The consensus is that late afternoon until dusk is prime hatch time.
Later that evening at a local restaurant, other anglers reported a fantastic worm bite around Key West. Friend Allen Smith joined us the following evening, and obviously, word was out. There must have been 40 boats on the scene. We got into position and just as the day before, nothing showed until the worms started to swim around 6 p.m. However, there were more worms coming directly through the bridge as opposed to the oceanside flats. We moved in directly between the old and new bridge spans and dropped anchor. Tarpon were everywhere, rolling, cruising and slapping the surface. Alan hooked a 70-pounder immediately and we drifted off to fight it. The full-moon outgoing tide was ripping, so we drifted about a half-mile out before we got Alan’s fish boat-side. The only reason we landed it was that the fly hook was buried outside the fish’s mouth, so the 30-pound leader was protected. We motored back into position and for the next 90 minutes the fleet was in total chaos.
And then it stopped.
No more worms. No more tarpon.
I’m not sure whether the worm hatch came to a halt due to the slowing tide or the setting sun, but it was most definitely over.
Guide Eric Herstadt fished that worm hatch as well, and made an interesting observation. While we cast flies with floating lines, he used a clear intermediate fly line and got a strike on nearly every cast. He figures that for every tarpon showing on the surface, there were hundreds more below them. In the middle of that melee, friend Dave Hunt fished with Cindy Russel, who caught three fish. Her tarpon towed their skiff out to sea where the tide current created a pretty fair chop. Hunt said she was working the tarpon pretty well, and when he glanced around for boat traffic then looked back, Cindy was gone. A boat wake had knocked her overboard. Hunt grabbed her and pulled her aboard, a bit soggy, but still connected to the tarpon.
That was also Hunt’s first worm event and he agreed that all tarpon etiquette rules were an afterthought. Skiffs were driving up on and over fish simply because the fish were everywhere. Anglers were casting to the backs of other boats and no one cared. It was total chaos, but total fun. No one had time, nor reason, to be upset at anyone else. Not with that many fish in the air!
Hunt took a few worms home and checked them out under a microscope. He sent me the following description: “Two blue eyes with little horns that stick up vertically and two smaller horns that stick out on the sides. Arrowhead-shaped tail. The aft end is the ‘motor.’ Small fins run along its length. The head has two stingers. Charming little creatures!”
If you are really serious about fishing a worm hatch for tarpon, find a guide that knows his hatches, and get him to calculate (and commit) to the times that they will (should) occur in his area. Then book him for six evening half-day trips (5 p.m. till 9 p.m.). That gives you two trips before the suspected dates and two thereafter. I know that’s costly, and beyond the means of many, but if your luck is like mine, the hatch, which tends to last only a couple of days, will start the day after you leave or end the day before you arrive. Give it some leeway if you want to connect, but remember some years the hatches never happen at all. And, remember that it took me 30 years to get it right.
