The great tarpon theft in Ft. Myers

One of the most unusual fishing stories ever occurred yesterday when a young man grabbed a net in the Bass Pro Shop at Ft. Myers, Fl. and scooped up a 50-pound tarpon from their live fish display before running out of the store with it. Though the video of that has been on both local and national TV many times, the thief hasn’t been located as yet.

Why the tarpon was targeted is even stranger as it’s a virtually inedible fish while there were plenty of smaller fine eating fish available.

Tarpon are protected in Florida, with the only exception being a license that can be bought in order to keep a tarpon of possibly record size. It will be interesting to see if the conservation penalty is imposed as well as the theft of net and fish.

Vinny D’Anton is headed to Sarasota for the winter, but said he got reports of some stripers being caught in many places yesterday despite a continuing rough surf.

Mike Monte drove to Brick Beach this morning and quickly caught two bass in the 25-27-inch class on a Tsunami Sand Eel at first light before the bite died out. Other anglers reported doing nothing in the Monmouth County surf this morning.

The Golden Eagle from Belmar reported “

We did a lot of looking and traveling today and read a good amount of bait with some BASS readings.  The STRIPERS did not cooperate too well.  We caught a few with a couple being KEEPERS.

It is going to be a beautiful day tomorrow with less ground swell so we will be right back at it.

There’s a great forecast for tomorrow, with southeast winds at just 5 knots. Furthermore, light winds are predicted right through Tuesday. That’s perfect for those offshore jumbo sea bass trips.

Chuck Many said east winds were howling Sunday in Chesapeake Bay. but he decided to troll anyway and that turned out to be a good decision for Cesar Carranza who released a 54-pound pre-spawning bass.