and Miami. Fishing for Tarpon, Bonefish, Permit, Snook, Redfish and Sharks.
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South Florida Fishing Guide
Snare A Tarpon
Tarpon are a lot like pasty-white New Jersey tourists. They migrate from the cold north to the bountiful water of the Florida Keys in March, sucking clean gargantuan seafood buffets along the way. While Garden Staters are humming down Interstate 95, the 25-to=150 pound, thick-bodied tarpon slip by within the shadows of Miami's skyline and into nearby Biscayne Bay, where such seafaring delectables as shrimp, crabs and the ubiquitous mullet beckon them the same way a WELCOME TO CAPT. D'S--KIDS EAT FREE sign ropes in the tourons. "As spring progresses, we get singles, strings, pods, even schools of more than 100 tarpon," says Captain Doug Lillard, who had been fishing the waters of South Florida for twenty-five years.
Hooking one of these beasts is relatively easy, landing one is a different story. Particularly ornery tarpon have been known to jump more than fifteen times, tail-walk across the surface, and pull line from your fly reel that hasn't seen the light of day for years. Though most of Lillard's clients sight-cast to cruising fish, some come for the night trips around local bridges where the fish cluster, barnacle-like. If you hook a tarpon on a quiet night, you'll miss its aerial acrobatics, but you will hear the eerie ruckus in the distance -- a sound far more pleasant than the faint rumble of minivans heading for Key West.
To book a trip with Doug Lillard, call 954-894-9865
