All Text & Photos provided by Patrick “Tupat” Eichstaedt // @TheRealTupat
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Florida Fishing in September
As summer continues to roll on, the tarpon have rolled in and it has been non-stop for the last two weeks of August. This is something our area has never seen with the abundant amount of bait pods and longevity of the run of fish. These fish were literally jumping out of water in knee-deep areas right next to us, and at times running into our legs while wading. This is how it all went down!
It started on a Tuesday morning, August 16th to be exact. I awoke to a text from my good friend and neighbor, Robert Vella, letting me know that fish were popping everywhere. My reply was, “Tarpon,” and I rallied up my gear and gave Nils Schweizer (@Nilsers) a call to go. We fished for about an hour before Nils hooked into a beast and fought it for about 40 minutes with a successful land and healthy release. I had already broken off on two pretty big tarpon and then finally hooked into one that the hook set was perfect. I ended up fighting the fish for about 30 minutes with a successful release. Keith Halverson from DeLand was watching my fight from the beach and ended up taking my iPhone to shoot some video as it was a two-man task to land these big tarpon. Afterwards, I asked him if he wanted to give it a shot and catch one. He replied, “Heck yeah, I’d love to!” and the rest is history as he landed an absolute beast!
I thought of my longtime friend, Casey Collins, so I called him and he showed up with his fly rod. He missed a big blow up and then finally hooked up to a monster that spooled his entire fly reel. He returned to my beach a few hours later for the sunset bite and caught the fish of a lifetime off of his paddleboard in the middle of the ocean about a half mile from shore. My neighbor Rob watched intently through his binoculars.
A week later, and the fish and bait were still fired up so I took another longtime buddy, Michael Duffy, down to the inlet with my other buddy Robert Vella and we gave it a shot. The sharks were feasting everywhere and so were the tarpon. Mike ended up locking into a solid one and fought it for just over 30 minutes and finally landed it with the help of two others. A quick picture and then a successful release back to Mother Nature.
So many friends were able to catch these beautiful fish and the gratitude for these past two weeks is at a high level! Let’s call it the Month of The Silver King!
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