Jake Jordan's Fishing Adventures

April 20th, 2009

Florida Keys Tarpon Report

Greetings from Tarpon World:

We arrived here in Marathon (Florida Keys) on Tuesday evening and then moved into the same rental house as last year. On the 15th I launched my Jones Brothers Cape Fisherman "Fly Reel" , put her in the slip, and rigged that boat for Tarpon season.

After turning on all of the utilities and doing the grocery shopping we now feel at home. On April 16, I picked up my skiff from my friend Bob Jones in Islamorada and then spent the day cleaning and doing maintenance to prepare it for Tarpon season.

April 17th, the wind is blowing from the east at 20 to 30 knots from the east, most flats guides are hiding behind an Island trying to find clean water and some laid up Tarpon. My good friend and client Don Butler and his son John Butler (Birthday) arrived at 3:00 PM, checked into their hotel, and then after dinner met me at the Marina at 7:00 PM.

We fished in a channel adjacent to a flat, on the west side of a key, so that we would be out of the wind. This was my first charter of the season so I was pleased that we began to see rolling Tarpon almost immediately as we arrived. Don was the first to hook up a 90 pound Tarpon on my "Poon Bug" fly, 15 minutes later I released that first Tarpon on Fly of the season. On the next drift John caught and released his Birthday Tarpon, a fish of about 75 pounds. We fished until 11:00 PM in choppy seas with solid 25 to 30 knot east wind, the final score was 5 bites with 4 Tarpon Released, Don Butler, 2 one fish of 110 pounds, and John's second fish was a 100 pounder.

It feels good to be back in action, I do love my Job. More reports to follow.