Tarpon rule the night

Angler's first encounter an enlightening experience.

Steve Waters
Outdoors Writer

March 9, 2007

Pompano Beach – The best thing about fishing for tarpon at night around Hillsboro Inlet is the quiet.

Most other inlets that attract tarpon and tarpon anglers are bustling with activity as everything from pleasure boats and tug boats to cruise ships and container ships come and go all night.

At Hillsboro Inlet you might encounter some recreational swordfish anglers coming back from an outing or a few go-fast boats idling in the Intracoastal Waterway, but the most traffic you'll see is on the State Road A1A bridge that spans the inlet.

"My favorite time to come out here is at night," Capt. Jason Riddell said.

Spending nights on the water fishing for tarpon is a lot different than Riddell's day job working on the busy Serenity tour boat for a Pompano Beach timeshare resort. Although Riddell enjoys showing visitors the impressive sights of the South Florida waterfront, he has even more fun giving an angler an up-close-and-personal look at the fish known as the silver king.

On a recent cool and breezy night, the angler was Bob Carr of Clinton, N.C., who had come to South Florida for a pharmaceutical conference and had his heart set on hooking a tarpon after the three-day conference ended.

Riddell met Carr in Pompano and welcomed him aboard a flats boat that is owned by the owner of the Bolo charter boat, which fishes out of Hillsboro Inlet Marina.

While waiting for the tide to get right for tarpon, Riddell took Carr to some spots he'd found several years ago. Back then he ran fishing charters on one of the Serenity sportfishing boats. Keith Bonnafe, who now runs Bolo, was a mate on the other Serenity charter boat, which was skippered by Capt. Casey Hunt.

"After fishing offshore, Keith and I would come here at night and fish for snook and tarpon," said Riddell as Carr cast live shrimp around a bridge. "We both had small boats. We'd go out and fish all day on Serenity, get the boat cleaned up and we'd both hit the small canals back here."

Riddell had come to South Florida from Michigan in 1994. After 10 years, he and his wife moved back to Michigan for three years.

"I fished for steelhead and salmon," Riddell said, "but I missed snook and tarpon and my family."

Since returning last year, Riddell has found that his spots and his tactics are still productive.

After catching some small mangrove snapper by the bridge, Riddell said it was time to go for tarpon near Hillsboro Inlet.

His first stop was at the marina, where he got out of the skiff, went over to Bolo and came back with a bunch of dead goggle-eyes that Bonnafe had left for him.

As Riddell explained, the tarpon around the marina are used to eating scraps of fish tossed in the water after the charter dock's captains and mates clean the day's catch. The tarpon also eat the dead bait that gets tossed from a boat's livewell.

"Tarpon are scavengers," he said. "People say you've got to throw a fly at them, but tarpon will eat a small snapper or a goggle-eye on the bottom quicker than anything."

Riddell butterflied a dead goggle-eye, removing its tail and slicing along both sides of the bait's backbone. That increased the amount of scent produced by the little baitfish and also gave the fish's sides some motion in the current.

He hooked the bait on a 2/0 J-hook, which was tied to a piece of 30-pound Momoi fluorocarbon leader. Riddell put a three-quarter-ounce egg sinker above the swivel attached to the leader, cast the rig not far from the marina and put the spinning rod, which was spooled with 12-pound Momoi Illusion monofilament, in a rod-holder. Then he gave Carr another spinning rod baited with a live shrimp to cast into the current.

It didn't take long for something to pick up the goggle-eye. Riddell grabbed the rod, but before he could do anything, a tarpon jumped out of the water and spit the hook.

After that, Carr was ready when he saw the spinning rod twitch a few minutes later. He took it out of the rod-holder and, with Riddell coaching him, reeled the line tight and set the hook.

The tarpon jumped several times, but Carr kept the fish from landing on the leader and breaking off. Then the tarpon went deep and tested Carr's fish-fighting ability as well as Riddell's boat-driving skills.

"If after the first two jumps they're still hooked," Riddell said, "then they're hooked pretty good."

That was of little comfort to Carr as he struggled to keep the tarpon from breaking the line on the marina's pilings.

Then the fish traveled all around the basin leading to the inlet and at one point ran under the boat, which made for some tense moments as Carr stuck the fishing rod in the water to keep the line from rubbing on the hull.

Riddell was able to spin the boat so the line was no longer under it, then he motored away so Carr could fight the fish in relatively open water. The tarpon made one last run toward a private dock, but Riddell put his boat between the fish and the dock to end that threat.

Finally, after 25 minutes, Carr had the tarpon at the side of the boat. Riddell carefully held the leader and went to clip his Boga-Grip to the tarpon's mouth, but the fish suddenly surged, popped the leader and swam away.

That was followed by some high-fives between the captain and the angler for Carr's first tarpon and a memorable fishing trip on an otherwise quiet night.

For information on fishing with Capt. Jason Riddell, call him at 954-270-8882 or call Bolo at 754-234-4588.