Kayak Fishing for Tarpon in Florida (The Complete Guide)
The best way to catch tarpon when you are kayak fishing is to target them within the first 2 hours after sunrise with live bait under a popping cork. A live mullet, pin fish, white bait or large shrimp are the best choices.
Move around until you find rolling tarpon then focus your attention there until the fish move away. If you can't find live bait then use a 5 inch paddle tail shad lure with a 1/8 ounce or 1/4 ounce jig head. Retrieve it slowly at about the same speed as the current. The best bite occurs within the first two hours after sunrise.
Tarpon are a bucket list fish that anglers from all over the world come to take a shot at. This is especially fun from a kayak as the tarpon will pull you all over the place one they get hooked. They are all around in the warmer months in Florida from May to November and can be found in saltwater and freshwater. This makes them the perfect hard fighting fish to target from your fishing kayak in the waters of Florida.
Tarpon are a top predator around the mangroves, deeper channels and grass flats. You can find them there but be ready to cover a lot of water in your kayak because tarpon move around frequently.
The good news is that they breathe air to supplement their oxygen needs so they will often show themselves to you in the early morning hours. They will gulp air and you can follow the bubble trails to figure out where to cast your baits and lures to get them in front of the tarpon.
I am a Inshore Fishing Guide on the Treasure Coast of Florida and tarpon are probably my favorite fish to target when they are around. You can find them in the freshwater canals that empty into saltwater. You can find them along the beaches.
You can find them on the grass flats and in the inlets. In other words, you can target tarpon just about anywhere near saltwater from your fishing kayak.
In the article below, I will tell you the simple tips and techniques that I know about catching tarpon from a fishing kayak. Let's get started.
Watch the video below and learn more about catching tarpon with lures.
The best way to catch tarpon when you are kayak fishing is to target them within the first 2 hours after sunrise with live bait under a popping cork. A live mullet, pin fish, white bait or large shrimp are the best choices.
Move around until you find rolling tarpon then focus your attention there until the fish move away. If you can't find live bait then use a 5 inch paddle tail shad lure with a 1/8 ounce or 1/4 ounce jig head. Retrieve it slowly at about the same speed as the current. The best bite occurs within the first two hours after sunrise.
Tarpon are a bucket list fish that anglers from all over the world come to take a shot at. This is especially fun from a kayak as the tarpon will pull you all over the place one they get hooked. They are all around in the warmer months in Florida from May to November and can be found in saltwater and freshwater. This makes them the perfect hard fighting fish to target from your fishing kayak in the waters of Florida.
Tarpon are a top predator around the mangroves, deeper channels and grass flats. You can find them there but be ready to cover a lot of water in your kayak because tarpon move around frequently.
The good news is that they breathe air to supplement their oxygen needs so they will often show themselves to you in the early morning hours. They will gulp air and you can follow the bubble trails to figure out where to cast your baits and lures to get them in front of the tarpon.
I am a Inshore Fishing Guide on the Treasure Coast of Florida and tarpon are probably my favorite fish to target when they are around. You can find them in the freshwater canals that empty into saltwater. You can find them along the beaches.
You can find them on the grass flats and in the inlets. In other words, you can target tarpon just about anywhere near saltwater from your fishing kayak.
In the article below, I will tell you the simple tips and techniques that I know about catching tarpon from a fishing kayak. Let's get started.
Watch the video below and learn more about catching tarpon with lures.
Kayak Fishing for Tarpon--Beaches
During the Summer months in Florida the Atlantic Ocean can look just like a big lake it is so flat. The larger tarpon like to cruise the beaches in the morning and evening looking for bait schools to annihilate. That is a sight to behold when a 5 feet long tarpon comes rocketing out of the water right through the middle of a bait school. It is amazing.
During the higher parts of the tide they will hunt within 5 feet or so of the shoreline practically beaching themselves to get a mouth full of schooling fish. When there is a confluence of events like a high tide right at sunrise with bait schools running down the beaches, the tarpon bite can be epic.
This makes them easy access for both surf fishermen and kayak fishermen. The kayak fishermen have one distinct advantage over the surfcasters. The kayak fishermen can just let the tarpon pull them around until they tire out. The surf fishermen often get spooled as the giant tarpon make amazingly long and robust runs once they figure out that they are hooked.
You can launch your kayak just about anywhere with the right dolly or a friend at first light. There is a curfew on St. Lucie County beaches at night time but they are pretty lenient about dawn. They are just trying to stop you from drinking on the beaches at night.
