Destin, Florida july 5-16th

[texasbasser]

Day 1

We arrive in Destin, Florida at 5:00PM and decide to talk a walk down the pier to see if anythings going on. Sure enough, with the 15 MPH winds, the king and tarpon are running. We go back to get our stuff, and fish until 7:00 with only 1 tarpon that decided to eat my LY but threw the hook first jump.

Day 2

getting up at 3:45, we head down to the pier once again with high hopes. Todays conditions, 5MPH winds and Clear all the way to the end, you could see the bottom at the end of the pier which is 24 feet deep. Even with these good conditions, no mr. tarpon were around, and didnt get a hit from a king. Dad and I decided to go down a bit to the 1st sandbar and try to get some reds, and I soon hooked up. Problem was, the redfish are right on the pilon, so when you hook them guess where they go. Straight under the pier. Well while im bent over the side trying to land this thing my fish is 30 yards on the other side of the pier, with my line rubbing against the cement. Dont know how I did it and how my line held up, but I managed to get this red in. Fought it for 30 minutes so a quick pic was needed to assure its survival.


Then while dad went back to the end to try and catch some bait, I see a bunch of V's about 50 yards away and coming quick. Only one thing this could be, Jack Crevelle! I had no bait, so i threw on a rattletrap and sure enough a solid #15 pounder hit. But alas, he went under as well. Fought him for 20 minutes until the line broke, but I am happy with Ande backcountry line, cant believe it held up to both these fish rubbing against pilons and barnacles and whatnot.

Day 3

Get up again at 3:45 AM. Head over to the pier and caught a Cigar Minnow, right on the hook he went. 5 minutes later I caught this #20 king mack after a 15 minute fight on the Penn 7500ss.



Nothing else the rest of the day, after the sun-rise run it all seemed to die.

Day 4

DEAD on the pier. Couldnt even catch bait with the gold hook method. Went down to the 1st sandbar again in hopes of reds and boy were they there.

First red of the morning


Second Red. This fish was 26.5 inches, Perfect tournament fish(18-27 slot size in FL)


Dad caught another one but due to landing net problems we had to just cut him of.


Day 5
Once again dead on the pier with only 1 tarpon hookup and land. So, we went down again to our spot on the 1st sandbar.


Dad soon hooks up a nice red and again called for a quick pic

Nothing else the rest of the day.

Final Day... also Friday the 13th...

Final day in Florida. Our only wish was one of us to hook a 'Poon. To Top things off, my Penn 8500 drag crapped out on me. Great. And, once again nothing on the end. We go down and try to catch reds but they Just swam around and didnt eat. Spent an hour and a half getting frustrated trying to catch a red. Its 10:00 AM now, and im ready to go but dad wants one last try at the end. We go on up, and I caught a 7 inch LY which goes straight on the treble and thrown back out. Dad catches a 3 inch hardtail which we laugh at, but baits hard to come by so he puts it on. 2 minutes later, FISH ON!


Dad Hooks up with a Mighty fine tarpon on the Penn 7500ss! After a spectacular jumping show, the battle is on. 1 hour and 20 minutes later, 75 pound fish under the pier.




Dads first poon! You have to break them off once you get them to the pier, its illegal to keep without a 50 dollar tag in florida.

I will post more pics later, time for some sleep.

[JRL]

Nice fish!

Tarpon are so much fun.

[Twinsprtsfan]

Awesome pics and nice fish!

[lizardsrule]

Sweet Redfish there buddy. Nice fishing for all the time you were here. You can land the fish(tarpon), however it must be a immediate release. By the way I appreciate you releasing those redfish, but they are tasty too.

Lizards

[texasbasser]

thanks all!

[Christopherkeene9]

Originally Posted by lizardsrule

Sweet Redfish there buddy. Nice fishing for all the time you were here. You can land the fish(tarpon), however it must be a immediate release. By the way I appreciate you releasing those redfish, but they are tasty too.

Lizards

Sorry Lizzy, no landing, FWC is now watching very closely for this type of behavior with the ticket book in hand.

NICE Trip. That's one nice king from the pier. The tarpon was pretty sweet. And the reds are always nice! For Pier fishin' down here we recommend heavy braid to keep 'em out of the pilings.

[bassfisher02]

Chris, about that Sea Bass regulation on size limit... it is still 10" on the Gulf Side, 11" moving to 12" over there on the Atlantic. Yeah I know random, but your post reminded me of it, my stepdad looked it up when I told him about it.

TB, nice fish. Ole Destin, been there a few times... You shoulda made your way to the St. Marks lighthouse, lots of people wade off the beach and produse some nice fish.

[Christopherkeene9]

My bad, getin' all the regs mixed up.

[lizardsrule]

Originally Posted by Christopherkeene9

Sorry Lizzy, no landing, FWC is now watching very closely for this type of behavior with the ticket book in hand.

NICE Trip. That's one nice king from the pier. The tarpon was pretty sweet. And the reds are always nice! For Pier fishin' down here we recommend heavy braid to keep 'em out of the pilings.

I posed that question to the Conservation Officer where I fish. He said we understand You hooked it without knowin what it was, but would rather see the hook removed before release. So if that is incorrect, then the Officer I was talking to didn't know the rules, or was setting me up. Either way, it's pretty stupid not to land the fish and remove the hook properly after fighting it to the boat/pier/etc... That makes absolutley no sense to me at all.

Lizards

[bassfisher02]

I think [and i could be wrong] we are misinterpreting the meaning of landing the fish... I believe that law requires that the fish isnt taken out of the water... IE hook removal has to take place while the fish is the the water on the side of the boat. I believe that the term Landing the fish is taken technically as bringing the fish into the boat, or onto the peir etc etc with main focus on the fish being out of water for any period of time. So with that being said, it would be unlawful to hoist the tarpon out of the water and unto the peir since it would require the fish to be out of water, yet if you would have jumped in and unhooked the fish while it still being in the water, it would be perfectly fine. But i know for a fact that people fish specifically for Tarpon, hence Tarpon tournys and what not. But more times than none i see the anglers either in the water or bent over the side of the boat unhooking the fish while it is still submerged. Hope that made some sence and clears things up.

[texasbasser]

What they do on the pier if the fight is under 30 minutes, is beach the fish if all possible and then run down onto the beach and into the water to unhook and revive. Any fight over 30 minutes, plus the time being dragged to the beach, will hurt it more than just breaking it off on the end.

[brushhog]

Interesting stuff Tex, thanks for the pics and the story...

[skeeter944]

Thats cool! WTG Tb!

[texasfisherman]

nice report