Tarpon or bust — the craze for the silver king continues

Once again, tarpon are center stage for yet another week. Tarpon junkies from near and far are flocking to our local waters just for the opportunity to match wits with the elusive silver king.

If you haven’t seen the pass at Bean Point on a weekend during tarpon season, you’re missing quite a spectacle. I think you could almost jump from boat to boat to reach Passage Key and never touch the water. While all of this is going on, you still have large offshore boats with triple 300s on the stern running full speed right through the pass.

What a joyous time of year spending 10 hours a day chasing tarpon in the 95-degree heat only to be swamped by a self-entitled so-and-so on their way to their favorite grouper hole. I’m not saying that all offshore fishes participate in this little game, but I will say that I’ve seen boats intentionally run through tarpon schools and leave laughing as they blast out of the pass.

On a lighter note, we did have three keeper gag grouper hit our tarpon baits on a recent tarpon charter. The biggest was 34 inches. Too bad season is closed — they were all returned back into the pass.