Family Fishing Trip

Family Fishing Trip For Trout and One Big Surprise
One of my charters this month was with a family that just moved to Sarasota a few weeks ago. As most of my clients, they never fished in saltwater or out of a kayak. They picked a perfect day to go kayak fishing, light winds and no rain. My charter consisted of a married couple and their three girls, ages eight, ten and nineteen.
We started out the day fishing for trout using live shrimp under a popping cork, which is my standard rig for my fishing clients. Occasionally I let my clients try fishing with artificial if they are experienced. We caught several trout, mangrove snapper and of course plenty of pinfish. One thing about taking young people fishing they don’t care what they catch as long as it’s a fish pulling on the other end of the line.
Everyone caught fish that day. The eight-year-old took the prize for the most fish caught that day. Mom and dad had a great time as well, they both caught some trout. The mom said this kayak fishing should be an everyday occurrence; she loved being out on the water.
Fly Fishing From a Kayak
Another trip I had this month I took a man out to fly fish from the kayak. You can’t stand up in my kayak, so I told him I don’t know how well it will work. He had no problem using the fly rod from a sitting position, and I was surprised that he caught several trout on his home –made flies. He had the best luck with a dark brown slow sinking fly. This was his first time fly fishing from a kayak and fishing in saltwater.
The Surprise of The Month
The second week of September I took my 26-year-old son kayak fishing in Gasparilla Sound. We found several nice trout using a Mirrordine and live shrimp under a Cajun Thunder. We like to use a Mirrordine with either the dark green or light green back; these are our two favorite colors. My favorite topwater plug is the Chugbug. Especially a silver-gray one. When the trout don’t like the Mirrordine or shrimp, then I switch to a white Z-Man soft plastic.
We also found some ladyfish in about 4 foot of water along with some tarpon feeding. I have fished Gasparilla Sound probably 60 times in the last three years, and this was the first time I ever saw a tarpon. We only had light spinning gear with us; we weren’t expecting to find any tarpon. Just for the fun of it, we cut a ladyfish in half and put the tail half of it on a trout hook under a cork and let it sit while we fished for trout. We just wanted to see if a tarpon would take it. It only took a few minutes before I heard my son hollering, I got one! I was about 40-50 yards away when I saw the tarpon jump. It looked to be 5-6 feet long. I was amazed at how big it was. It jumped five times before it broke the line. It was an unbelievable sight. I didn’t expect a tarpon that big in 5 feet of water. My son hooked another tarpon, much smaller than the first one, but it still broke his line pretty quick. I wish I had brought my GoPro that day. We went out the next week with the proper gear to engage the tarpon with but no luck, we didn’t see any that day.