Kayak Fishing – Eau Gallie River

Happy Monday Spacefish!

Is it just me or is the summer of 2024 flying by? Summer is my favorite season on the Space Coast because I get more time to fish because I am not in school, it’s the best time of the year to throw topwater baits inshore, and Tarpon show up in high numbers in our inshore fishery. A few weeks ago I wrote a detailed report about Tarpon fishing on the St. Sebastian River, today I am going to talk about a recent fishing trip on the Eau Gallie River. I also will have a good Tarpon report coming soon for Turkey Creek as well. Late summer-early fall is my favorite time to go on Tarpon hunts and while they can be found all over the place, certain places offer the kayak angler a chance to target concentrated numbers of them, and with a little luck and patience it’s possible to catch multiple Tarpon in one outing. In my personal experience the places that offer these type of days are the St. Sebastian River, Goat Creek, Turkey Creek, Crane Creek and Sam’s Creek located in the Pine Island Conservation area on Merritt Island; I have also caught Tarpon in the Thousand Islands Conservation Area of Cocoa Beach as well. I know that Tarpon can be found in areas of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge but I have not spent the time up there yet to write about it. So without further ado, let us dive in to this report on the Eau Gallie River!

Launch Spot

The best way to access the Eau Gallie River via kayak or paddle board is by launching out of Ballard Park- there is a multi-lane boat ramp here, but I always opt to launch from the shoreline. Ballard Park is a place that fills up quick on the weekend, so I definitely recommend getting there early.

Tarpon Hot Spots

To give yourself the best chance of targeting Tarpon, and finding some action I am going to break down some areas that I would recommend hitting up. If you get on the river by first light, you will see Tarpon rolling everywhere; but these 3 areas offer the kayak angler a few advantages in my humble opinion. Advantage #1: Narrowing of River – when you find yourself in an areas with Tarpon you will want to be close enough to them to be able to cast in front of a rolling Tarpon, there’s nothing worse than being on a big, wide, expansive area and not being able to reach them. Advantage #2: Size – These areas will hold Tarpon in the small-medium size range. I have no interest in trying to catch a Tarpon bigger than 40ish pounds when I am out in my kayak – the fish you will find in this areas will be of appropriate size to catch on light tackle, and you will be able to land them in an appropriate amount of time so you don’t kill them from exhaustion, or run the risk of getting sharked mid-fight.

The first is the area of Elbow Creek around the Boat House. This has been my number one area to catch Tarpon on the Eau Gallie River system, I have caught the most Tarpon here, and you can spend several hours in this area and give yourself the opportunity to catch multiple Tarpon in one outing. In this area be on the lookout for rolling Tarpon they can be seen rolling out in the middle, or along the shorelines on either side. The bigger fish on the 20-40 pound range typically stay in the deeper water in the middle, and the smaller ones tend to hang out in shallower water around the mangrove shorelines on the east side of Elbow Creek. I have caught several around the bridge as well.

The other area is located on the west side of the river, and it starts behind the Harbours Apartment Complex and extends all the way to the spillway. I like this area of the river because it starts to become more narrow, and starts a more winding path that is more natural for a river/tributary. Once I pass the last dock and find myself in the mangroves I will slow down. I will usually stand up and drift/glide through this section of the river. When I am targeting Tarpon I usuyally keep my Tarpon rod on the front deck of the kayak so if I see a Tarpon roll, I can fire off a quick cast – I also have a weedless paddle tail or jerk bait rigged and ready within grabbing distance as well because if I see Snook feeding on the shorelines I will make casts in and around the mangroves in that area.

Usually when I am on this stretch of the river I will take my time moving east to west and end up at the spillway and if there are no kids or anyone fishing from the spillway I will fish around the spillway. This is probably the easiest place to catch a Tarpon on the entire river, and if you are wanting to catch your first one, I highly recommend this area. You probably won’t see them rolling as much here, they usually sit under the spillway looking for an easy meal. When casting into the spillway you are also likely to catch Snook, Ladyfish, Jacks, and the occasional small Largemouth Bass. Also on my trip here last weekend I was surprised to see Tarpon rolling on the other side of the dam, the freshwater side! Tarpon are known to travel through drainage/canal systems and end up trapped in freshwater ponds and other freshwater bodies.

