Best On-the-Move Tactics for Successful Tarpon Fishing

There’s never been a better example of “hiding in plain sight” than the “hidden gem” my buddy Jack Garnett takes full advantage of every summer. In fact Jack doesn’t have a secret spot. He’s got a truck, a kayak, a cellphone, a few spinning rods, and a fantastic pair of long-range binoculars. Every fishable morning from late May until the first strong fall nor’easters finally send our bait, and hungry predators, headed south, you’ll find Jack studying the surf off Ponte Vedra Beach.

Now, the very first time I fished with Jack was nearly 20 years ago, and he was running a state of the art twin engine Donzi. We were 50 miles off Saint Augustine catching mahi and wahoo. Like all bluewater boats, the big Donzi was expensive to buy—and expensive to maintain. “I can tell you without a doubt I don’t miss the expense and workload of maintaining the big boat,” said Jack. “I spend eight months a year in the gym for one reason. Just so I can chase tarpon from my kayak during the other four months. I started with a 14-foot standard ocean kayak, but the more I got into it, the more I knew I needed something a little bigger and faster. Once I start following a school of pogies that are being chased by tarpon, I may end up 3 miles from where I started. I’m 68 years old now and starting to believe I may be a little bit crazy.”

Jack ordered his current 18-foot Stealth kayak from South Africa. Incredibly, it weighs the exact same 65 pounds as his former 14-footer. It also has waterproof hatches for all his gear, including his 7-foot spinning rods. He’ll carry one 3000 size spinner with a 1-ounce trout weight on the end of his rod with a 3/0 treble hook tied about a foot above. He fishes two 8000-series Shimano Saragosas. He gets his baits by snatch hooking a pogy out of the pod the tarpon are feeding in. Jack says, “There’s no need to snatch the hook, just give a slight jerk to the end of the rod. I want them as healthy as can be, when I put them out.”

Jack has a system for sliding his kayak on and off his truck three or four times a day. That’s because he has a network that rivals any captain on any billfish circuit.

Jack’s early morning routine will start on Ponte Vedra Beach at Mickler’s Landing. He’ll hit the beach with binoculars in one hand and cell phone in the other. He’s looking for tarpon busting in the bait pods. “Bait is important,” says Jack, “but I’ll need to see tarpon busting in them before I launch.”

Whenever I talk with fishermen that are just starting out, one of the first things I tell them is to develop a reliable network. You’re going to learn that it’s a lot more fun to get a call because the fish are all over your buddy, than it is to call boats in on yourself. Jack has six “tarpon addicted” buddies spread out between Jacksonville and Palm Coast that call each other every time they find a school of pogies with tarpon in them. Tarpon are always Jack’s primary target, but he regularly catches kingfish, jacks, and lots of sharks. In fact, the day we met, he got called in on a herd of tarpon busting 20 miles to the south, but by the time he got there, a school of big bluefish had moved in and crashed the party.

Generally speaking, Jack will drift, or ever so slowly paddle with two lines freelined off the back of his kayak and one under a Cajun Thunder cork off the bow. It’s a one man circus when Jack hooks a tarpon, but somehow he manages to clear the other lines, and work his fish alongside on a 50-pound mono leader with a 9/0 VMC circle hook stuck in his jaw.

He’s far from hidden, and he ever so freely shares the info on where the tarpon are. Jack, in his own way, has discovered a gem of a fishery that is worth keeping himself in top physical condition to pull off. He has released as many as five big tarpon in one day from his kayak. His buddy he called in on that magical bite released three from his kayak right next to him. Talk about a gem. Fishermen and their passions don’t get much better than that.

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