South Florida Fishing Guide

Doing the Tarpon Tango

Florida's Biscayne Bay is a Night-Time Tarpon Disco

The night is still young and the beautiful people are just beginning to party in the South Beach clubs, but I'm already dancing. I'm doing a "tarpon tango" on the casting platform of Capt. Bob LeMay's 17 foot Maverick skiff.
Come to think of it, it's actually more of a square dance as I try to follow Bob's calm instructions. The problem is that the tarpon at the end of my fly is dancing to her own tune. But I'm not complaining: she's already my fifth dance partner of the night. And we aren't fishing some secluded flat hours away from civilization: we're right in the middle of Biscayne Bay, just three miles as the pelican flies from those oh-so-trendy South Beach night spots.

My wife, Jeannie, and I had met Bob at a Miami Beach Boat ramp about three hours earlier. We pulled away from the dock as the setting sun painted the western sky with a glorious palate of yellows, oranges, and pinks. The moon floated high in an indigo sky over the glass and neon canyons of downtown Miami while we headed toward the layer of darkness along the eastern horizon.

Biscayne Bay is transformed by night. The glittering turquoise expanse familiar to so many South Floridians by day becomes a mysterious, magical place after dark, especially from the vantage point of a flats skiff. And when the hundreds of building bordering the bay light up at night in a kaleidoscope of colors, so does the fishing. Most fly rodders know Biscayne Bay is home to permit and bonefish of sizable proportions. But the flats that hold these fish--Stiltsville, Sands Key, Elliot Key, to name a few--are in the southern section of the bay. The night fishing takes place in the area north of Rickenbacker Causeway. When the sun goes down, tarpon, snook, and a few other species begin feeding here within sight of cruise ships, multi-million dollar homes, high-rise office buildings, and eight-lane highways.

Although it's possible to catch fish at any stage of tide, everybody who fishes the bay a night says a falling tide is best. On my first trip with LeMay, we noted dozens of fish on the depthfinder as we fished near a marina during high slack, but our first didn't come until the tide actually began to go out. On another trip, with Capt. Doug Lillard, we waited 45 minutes without seeing a fish for the tide to start falling, as soon as the tide turned, tarpon appeared everywhere.
The ideal situation is when the tide begins falling within a couple of hours after sunset. That way you can be on the water as soon as it's dark and get home at a decent hour. During each two week tidal cycle, there are three or four consecutive nights with these ideal conditions.
As the tide falls, it flushes and carries whitebait, finger mullet, and shrimp out of the bay, making them easy pickings for predators waiting in ambush around lights that create distinctive shadow lines on the water. Jody Moore, one of South Florida's leading tarpon experts, believes the light illuminates and disorients the bait, making easy targets for predators waiting in the shadows. All the predatory species that feed in the bay at night use this strategy, and it's a good one. Why waste energy chasing good when it will eventually come to you?

Tarpon are the stars of this prime-time show. They patrol the upcurrent sides of illuminated bridges, swimming in the darkness between the bridge and the light reflected off the water. LeMay believes each bridge has a "sweet spot" where a combination of light, current, bait movement, and bottom structure funnels the bait and concentrates the tarpon. But these spots can change nightly; a burned out street lamp can make a previously good spot unproductive, and a single shrimp boat working its nets along a bridge can cut off the food supply and turn off the fish. Fishing for tarpon in this urban nighttime environment requires at least two people. The shadowline to be fished must be approached from downside, and you'll put the fish down for sure, if you go over them in a boat. The recommended approach to a bridge is to go through the center span of the bridge, then double back to the spot you're going to fish. Once under the bridge, the boat should be quietly positioned against the outside piling. One person should keep the boat in position by holding onto the piling, while the other person starts fishing. Anchoring or staking out is out of the question. A hooked tarpon means a chase, and the time wasted pulling up the anchor or freeing a push pole can mean the difference between landing a fish and having it shred a leader against the pilings.

if you've never caught a tarpon on the fly, then bridge fishing at night in biscayne bay is the way to start Once you get into position to start fishing, you'll be amazed by what you'll see from the casting platform: tarpon appear as dark shadows beneath the surface and swim so near, you can touch them with your rod tip! This is as close to fishing in the proverbial barrel as I've ever experienced. The darkness also gives it all a surrealistic feel, and you'll want to rub your eyes just to make sure what you're seeing is real. Resist the temptation and start casting instead. With the boat being held so close to the shadowline, you won't need to cast more than about 20 or 30 feet. You can sight cast to individual fish or blind cast into the lights. Either way, it's important to make sure your fly matches the movement of the bait and rides with the current. Many hits will come as the fly crosses the line from light into darkness, but you should always strip the fly all the way in because sometimes a tarpon will take it literally at your feet.