Best Tarpon Baits

I pretty much exclusively use artificial baits nowadays – my favorites for Tarpon are the Tsunami SaltX Swim Shads, I almost always use the 2 inch models in Black Back or Silver Mullet – this is the perfect size profile for Tarpon as they are keyed in on smaller baitfish in the backwaters. Other baits I have had success with that are similar are the Storm Wild Eye Swim Shad, DOA Tiny Terror Eyez, Creme Spoiler Shad, and Panfish Assasin curly tail grubs on Crappie jigs. The new Tsunami SaltX baits are my go to, because they have an extra strong hook, and will allow you to catch Tarpon that are 30-40 pounds without the hook bending out.

In the summer of 2020, I caught my first ever Tarpon by free lining live shrimp around the rail road track bridge on the Eau Gallie River. A student in my fishing club at MCC caught his first Tarpon this past May by trolling live mullet on the Eau Gallie River, and I have been told that smaller live shiners or minnows work really around the spillway, and further back in all of the aforementioned tributaries of the Indian River Lagoon that I mentioned at the top of this report. Live Shrimp, and Finger Mullet will have a shelf life in water that is more fresh than salt, so Shiners/Minnows can be a good option for anglers around spillways and fishing deep in the rivers and creeks – you can get these traditional freshwater bait fish at Rigg’s Outpost in downtown Melbourne. I also understand that live Fiddler crabs work well, and cut Ladyfish work well, but I have never used these baits to target Tarpon.

I personally prefer to go with small swimbaits not because I am an artificial lure snob, but because I personally feel like the ability to make quick and accurate casts, and to make a LOTS of casts increases my chances of hooking up with more Tarpon per trip. The key to fishing artificial in my experiences is to go small, and retrieve slow! Another piece of advice for novice Tarpon anglers, don’t be afraid to go down in your gear. I have been using 8 pound braid, and 15 pound leader on a 4000 series Tsunami Barrier II reel, the light line gets me more bites, I play the fish with a loose drag until I start to wear it down then tighten the drag and drop the hammer to bring it in. Pictured below are action shots from an airborne Tarpon this past week on the Eau Gallie River, this fish was hooked on the Tsunami swim bait using 8 pound braid, and 15 pound flurocarbon. Just remember, when Tarpon go airborne, lower the rod tip and bow to the king!

Snook Report

As I mentioned earlier, I will have another rod close at hand with a weedless soft plastic in case I see Snook activity along the mangroves or under docks. I was able to catch a few Snook on this trip on the Fish, or Die Minutmen in “Swampfox” – I had this bait rigged on a 3/0, ⅛ oz screw lock hook, on a spinning rod set up using 10 pound braid and 25 pound fluorocarbon. None of the Snook I caught were of great size, but were provided some fun side action in between the Tarpon catches. On the day I ended up with 4 Snook, and 3 Tarpon – which wasn’t a crazy number of fish caught, but when targeting Tarpon it is definitely a slower pace and tempo – Tarpon fishing for me is an exercise in quality over quantity. I did have a topwater plug rigged and ready, but because I immediately started casting to rolling Tarpon I never spent time throwing topwater.

Conclusion

Last summer I didn’t spend enough time on Tarpon, this was one of my deep regrets. Since I started writing reports on Spacefish I have made a conscious effort to bounce back and forth between Kayak Bass Fishing, and Inshore Kayak Fishing – I promise I will get back to more Bass reports later this year, this summer I wanted to focus a lot of my effort and energy on Snook, and Tarpon. I say all that to say this… now is the time to go after Tarpon inshore, they are here in the tributaries and the late summer-early fall window is the best time of the year to go after them. We are very blessed to have the opportunities to catch them in our home waters – this is a species of fish that people spend lots of money to travel to go target, there here in our backyards, don’t miss the opportunity!

Thanks for taking the time to read this report. I hope everyone has a fantastic week ahead, and has the chance to go out and catch some fish! I’d also like to say THANK YOU to Kayaks By Bo, for being our paddle partner, on our weekly reports – The new store in Cocoa is awesome, and they have a fantastic inventory of kayaks, and all of the accessories you need to get out and have a great kayak fishing experience!

Stay safe, be happy, and go out and hook a fish in the mouth! Until next time!