Fabulous Florida Fishing at Historic Tarpon Lodge

Note: This weblog incorporates the article published May 30, 2025, in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star.

“Old Florida” is increasingly difficult to find. Time and the ravages of storms take a toll on the classic beach bungalows and fishing villages that once dominated the coastline. When you can still experience it, it is magical.

Tarpon Lodge on Pine Island, a largely agricultural piece of land with tree farms and mango groves, is a classic example of bygone Florida. Built in 1926, the lodge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It still has the original oak and heart pine floors. My wife Maria and I first stayed there 17 years ago. Upon hearing it was the venue for an Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers media event this May, I knew we had to make the trip.

Happily, we discovered that Tarpon Lodge retains its charm, along with its culinary excellence. Gourmet dishes, such as grilled snapper over risotto, tripletail, filet mignon and more are served while glorious sunsets adorn the wide views of Pine Island Sound. And the staff let us peek into and wander around the “Cabbage Key” room, where we first stayed in the original lodge. Special!

World-Class Tarpon Lodge Fishing

On our first trip to Tarpon Lodge, Maria and I joined local kayak fishing guides for a paddle along part of what is called the “Great Calusa Blueway,” some 190-miles of saltwater that have been mapped amid the mangroves in and around Lee County.

We launched somewhere near Matlacha, a colorful, quirky Pine Island place known for its kayak fishing. That was my first time fishing from a kayak and being very low to the water really messed with my developed way of handling a rod and reel. While our guide routinely hooked redfish and speckled trout, I recall missing all three of sparse strikes. Still, it was cool gliding over oyster beds and watching redfish swirl and scatter.

Our fishing in mid-May of this year was considerably easier – and more successful.

Our group split up into three boats operated by Endless Summer Charters. Alabaman Alan Clemons and I fished both days with Capt. Hunter Tinsley, a young, personable guide who knew how to find fish. Cristian Simpkins of Wisconsin’s St. Croix Rods was also aboard the first morning. We fished offshore, about 10 miles out, in 35-43 feet of water, over humps, rocks and other bottom debris. The fish cooperated. The first bite of the day was a doozy, a goliath grouper that gave Clemons a good pull but inevitably broke off given the limitations of the tackle we were using. You simply won’t get one of those monsters to the boat with rigs set up for snappers. I have a history with goliaths – one, a fish estimated at 350 pounds, gave me an umbilical hernia during a fishing trip to Boca Grande eight years ago.

The goliaths are always looking for easy meals. I hooked a fish, first feeling an average pull for a bottom fish. Then the rod bowed sharply until its tip dipped into the water. A goliath had grabbed my catch and only reluctantly spit it out after a few fun seconds. I spotted the 200-pound-plus, spotted, golden-color fish casually swimming away some 20 feet down in the clear water. It was an amazing sight!

A smallish Atlantic spadefish, the only one we caught that day, was the fish that had eaten my bait and almost became a goliath snack. Simpkins and Clemons had never seen a spadefish, but I explained how we used to catch huge spades, including some 8-pounders, in the Chesapeake Bay 20 years ago. Anglers still catch them, some exceeding 10 pounds in the Lower Chesapeake and inshore Atlantic waters off Virginia Beach.

I had brought a cooler, hoping to bring some tasty saltwater fish home to Virginia, and was pleasantly surprised when chunky, hard-fighting mangrove snappers (formally named "gray snapper"), some pushing 20 inches long, comprised most of the offshore catch. I think they are some of the finest tasting fish you can catch in Florida. The biggest snappers were hitting in the slick created from a bag of chum hanging off the stern. Tinsley said that is not always the case. “Sometimes, it's reversed, with smaller snapper schooling in the chum slick and bigger fish off the other side,” he said.

We mainly used bottom rigs, with a single hook about 18 inches above the sinker. Shrimp, whole pinfish and cut bait adorned our hooks. Snappers, along with Key West grunts, blue runners, a crevalle jack, and even a remora, kept us busy. The remora was a big surprise, to me anyway. Most people relate to them as the small fish that attach their mouth suckers to sharks. I didn’t know they liked shrimp.

Permit in the House!