The best live bait for kayak fishing for tarpon off of the beach is a free lined mullet. Lip hook a live mullet and just slow troll parallel to the beach. If the tarpon are in the area you will certainly know soon enough. They cannot resist a live mullet if it is presented well. You may end up with a black tip shark too. They will probably be around too.
I think the best lure to catch these morning tarpon from your kayak is the large 8 inch paddle tail or a large pencil popper type top water plug. You can cast these right into the finger mullet schools with great success. Get ready to be dragged around for a while if you hook a 5 or 6 footer.
Another great lure is a large silver spoon. You can get a lot of distance with a spoon and cover a lot of water if you are having trouble finding the tarpon. Tarpon have to gulp air to supplement the dissolved oxygen that they get from the water.
The Perfect Tackle Combo (Big Tarpon Off of the Beach)
In my opinion, the perfect rod and reel combo for large tarpon off of the beach (60 pounds or larger) is a 6500 series reel and a 7 foot medium/heavy strength or heavy, fast action rod.
Fill the spool with 50 pound braid and have a 60 to 100 pound leader depending upon the size of the tarpon in the area. That is the perfect tackle for large tarpon off of the beach.
I have had many different rods and reels over the last 40 years of inshore fishing around Florida. The include brands like Diawa, Shimano, and Penn.
My favorite line of reels to date is the Penn Spinfisher series of reels. They are extremely smooth, made of tough corrosion resistant metals, haves great drag systems and best of all they have a sealed body so sand and water won't get inside the reel.
They are perfect for surf fishing, wade fishing and kayak fishing. (Any fishing technique that makes it likely for water or sand to get in them)
You can expect to pay $150 plus for these reels. BUT they are worth it.
My second favorite non-sealed reels are the Diawa BG reels.
They are the reels that I use on my flats boat because I know that they are unlikely to get dunked in the water or to get beach sand in them.
You can expect to pay $100 plus for these reels. They are a great bargain in my opinion.
PRO TIP--Targeting an air breathing fish really helps you find them early in the morning because they will have to gulp more air in the mornings. They need to gulp more because there is no photosynthesis in the night time.
Those oxygen producing marine plants and diatoms need sunlight to make oxygen. There is no sunlight at night so there is less oxygen for the fish in the mornings. Just look for the gulping tarpon as you paddle your kayak around to find them.
The video below shows you how to live bait tarpon from your kayak around mangroves.
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Kayak Fishing for Tarpon--Mangroves
Most of the tarpon that I catch are in or near the mangroves. Tarpon love to herd their prey up against the mangroves. I like to find mangroves that are adjacent to a deeper channel to find tarpon. They seem to always have a deep channel somewhere close to them. They run up in the shallows under the mangrove branches and run back out to the deeper water.
You will want to anchor up far enough away from the mangroves so that you don't spook the tarpon as you cast to them. I like to anchor far enough away so that my best and longest cast will get right to the edge of the mangroves.
The Perfect Tackle Combo (Small Tarpon Around Mangroves)
In my opinion, the perfect rod and reel combo for small tarpon around mangroves (40 pounds or smaller) is a 4500 series reel and a 7 1/2 foot medium/heavy strength, fast action rod.
Fill the spool with 30 pound braid and have a 30 to 50 pound leader depending upon the size of the tarpon in the area. That is the perfect tackle for smaller tarpon around mangroves.
The most effective way to target them is with a live bait under a popping cork. The cork is not to keep the bait on top of the water but to slow the bait down some. I am always amazed at how often tarpon and snook especially miss the live baits that I am offering them.
The bait has the equivalent of a spear through their body somewhere but the fish still miss them. Because of this I began using a cork with about 3 or 4 feet of leader under it to slow the bait down. My hook up ratios just about doubled once I made that change. You might want to give it a try next time you target tarpon from your kayak.
Visit the best tackle for tarpon page to learn more about getting the right tackle to maximize your fishing fun.
Mullet and large pilchards seem to work the best for the larger tarpon. The 3 feet and under like the larger live shrimp and finger mullets. The key to this presentation is to get the bait as close to the mangrove roots as possible without getting tangled up. The bonus to this fishing technique is that is where the tarpon are the snook are too. You won't be too upset it you cast for a tarpon and end up with a monster snook instead.
The best lures for tarpon are a walk-the-dog style of top water lure first thing in the morning. I use Zara Spook and MirroLure mostly because those are the kind that I usually find stuck in the mangrove branches. I haven't bought a top water lure in many years.
