TARPON
Tarpon grow slowly and usually don’t reach maturity until they are six or seven years old and about 4 fee long. Female Tarpon may shed up to 12 million eggs, which hatch at sea. The eggs turn into eel-likelarvae that drift inshore, where they shrink to half their size and start to look like tarpon before beginning to grow again.
Tarpon flesh is edible, though usually eaten only in developing countries, where the scales are used to make souvenirs for tourists. The most sought-after inshore, big-game fish, the tarpon puts up a stubborn and spectacular fight, often leaping up to 10 feet out of the water. It’s difficult to hook because of its hard, bony mouth.
Anglers fish with live mullet, pogies, pinfish, crabs and shrimp, or cast or plugs. Many people enjoy Flyfishing. Best fishing is at night, when tarpon feed. The tarpon is found in warm-temperate, tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic Ocean, both inshore and offshore, and has introduced itself to the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.
Tarpon have the ability to gulp air directly into its air bladder by “rolling” at the surface, the tarpon is able to enter brackish and fresh waters that are stagnant and virtually without oxygen.Many of these areas are relatively free of predators, offering a safe refuge for the Tarpon. Tarpon Fishing fact: The Tarpon was one of the first saltwater species to be declared a game fish. I saw a bunch of tarpon pictures on Tribenwater http://www.tribenwater.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/718
