05-07-2001, 08:51 PM
The wind continues blow. It has been over two weeks since I have seen a calm morning. The relentless wind has made it difficult to find rolling Tarpon on the flats. The last roller that we caught was with Collin Brightwell, from Australia, a feisty 30 - 40 lb. fish. For the last week I have been hooking up at least one fish a day on bait. I was fishing the last two days with Lenny Gurvich from Tampa. Lenny really wanted a shot at a "poon" on the fly rod, but the conditions did not permit. More than wanting a shot on a fly rod, he wanted a Tarpon, and resorting to bait was are best option under the windy conditions. The first day we had two Tarpon on, one broke off and the other SPOOLED our reel right after we started the engine to chase it. Our luck changed on the second day and we had a Tarpon to the boat by 7:30 am. My best bait this week has been catfish, if the fish are in the area and are hungry they will pick it up. Of the 11 fish I had on last week, 9 of them were hooked on the Daiichi 11/0 Improved Circle "Bleeding Bait" hook. The hook is red and it does seem to make a difference. The other hooks that I used were black and straight stainless. The key to using the catfish is to clip off the sharp fins and to hook them through a small piece of skin behind the dorsal area. I like to hook them just enough so that I can cast them out, but break free quickly if a fish picks it up. <br><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by tarpon on 05/07/01 01:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>