Tarpon Fishing in Englewood: Stump Pass, Manasota Key, and Lemon Bay

Englewood sits on the tarpon route between the Sarasota beaches and Boca Grande, and from May through July Stump Pass is its focal point. The pass connects the Gulf to Lemon Bay at the south end of Manasota Key, and migratory tarpon stage off its mouth and slide into the Charlotte Harbor system on the strong outgoing tides around the new and full moons.

The beach fishery off Manasota Key runs the coastwide playbook: first light, 10–25 feet of water, glass for rolling strings, and lead the fish with a live crab or threadfin on a 5/0–7/0 circle hook and 60–80 lb fluorocarbon leader.

The pass mouth shifts constantly, with a bar that storms rearrange every year — treat it with respect on any swell and fish the deeper outside edge.

Inside, Lemon Bay is a six-mile mangrove-lined aquatic preserve that holds juvenile tarpon in its creeks and residential canals through the warm months, a 20- to 40-pound-class fishery on light tackle that gets almost no pressure; the rivers-and-backcountry reference covers this kind of water.

Launch at Indian Mound Park on Lemon Bay, a free four-lane ramp about a 20-minute idle-and-run from Stump Pass (see the boat-ramp directory), and get bait and straight answers at Fisherman's Edge on Placida Road. Statewide rules apply here: catch-and-release only, fish over 40 inches stay in the water, hook-and-line only (FWC tarpon rules). Fight them hard in the pass current — blacktips and bull sharks work this water too, and a tired tarpon released slowly has poor odds.