Controlled pandemonium erupts when a fish hits. The guide pushes the boat away from the piling and starts the engine. The angler has to clear the line, bow to the jumping tarpon, and tell the guide what the fish is doing so he can position the boat properly. This can be tricky since tarpon always seem to jump out of the water about 30 feet away from where you thought they were. LeMay says hooked "bridge tarpon" often head upcurrent away from the bridge, which is the best possible scenario for the angler because it means the fish can then be fought in open water. The first one I ever hooked starting doing just that, but then changed its mind, made a u-turn, and headed back under the bridge on the other side of the pilings. We landed it 20 minutes later and 150 yards away from the bridge, thanks to some nice boat handling on LeMay's part.

After that my next fish wasted all its energy by giving us a great acrobatic show right next to the boat, and I landed it while we were still beneath the bridge. Most of these fish range from 15 to 40 pounds, mere babies by usual tarpon standards, but there are enough 50 to 60 pounders to add to the excitement, plus an occasional real monster. "You haven't lived until you see a 100 pounder ten feet from the boat." LeMay says.

if you've never caught a tarpon on the fly, then bridge fishing at night in biscayne bay is the way to startYou'll need 8-, 9-, or 10-weight rods for this fishing, along with a floating line and a 7-foot standard saltwater leader ending in a 30- or 40-pound-test shock tippet. LeMay says you can use any color fly you like as long as it's white. The fish will bite any color, he says, but white is easiest for the angler to see in the dark water. LeMay also instructs his clients to make the fly land noisily, mimicking the popping noise shrimp make when they skip out of the water. This also helps tarpon find the fly in the darkness. LeMay primarily uses 1/0 or 2/0 tarpon streamers, switching to a bigger deerhair fly when the fish are obviously feeding on finger mullet. Doug Lillard prefers rabbit-strip flies and I've had some luck with my own Scorpion pattern, which incorporates a rabbit strip. White/pearl or tan/gold shrimp patterns are the choice of Miami angler Jesus Quintino.

If you've never caught a tarpon on the fly, then bridge fishing at night in Biscayne Bay is the way to start. It's much easier than having to make 90-foot casts in a 10-knot breeze to get in range, and "bridge tarpon" are extremely eager about taking flies. Having the fish nearby and on the surface also gives you a chance to see how they react to and take a fly, which is something you'll never learn from a book.
Biscayne Bay night fishing also gives you the chance to experience the best that tarpon can offer without worrying about the two-hour tugs-of-war, shattered fly rods, or heat exhaustion that sometimes come from battling larger fish by day. These "bridge Tarpon" are big enough to put up a helluva fight, with all the gill-rattling jumps, screaming runs, and grim determination of their elders--yet they're also small enough to be subdued relatively quickly. This reduces the chance of hurting the fish and is a lot easier on the angler.

Snook and lookdown also show up occasionally in northern Biscayne Bay at night, and large schools of ladyfish sometimes boil the water around the Coast Guard station on MacArthur Causeway. Jacks also may make an appearance, and Doug Lillard even ran into some Spanish Mackerel on night last winter. And there are other surprises. While fishing under Rickenbacker Causeway one night, Jesus Quintino hooked something that headed for the horizon. Imagine his surprise when he first glimpsed the 32-pound permit at the end of his line 45 minutes later. Since the fishing is at night and Biscayne Bay is so close to Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and even West Palm Beach, a trip can easily be made to fit into an otherwise busy business or vacation schedule. The fish are there year round, so the timing isn't critical, either.

On that last trip with Bob LeMay, Jeannie and I got home by 2 a.m., after having landed four tarpon and jumped five others. LeMay called it an "average" trip; if I ever have a "great" trip with him, I may have to bring my own oxygen. Tired, a bit sore, and still giddy from the night's adventures, I crawled into bed and quickly drifted off. And while the beautiful people got down to serious partying at the nearby South Beach night spots, gyrating the night away under pulsing laser lights and glittering disco balls, I dreamt of doing the "tarpon tango" with platinum-and-chrome-colored partners who flashed in the light of a gorgeous Miami moon.