By CAM Staff
Summertime is tripletail and tarpon time along Florida’s Forgotten Coast. Each summer, these two species invade inshore fisheries in numbers. They stick around for a while and add spice and size to fisheries normally known for redfish and seatrout.
The Forgotten Coast is a stretch of the Florida Panhandle from roughly St. Marks on Apalachee Bay to Mexico Beach, southeast of Panama City. It’s about 130 miles of sparsely developed coastline that features an embarrassment of riches when it comes to inshore fishing. There are also great nearshore and offshore options, but the system of bays and barrier islands in this stretch of Gulf Coast is an inshore-angler’s playground.
Tripletail started showing up in the bays in May this year, and they should stick around through the summer. With their large, rounded anal and dorsal fins, these odd-looking and great-tasting fish have a peculiar habit of hanging near the surface around any sort of floating cover. This makes them a ton of fun to target, as they can be sight fished around crab trap buoys, channel markers, drifting weed mats or really anything floating in the water.
Shrimp and baitfish are attracted to cover, and tripletail post up like another piece of rubbish to let food come to them. They can be spotted free-swimming, too, which is why it’s smart to take a closer look at anything floating in the bays. They range in size from 2 pounds to nearly 30 pounds on the Forgotten Coast. They’ll hit live baits, artificials and even flies.
Tarpon can be a little more difficult to target, but the rewards can be huge when you find them. With a westward migration up the Gulf Coast, giant tarpon show up in shallow bays from St. Marks to St. Joe starting after the first full moon of June and petering out in August most years. In early summer, fly anglers, armed with 11- and 12-weight rods, can be seen watching patiently from the decks of skiffs for pods of tarpon that move up into the shallow grass flats.
When they’re not shallow, big tarpon can be targeted in the passes and coves. In late summer, live pinfish or grunts under a float or even cut mullet on the bottom will test your tackle with tarpon that weigh in excess of 100 pounds.
For information on lodging and fishing on the Forgotten Coast, go to www.floridasforgottencoast.com.