Another one of my go to lures is a DOA CAL white soft plastic shad with a paddle tail and a 1/8 ounce red jig head. This is the lure that I fish with most of the time because it will catch tarpon, snook, redfish, trout and just about every other inshore fish around.
The video below shows you the walk-the-dog top water technique.
Kayak Fishing for Tarpon--Tidal Creeks
Tidal creeks are a great place to look for tarpon from a fishing kayak. The tarpon bite can be very fleeting. Most of the tarpon that I catch are within the first 2 hours of light and the last 2 hours of light. To me the morning is the best bite of the two. That is because they are so easy to find in the morning because they need to gulp more air in the mornings.
I think it is because there is less both traffic and other human noises around in the mornings. Especially on week days. I like to launch my fishing kayak in the dark so that I can be at the fishing spot as first light occurs.
The best live bait for tarpon in the tidal creeks is mullet and pilchards. If I can't find tarpon that are gulping in the area, I will slow troll a free lined, lip hooked mullet in a zig zag pattern around the creek mouth until I find the fish.
You can also have good success dead baiting tarpon in deeper creek mouth channels. Tarpon will gladly devour a fresh dead lady fish head or a mullet head laying on the bottom of the creek channel. In fact most of the larger tarpon that I catch is by using this technique.
You can use the rest of the mullet and lady fish but the heads definitely work the best. The key to using dead bait is to make sure that the bait is too big for the catfish to eat. Too big is longer than 8 inches. There are always tons of hard head and sail cats in the area to gobble up your tarpon baits. Keep them big.
The best lures for catching tarpon in the tidal creeks are a 3 inch white DOA CAL with a 1/8 ounce jig head. This is a great lure to cast up current and work back to you at about the same speed as the current. In other words, I like to work it slowly with a twitch or two every now and again.
Another great lure is the DOA Bait Buster shallow diving mullets. The natural looking ones with silver or white bellies and a dark top.
I have found that tarpon respond well to slow moving lures the best. Sometimes, when I can't find any live mullet to troll behind my kayak, I will use soft plastics. One of my favorites for this technique is a white or chartreuse DOA Big One Terrror Eyz lure. These are the bigger versions of the Terror Eyz lures from DOA.
The TerrorEyz are a great lure but the hooks straighten out when you get a large snook or a tarpon on. This got me to start using the Big One Terror Eyz lure. The hook is much more robust and can handle a 4 or 5 foot tarpon.
Okay. Let's get back to the technique. I will tie a Big One Terror Eyz lure to a popping or rattle cork with about 4 feet of leader under it. It can be more than that but not less.
I will slowly troll this rig close to the mangroves and around the creek mouths where I know that the tarpon are. My troll is about the speed of a slow walk. This works best an hour or so after first light and an hour or so before sunset.
Watch the video below to see this trolling technique in more detail.
Kayak Fishing for Tarpon--Inlets
Inlets are a great place to target tarpon just make sure that you are fishing the incoming tide so you and your kayak don't get swept out to sea. It is dangerous because of the big boats that speed through inlets. Be careful if you are going to attempt fishing in an inlet.
Tarpon love to crush all of the shrimp, crabs and small fish that the strong inlet currents bring to them. The best place to find them is at the mouths of the various inlets around Florida.
Inlets attract the largest of the large tarpons so you will need your strongest rod and reel to land these 100 to 150 pound monsters.
The Perfect Tackle Combo (Monster Tarpon Off in the Inlets)
In my opinion, the perfect rod and reel combo for monster tarpon in the inlets (100 pounds or larger) is a 8500 series reel and a 7 1/2 foot medium/heavy strength, fast action rod.
Fill the spool with 80 pound braid and have a 100 pound leader depending upon the size of the tarpon in the area. That is the perfect tackle for monster tarpon in the inlets.
First and last light of the day are the best times of the day to target tarpon in inlets. All night long is another great time to target tarpon. Tarpon are much less wary at night and the really big ones let down their guard and hit lures that they would not hit during the day.
Night fishing for tarpon is the best time to catch your personal best tarpon. The problem with kayak fishing in the inlets is the strong tides. It is very hard to anchor up in an inlet and you are usually drifting too fast to fish them.
But if you can find an eddy around a point of land or some sort of break in the current, then you can destroy the night time tarpon. Just be careful because other boats often overlook you. Make sure that you are well lit at night.
