World Information Sea Fishing Maps Blog

The Right Tackle Box

This works pretty well for the most part. Inshore or in the Intracoastal, I take my normal eight-pound light spinning outfits, and a small box with terminal tackle for reds, flounder and trout. Offshore, I take the big stuff and just one or two small outfits.

What this means is that I commit when I leave the house. If I get on the water offshore and the winds kick up, the day is over; I have no tackle with me for inshore fishing. Conversely, if I commit to inshore light tackle, I have no heavy gear with me for bigger fish.

As I said, this works pretty well most of the time. Last Saturday was not one of those “pretty well” days.

My partner and I planned an inshore trip to pick up fish for a coming fish fry. Sheepshead, reds, flounder, drum – any and all of these were on our list of desirables, and our tackle reflected that.We headed for the jetties at the mouth of the St Johns River to look for an early sheepshead bite. The west wind had calmed water that had been blown up for the previous two weeks. Some good-sized ground swells were making their way to the point of the rocks and crashing there in rather spectacular fashion.

The outgoing tide pushed schools of mullet out of the river and around the end of the north jetty. When I say schools of mullet, I mean huge schools of mullet. There were several pods of six to eight inch fish, and they covered acres of water. You’ve heard the term, “so thick you could walk on them”. This scene had to be where that comment originated. I have never in all my years of fishing seen so many mullet in one area.

As soon as we idled the boat up to where we planned to fish, a tarpon erupted from the water next to us, scattering hundreds of mullet into the air. We both stood almost frozen as two or three more tarpon attacked the thick schools of mullet around the boat.

At times there were three tarpon in the air simultaneously, along with several hundred mullet. Most of the tarpon were in the 20 to 40 pound range, with a couple that I saw that might have gone 75 pounds – not monsters, but certainly an unfair match for our light tackle.I reached for my tackle box to find something we could throw to these fish, only to find I had left the lure box back at the house. All I had was small hooks and jig heads and four small Rat-L-Traps.

We used the trolling motor and the big engine to maneuver us into the current around the point. I tied one “trap” to my short fifteen-pound leader and slung it into a shower of mullet. It took about three casts before I hooked up, and after about half of the eight-pound line had screamed off my reel, the line broke. The way that fish ran, I suspect it was a Jack Crevalle because it never left the water.I tied on another “trap” as my partner attempted to get a live mullet bait into the school, and my first few casts netted two small jacks. Mixed in with the twenty or thirty tarpon that were feeding on these mullet were schools of jacks busting and chasing bait out of the water.

My partner finally tied on a trap after getting no takers on his mullet bait, and we both began hanging, catching and loosing jacks. If we timed our cast right, that is just before a tarpon broke on a school of bait, we could get one of them to take one of our traps. Each time, a leap in the air sent the trap singing back toward the boat and had us ducking for cover.

We finally hooked a tarpon that could not shake the trap from his mouth. By now, some three hours after we began slinging these Rat-L-Traps, a number of boats had gathered and anchored at the end of the jetties. Navigating through them in a heavy current was a bit tricky and was even tougher with a fish on the end of my line. Our fish jumped a number of times and ran most of the line off my reel several times. Each time he ran, we put the boat in gear and followed him to retrieve line. Then he sounded and basically sat in the current under the boat. There was little I could do except keep pressure on him, and follow wherever he decided to go.

After forty minutes of following the fish, he rolled over and came to the surface. My partner grabbed his lower lip and lifted him to the gunnel of the boat. My pliers quickly removed the lure, and after lifting him one time to admire him, we plucked one scale, revived him at the boat, and let him swim free.

My arm hurt for two days after that battle, a fact I am having a hard time living down amongst my friends. But I now have another tackle box in my boat. It is stored deep in the bow storage and it contains some small amount of terminal tackle and lures for multiple applications. The next time we go out after one kind of fish and find another kind cooperating, I will be ready!