No doubt that this tarpon season has already been a blast. The weather has been perfect for a ether part of April and this first part of May. Of course as I sit here writing there is a terrific downpour of much needed rain outside. Something we don’t like to see as fisherman but this area has only has one half inch of rain up until last night for the year 2006.
We’ve spent many pleasurable days chasing large schools of tarpon this past week. We’ve jumped many, broke a few off and landed a couple of nice sized fish. For many of my anglers this time of year, they’ve done this all before. May tends to be booked nearly a year in advance because it’s prime time for tarpon here in the Lower Keys. These guys all fish with a fly and handle my careful instructions about where the fish are and what their reaction is to the fly.
among the fly patterns in our arsenal this time of year, the Toad has always worked well and since the article in a recent issue of Fly Fishing in Saltwater I think the fish are going to be ’schooled’ about the tasty Toad in that fabulous chartreuse and we’ll have to move on to another pattern of fly to get these fish to bite.
Night fishing becomes a popular event off Key West and around the Bahia Honda Bridge too. Black flies, black death and purple and black are winners in this situation. A black fly against a dark sky to a fish looking up shows up so much better than you may think. Tarpon do feed more freely at night slurping shrimp off the surface of the water.
Another popular event in the Lower Keys is the Palolo worm hatch. These worms hatch out of hard coral rock each year and head to the reef, about 7 miles offshore, to spawn. The phenomenon happens often during the full or new moon of May and June, and often when there is a falling tide towards the evening. Conditions need to be pretty calm for the hatch to come off as expected.
A few days before a worm hatch is about to happen the tarpon will seem to disappear. They know what’s about to go on and they don’t want to miss it. The Palolo worm is a tasty treat for a tarpon and serves as an aphrodisiac and makes the tarpon appear to be almost ‘drunk’.
Tarpon will feed on the surface for these Palolo Worms generally on the ocean side of the Keys. It’s not uncommon to see a thousand tarpon rolling, almost as far as the eye can see.
Fishing during the worm hatch certainly can increase your chances of hooking up but it’s not as easy as you may think to stick one of these fish. Palolo Worms travel quickly, on the surface, and in a straight line. One technique that does work well is to use the “striper strip” method. This entails casting as far as you can and then putting the reel under your arm and trip with both hands, pulling the fly line consistantly. Another method may be to use long consistant strips and as the fly nears the boat, sweep the fly as far as you can.
The Palolo Worm can be identified by it’s similarities to an earth worm. It has a white tip and a red body. A fly that replicates this worm should have a greenish head tied from olive green dubbing with a thin rabbit strip of red.