I also wasn’t expecting to see permit, powerful, wide-bodied fish often associated with the “flats,” out where we were but Tinsley kept spying a school of them on his sidescan. Permit shimmer in brilliant sunlight. Looking like swimming lids of bright steel trash cans or big silvery serving platters, they occasionally flashed near the surface. I have caught but a single permit in my life, an approximate 15-pounder caught down in the Florida Keys.

Tinsley cast a line baited with a live crab toward the school of permit. Several minutes later, the rod began popping in the holder. Simpkins had the honors. He diligently fought the permit, at one time working it to about 10 feet from the boat. “Nice! Nice,” Tinsley declared as he saw the fish.

We all anticipated a successful catch, but the permit had other ideas, again ripping line off the reel while making a deep run below toward the rear of the boat. Simpkins breathlessly held on but after a few minutes, the line broke. Tinsley guessed the fish weighed at least 25 pounds. We were dejected, none more than Cristian.

Simpkins made up for it the next day, catching his first permit on slightly heavier tackle. The fish wasn’t as big as the previous day’s miss, but it was still his fish of a lifetime. Simpkins said the permit fought harder than any fish he has ever caught, and he has landed some big ones around the Great Lakes.

The next day, Clemons, the American Sportfishing Association’s Rob Shane, and I fished inshore. Casting live pilchards on our St. Croix spinning combos, featuring SeVIIn reels, we enjoyed a steady catch of beautiful, speckled (spotted) trout on grass flats, then followed it with snook along the edge of the mangroves. Clemons caught his first snook that day. His second was our largest for the day, a 30-inch beauty. I was filming Clemons when a redfish walloped my bait. Juggling a camera and a fishing rod, I lost it, denying me a chance for an inshore slam. Oh well. It’s tough to shoot photos and fish at the same time.

We also tried to catch a tarpon. May is prime time for catching the silver kings. We occasionally saw tarpon rolling, but they ignored our baits. Maybe the full moon had something to do with their lack of urgency to feed, I wondered. We watched one person from our group, Anne Conrad, battle a large shark for a few minutes before the fish cut the line.

Tinsley said fishing around Fort Myers is great year-round, with April until July particularly good as waters warm up and huge schools of baitfish move in. “Tarpon migration enters full swing. You can catch redfish, snook, all the trout you want, and big mangroves (snapper), both inshore and offshore. We have fish all year, but there is a huge influx in early summer once the bait moves in,” Tinsley said. Autumn months are similarly productive. “We call it ‘Red October,’ down here because of the great redfish opportunities, along with snook,” Tinsley said, adding winter months are also productive with bountiful, spawning sheepsheads, black drum, redfish and more. “It’s not unusual to pull up on a dock and see 100 sheepsheads beneath it.” July and August – what can you say – they are brutally hot.

Pictures of Resilience

Pine Island, the picturesque village of Matlacha and even downtown Fort Myers were damaged hard with hurricanes, the most direct hits being Hurricane Milton last October and Hurricane Ian in September 2022. Many places, Tarpon Lodge included, saw storm surges flooding buildings. Some businesses have marks on the walls showing where the storm surge crested.

While some businesses remain closed, the greater Fort Myers area seems dedicated to rebuilding where needed and rebounding as only resilient Floridians can.

We were there for the fishing – and the food, but the entire Fort Myers area, including the islands of Sanibel, Captiva and Fort Myers Beach, offer visitors a bounty of things to experience. To get a full rundown, see www.visitfortmyers.com.

New St. Croix Rods and Reels

Simpkins brought a bunch of new St. Croix fishing rods and new seVIIn spinning reels for us to try. The rods are debuting at the ASA’s ICAST (International Convention of Allied Sportfishing Trades) show in Orlando in July. The rods were a mix of spinning and jigging styles. The Rogue V line of boat rods will include a wide array of power and actions, and options for both spinning and conventional reels. The jigging models range from stout 5’3” extra-extra heavy power bobs to 6’3” medium-heavy versions. I may try to get a couple to set up for offshore deep drop fishing, those situations where you can catch anything from fish weighing just a couple of pounds to beasts exceeding 50 pounds. The rods have a lot of new features and will sport MSRPs ranging from $195 to $255.