There are all kinds of different rules from the Coast Guard for kayak fishing at night. You have to have a flashlight if you don't have a trolling motor to warn other boats of your position. This makes good sense anyways because those bigger boats will run you over.
If you have a trolling motor, then you will need lights in the front of the kayak. You will need the green and red lights for the front and a white one for the back.
Flair hawk snook jigs are great tarpon lures for inlets. You can cast them a mile and you can swim them with the current at about the same speed as the current. If you want to catch inlet snook, then bounce the jig on the bottom or swim it within a foot or two of the bottom. If you want to catch inlet tarpon, then swim the jig within a few feet of the water's surface.
Large silver spoons are another great choice for inlet tarpon. They work especially well if you are around some sort of lights. A well lit inlet will attract a bunch of bait like shrimp and small fish. This in turn will attract predators like snook, tarpon, redfish, speckled trout, flounder...…..
The MirroLure suspending mullet is a great bait for inlet tarpon. Cast it up current and work it back to you just by eliminating the slack and giving it a twitch or two every few seconds.
Mirrolures are one of my favorite brands of fishing lures. They are very realistic and have plenty of movement when you learn how to fish them well.
Visit our best mirrolures page to learn which specific lures that are best for different fish and scenarios inshore.
Kayak Fishing for Tarpon-- Grass Flats
Tarpon are always cruising the grass flats looking for food. The key to catching them from your fishing kayak is to see them coming before they see you coming. You have to get a good cast in front of them to get their attention on the flats. This is because they are usually not stationary on a grass flat. They are continuously searching for food.
When the finger mullet and various white baits (sardines, menhaden, herring....) are schooling on the flats, then you can bet the tarpon will be there too. Once you find the bait schools try and match the hatch with your lures. If their prey items are scaled sardines and threadfin herring, then a DOA CAL 3 inch shad can be deadly.
If they are finger mullet, then a walk-the-dog top water lure like a Zara Super Spook or a MirroLure Top Dog can be a fun choice. Another great lure is the MirroLure Suspending Mullet. I like to work these lures on the slow side. Fast retrieves can work well but I usually err on the side of too slow versus too fast.
Kayak Fishing for Tarpon--Docks
Docks are another great place to catch a ton of tarpon from your kayak. They definitely like the docks that are in deeper water. If you can find a dock with some deep channel at the end of it, then there will probably be some tarpon around when the food is there.
You can anchor fishing kayak down current and cast your baits up current to where you think the tarpon are hanging out. Just work your lures back to you slowly with the current.
Food is the key to catching tarpon when you are kayak fishing. You have to find the bait if you want to catch fish. It is really as simple as that.
This is one of the biggest mistakes that many fishermen make. They will fish a spot that looks super fishy for hours even though they aren't catching any fish.
Learn more about how to catch a tarpon in this article that I wrote.
This is what I call a fishing DEAD ZONE. Just because an area looks fishy does not mean that there are fish there. You have to find feeding fish if you want to catch them.
In my opinion, about 80 percent of the fish will be in roughly the same area. Your job is to find those areas that are holding the fish. Keep moving until you start catching fish. I usually give a dock a dozen casts or so before I will move on to another dock and get your kayak positioned to land a monster tarpon.
Some days you have to fish 30 or 40 docks until you find out where all of the feeding fish are. The main ingredient for a good fishing spot is bait. This is followed closely by the right water temperatures and some moving current.
A pinfish, ladyfish, mullet, menhaden, scaled sardine, threadfin herring...…. under a bobber is the way to go for fishing the docks. Live bait is the best bait for tarpon most of the time.
There are all kinds of great lures for catching tarpon from your kayak around docks. Instead of naming them all I will direct you to another article that I wrote. This article goes more in depth about which lures are the best for different kayak fishing scenarios.
Visit the best lures for tarpon fishing article here.
Kayak Fishing for Tarpon--Gear
If you are going to fish for tarpon from a kayak you MUST get a pair of good polarized glasses. You have to protect your eyes from the sun's harmful rays if you are going to fish all day. Polarized fishing glasses allow you to see into the water. They get rid of the glare on the water's surface so that you can see the tarpon under the water.
Right after a tarpon gulps you can see which way that it is swimming by following its bubble trail. But if you have a good pair of polarized glasses then you can see the actual fish swimming away.
