is rushing to the surface and flying through the air! After either catching the fish or losing it, we repeat the drift over again until the trip has reached completion.

What are the tarpon eating?

The tarpon eat a wide range of things. Our preferred baits to use are crab and shrimp. They also eat threadfin herring, catfish, mullet, squirrelfish, etc.

Are there any tarpon on the beach yet?

We have not seen any tarpon on the beach yet but it shouldn’t be much longer. Once the tarpon start moving along the beaches of Boca Grande towards Englewood, we will occasionally target them using spinning gear. This allows you to get away from the crowd and have a more technical experience tarpon fishing.