Tarpon Fishing Charters are a terrific Florida Keys experience. I fish two tides a day, a morning tide and an evening tide.

There are two main ways to go live bait tarpon fishing and two types of tarpon anglers. First, there are the fly and light tackle tarpon anglers who prefer to go on the flats to stalk and sight cast laid up or cruising tarpon. (In guide’s slang, a laid up tarpon is a fish that’s usually a foot or two under the surface and is not moving.)

This is the most challenging tarpon charter; it takes more than a little skill just to see these fish for sometimes they are over a very dark, grassy bottom. Yet other times, they swim across large, sandy, white flats that are called tarpon runs. When they are on the runs, tarpon can be seen a mile away in schools of a hundred or more, traveling between the two main bridges in the area where I fish – the Seven Mile Bridge and Bahia Honda Bridge.

The second way to fish the bridges or the deep channels is using live crabs, pinfish, or live mullet. This requires far less skill and usually is much more productive than sight casting. Anybody can do this type of tarpon fishing charter, especially first-timers.

In the middle of April, I move my tarpon fishing boat to Bahia Honda State Park, where I am one of only three Florida Keys fishing guides allowed to dock. So when you fish with me, you’ll be in the middle of tarpon country within a few minutes.

I fish two tides a day – a morning tide and an evening tide — using spin and conventional tackle with 30 pound test line. You never know ahead of time what tide will better, but either way you will see a gorgeous Florida Keys sunrise or sunset. Your Captain, Billy Rabito Sr.