The early start down to Seven mile bridge paid off this morning……

We sped down to the bridges at 4.00am to give the Tarpon some serious grief, and at last everything was on our side, the tide, the lack of wind and lots of crabs.

The guy’s David and Colin had a morning they will never forget, the Tarpon were feeding big time……

To cut a very very long story short they had eleven chances, jumped a few, lost a few more but a story with a very happy ending David released his first ever Tarpon, a stunning fish of about 100 pounds and Colin released a fish of about 80 pounds….Result!

At last the wind has let us begin to get on with the job in hand, after our party completed breakfast etc (after all they are on holiday) we were able to make our way at speed down to the famous Bahia Honda bridge (click on the link on my home page)…..

When we arrived I used the side scanner on the boat to locate some Tarpon but failed to see any, so went with a gut feeling as to where to put the pick down uptide of the bridges………

To cut a long story short, we were the only boat to hook up Tarpon, in fact we hooked three and lost them all, that’s Tarpon fishing, one in five for a release, so as we are out at 4am tomorrow we are in with a chance…….

Our party Dave, Sue, Colin and Meg arrived a few days ago and as I said with them came some strong winds, not really strong winds but just enough to make things a little difficult…….

Below is Colin in action with a huge Nurse Shark on a legered Pin fish intended for a Grouper…..

Despite this we have made the most of some slightly sheltered marks and to be fair they have had some cracking fishing, lots of different species of Sharks including, Nurse sharks to about 190lbs, a Tiger Shark, lots of large Lemon’s, Spinners, and various reef Sharks, Mackerel, Needle fish, Snapper, lost a couple of Grouper and a few other smaller species including a tiny Lizard fish on a large plug……We had Tarpon rolling in front of us as we tried for Grouper under the bridges today…….

Bahia Honda bridges tomorrow watch this space!

The wind was slightly less early today, and despite the very heavy tropical rain we decided to make a run for one of the Gulf wrecks and made a quick stop off on the mark where one of the guy’s last week released a 150lb Lemon Shark, we struggled to stay put with a double anchor and with an increasing wind and fast approaching rain we headed west and found shelter behind some banks, way north of Seven Mile bridge.

This mark started off fairly slow with a dropping tide but we decided to stay put, when the run began (remember no run no fun!) the four in the party began to get a taste of what the fishing out here has to offer, they all caught a selection of smaller species and then the Sharks moved in…….

Dave was spooled quicker than I have ever seen despite a tight drag and a wet rag held firmly against the spool, when did that ever happen in the UK?

We had several of the fastest Shark runs I have ever seen, and for one reason or another the baits were dropped, Collin did hook up with a slower run and was pleased to release a 70lb Lemon Shark.

I threw an old bait over the side and a huge Barracuda shot from under the boat and grabbed it (never rinse your hands in the sea) I quickly followed this with a pin fish, hooked up and handed Collin the rod, who did a cracking job of playing a 30lb plus Barracuda right back to the boat, it was huge and as happens here it threw the hook as I was getting ready with the Net…..

The adventure begins…… more to come when we return from a Gulf wreck this time tomorrow……