Kingfish and Tarpon from the Beach
Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:25 am
A friend, his Step-Dad, and I headed out of Playalinda at the crack of dawn yesterday to do some trolling. When we headed out there was no bait in the water and the water was still cold. We caught a couple croakers each, rigged them up on stingers and trolled north along the beach. I picked up a couple sharks, and my friends Step-Dad picked up a couple sharks, but nothing else was going on. At this point the wind was blowing 5-10 from the south. We decided to head offshore for some deeper water to see if that made a difference. We paddled out to about 2.1 miles from the beach and turned north. We eached caught some more sharks. At this point the wind shifted to blowing almost directly east and picked up to about 15-20 mph. We decided it was time to head back to the beach. The water got pretty choppy and going got tough for a while. At 1.25 miles from the beach my croaker got crushed, I picked my rod and turned around in time to see a tarpon tail-walking behind my kayak. After a time consuming fight I landed a nice tarpon. Just after I revived and released my tarpon, my friend gets a hit and 300yds of braid fly off of his reel. Shortly after that he pulled a nice 42" Kingfish into his kayak. The beach landing was actually pretty calm from the wind pushing out over the beach. All in all it was a good day.