Tarpon in Lakes

[Magella]

Just a question how many ausfish members would travell to fish a lake that you could catch 90cm plus tarpon in.
Not that I know of any lakes with them but just thinking outside the normal stocking species of bass yellas etc and thinking more of the sporting side of fishing


Cheers Foxie

[Cammy]

I no one member that would travel any distance to catch any tarpon! Loophole
he is liek obsessed with them.

Iwouldnt mind catching them either.

Cammo

[drunkenduncan]

Great idea. I would give your lake a shot, I travel to cania and burumba for the toga... same thing really

[tunaticer]

I would fish a dam or lake with tarpon to see how they go in still waters.

There are lots of natural coastal areas with good populations of fish to about the 60 cm mark in SEQ already. Central Qld has huge numbers of the bloody things in the Fitzroy above the barrage and in Alligator creek. Mate owned a property that backed onto Alligator creek a dozen years ago and we got tired of catching tarpon on celta spinners.

Jack.

[Jeremy]

I would fish a dam or lake with tarpon to see how they go in still waters.

There are lots of natural coastal areas with good populations of fish to about the 60 cm mark in SEQ already. Central Qld has huge numbers of the bloody things in the Fitzroy above the barrage and in Alligator creek. Mate owned a property that backed onto Alligator creek a dozen years ago and we got tired of catching tarpon on celta spinners.

Jack.

I would be very interested in 90 cm tarpon. I have only ever hooked a couple of tarpon and didn't land either.

Jack, I would be very grateful if you could PM me the location of a couple of the natural coastal areas with good populations of tarpon.

Jeremy

[chewy01]

Count me in foxie.did a morning chasing them at that spot we were talking about in the burrum.Ended up releasing bout 15 got half a dozen on fly with the biggest round 60.the big ones wont show till sept but im normally up your way then.
chewy.........

[Tropicaltrout]

Yep for sure mate, what a bye catch for mondy mate, power and brute force of the barra, and the areials of tarpon oh what fun.

Got the email too John looks a good sale will get some stuff M&G weekend.

Nath

[chewy01]

Hey foxie,
do you reckon they wiil/would grow to xos size in impoundments. there are some lakes in hervey bay/burrum heads with them in but they never seem to get very big. there appears to be plenty of bait in the dams. maybe its the size of the dam as most arent that big.

[BARRAkid]

I travel about 5 minutes ;D
I know off the odd spot in hervey bay
only fished it about 10 times and would have caught about 40 biggest about 55cm but there is bigger ones they are just very hard to land on 4lb :'(

[PNG1M]

Sorry to be the wet blanket but if you fish PNG for barra & bass - depending on the area of course - tarpon are generally regarded as a damn niusance.

They bloody flip around like crazy, they spurt blood all over everything, they're hard to grab hold of and often due to their soft head tissue, you sometimes end up even with only an eyeball or half a jaw hanging off your trebles.

We are more than happy if they get off while winding them in so we don't have to mess around with them in the boat. For our fishing club 'trip records' the number of tarpon are recorded 'per trip' and the amount landed is 'per boat'.

Some of us don't even bother to count them and we do not take any measurements as we are mostly concerned with barra & bass.
Hence the Tarpon's 'nuisance value...'
http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/z/user/3/7/0/7/4/main.1208434827.jpg

[rivermanau]

One problem is their fickle nature, hard to predict when they will come on the bite but then again bass can be fickle also. Once you know what a bubble rise looks like its easy to find them, often the rises you think were mullett are tarpon.
My fishing tips are- use a decent leader (say 25lb) their mouth is like heavy sandpaper. When you feel a touch strike hard twice to try and get a good hold.
Either poppers or soft plastics work fine when they are on the bite. My favourite way to catch them is to slow troll poppers from a rowboat they whack it hard then.
Agree about handling- they go crazy and knock themselves around when landed, it is much kinder to shake them off at the side of the boat as there is no point in keeping them.