Tarpon Fishing Charters for the King of Florida Keys Inshore Game Fish join Capt Billy Rabito Sr.

The tarpon is nicknamed the Silver King for a very good reason; on our tarpon fishing charters you can catch a one-hundred pounder just a hundred yards from shore in the Florida Keys. You could get on a sixty foot sport fishing boat, ride thirty miles out in the Gulf Stream and troll for days without hooking a fish that size. It's likely to hook a couple of these monsters in the same cast; I know, for it has happened to me more than once.

Tarpon start showing up in the Florida Keys at the beginning of February, if the winter hasn't been too cold – seventy to seventy two degrees is the borderline temperature; if it drops below that, the fish tend to stay out in the deep water in the channels between the grass banks.

In the early sixties, conservation played little if any part in tarpon charter fishing; you could ride up and down U.S. 1 in Florida and see these beautiful fish hanging from block and tackle in front of tackle shops and at charter docks with signs that said “Open Tomorrow.” I can't sugar coat it in any way: tarpon were used as billboards.

Tarpon fishing tournaments at that time were based on the point system; you got a point per pound for a fish weighing over seventy five pounds, and you could bring in two fish in an eight hour tarpon charter fishing day. There would be a big crowd at the weigh station to watch the fish being weighed. I still get a sick feeling every time I think of those early tarpon tournaments with piles of dead tarpon lying on the dock. I'm proud to say I had a major role in the stopping of kill tournaments in the Marathon area that were so abusive to these beautiful (and non-edible!) fish. Your Captain, Billy Rabito Sr.