If you want to sight fish for tarpon on the flats or a in a mangrove tidal creek you you will need a decent pair of polarized glasses. The best ones are around $250 and the cheaper ones that have glass lenses are about $25. There are even some super cheap ones with plastic lenses for about $5.
Whatever quality you decide that you need is up to you. BUT you must have polarized glasses to fish the shallows for tarpon. Tarpon do show themselves when they gulp air but you have to be able to spot the bait fish that they are feeding on too.
You will also want to stock up on UV performance fishing shirts. These shirts have sunscreen built right into the material to protect you for the sun's harmful UV rays. They are also moisture wicking which means that they evaporate your sweat quickly to help cool your skin.
This is a great thing on those long hot days on the water. I am very bias but our fish your ass off performance shirts are some of the best on the market.
Best water temperature for kayak tarpon fishing:
What is the best water temperature for tarpon fishing from a kayak? Tarpon are cold blooded just like a snake or an alligator. This means that they cannot regulate their own body temperatures. They have to use the surrounding waters to do that. As the temperatures change during the day these tarpon will move to cooler and hotter water based on their needs.
So if they are too hot or too cold they have to find the optimal water temperatures to regulate their body temperatures or they will die. You have to figure out what those optimal temperatures are and where they are.
The good news for tarpon fishermen is that the tarpon have a rudimentary lung that allows them to take atmospheric oxygen into their bodies. Hot water does not hold dissolved oxygen as well as cooler water does. This means that the tarpon will be gulping like crazy when the water is hot so you will know exactly where they are.
The problem with boat and kayak thermometers is that they only tell you the temperature at the water's surface. What is the temperature 12 feet down? What is it in the creek mouth over there? You have to know where the optimal water temperatures will be for the tarpon.
My solution to this problem is to have a thermometer on a string that you can lower down into the water column to see what the temperatures are at deeper parts of the water column. You can just keep it right next to you in your kayak.
The video below teaches you the optimal water temperatures for tarpon fishing.
Use smell to catch more tarpon from a kayak.
I think that smell is the most important sense that many fishermen overlook. Tarpon are often hunting for prey in dark and murky water. Let's assume that there is a juicy pin fish that a tarpon would love to get its big bucket mouth on.
BUT the pin fish is not moving so the tarpon cannot feel/hear the pin fish with its lateral line. The pin fish is hiding in the grass on the bottom so the tarpon cannot see it either. Guess what happens next. That tarpon swims down and snatches that pin fish out of the grass. How you ask? The tarpon smelled it. That's how.
Most of my big tarpon that I catch are on dead bait on the bottom of some dark and murky tidal creek or river mouth. The tarpon usually beat the sharks to the bait and we all have heard about how well a shark can smell.
All that I am trying to point out to you is that smell is a very important sense for fish. You can exploit that sense to maximize your tarpon fishing success. Add some stink to your lures and you will catch more tarpon the next time you go tarpon fishing.
Let's say that your favorite lure for a tarpon is a suspending mullet imitation hard bait. That is a great lure that the tarpon can feel/hear as you work it. If the water is not too murky the tarpon can see it too. Why not add some stink to that bait so the tarpon can use all of its senses to find your lure.
There is a product called Pro Cure that comes in some delicious smells for tarpon. They have a shrimp and a mullet smell that you can add to your lure to catch more tarpon. Try it and I think you will get better results.
I am not sponsored by Pro Cure. I recommend the lures and other tools that I use because they work so well. This being said if any Pro Cure executives read this article and want to send me some FREE pro cure, I will take it.
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Conclusion:
Tarpon are one of those fish species that brings fishermen from all over the world to Florida. They are one of those bucket list species of fish because they are so hard to catch and so amazing to fight if you do hook up with one from a kayak.
They are the species that I target most often when they are in town. In my opinion, catching tarpon in a kayak is the best way to catch one. The kayak is stealthy enough to get you close to them without spooking them. AND once you are hooked up with one get ready for the air show. They will usually sky out of the water 4 or 5 times as they desperately try to dislodge your hook from their jaws. It is an amazing thing to be part of for sure.
Come down between April and November and book one of our morning kayak fishing tarpon charters. If you can catch one of the tarpon from a kayak you will remember it forever.
I hope that this article helps you catch more tarpon and have more fun on the water even if you don't catch one. Let's get some lines wet!
About the author: He has requested that everyone refer to him as King Fish Slayer of the Universe. But everyone just ignores him. So he is just called Mike, the co-owner of FYAO Saltwater Media Group, Inc. and a certified fishing fanatic.