Daybreak fishing in September can produce great light tackle action for juvenile tarpon in many area rivers and creeks. The tricky part is being there at daylight with bait in your well. This means catching scaled sardines or finger mullet the evening before and putting them in a pen.
Keeping baitfish alive: Scaled sardines, also known as whitebait, greenbacks or pilchards, can be penned for several days under the right circumstances. Begin by putting good fresh bait into the cage, and do not keep other bait, such as pinfish, with them. What works best is a large cage with plastic or plastic-coated wire mesh, 1 inch by a half-inch, with floats around the topside rim. Larger fish and crabs put holes in soft mesh cages.
Finding small tarpon: Heavy freshwater runoff usually pushes tarpon from 5 to 30 pounds from brackish backwaters closer to the gulf. Once settled into a spot, they may remain for several days, or even weeks. Watch for them rolling on the surface as the sun comes up and continue to do so until about 9 or 10 a.m. After that, the fish go deep and are difficult to catch. Free-lining large livebaits on small wire circle hooks is the best way to get hooked up with these great fighting gamefish.
Ed Walker charters out of Tarpon Springs and can be reached at info@lighttacklecharters.com or (727) 944-3474.
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