By: Capt. Armando Alejo
With an unexpected break in our summer season, we finally took to some time on the water for our family. My wife and I set out to cross out two species from her list, tarpon and shark. We headed out through the waters with our target species in mind on what was a beautiful summer day! On our first, and each stop thereafter we found one of our two targets almost immediately, but they, in typical tarpon fashion would not eat, at least not on this day. We kept grinding finding several other tarpon and some goliath grouper to mix up the fun. Not wanting to disappoint my beautiful wife, I took and unplanned route back with the idea of giving the illusive tarpon, one last try before we head back. I chose an area with a dark bottom, knowing this is a preferred stomping ground for our target. After a slow start at this stop, we ‘jumped’ our first fish. Albeit in the 30 lb. class, and it was the highlight of my day to see my wife smile after the acrobatic display. We hung in there as the bite came in spurts, of course they fed when THEY wanted to. It wasn’t long before we got one tarpon ‘to the hand’, which was followed quickly by a few others! As luck would have it, I noticed a few small black-tip sharks circling the boat, so I strategically placed a second bait in the water, and to my surprise, it too was taken almost immediately by our second target. Albeit in rapid fashion, one decision put a huge smile on my wife’s face and she was able to check off two additional species from her list!
