Tarpon Fishing in Campeche: Adventure in Mexico's Angling Paradise

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This article was originally titled “Tarpon Town” in Fly Fisherman's 2025 Destinations special publication.

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We were enjoying a predawn breakfast under the waning starlight. The dark, rich, aromatic coffee tasted glorious as the morning songs of tropical birds emanated from just beyond the courtyard’s ochre-colored walls. The rumbling of thunder in the near distance was a poignant reminder that in fishing, as in life, Mother Nature has the last word.

It sounded comforting in its promise of life-giving water falling freely from the sky. It sounded ominous as a warning of life-taking lightning that in an instant could change everything for three fragile humans on a tiny panga. And it sounded like the uncertainty that is an essential ingredient of any true adventure. After all, if we knew exactly how things would unfold, why bother going? We’d come here to fish for juvenile tarpon on the Bay of Campeche—one of the most vibrant ecosystems on the planet. As much as possible, we would not be deterred.

Angling Paradise

When we arrived at the docks we could see thunderheads the color of coal smoke drifting across the bay just south of Campeche, and lightning was indeed illuminating the predawn skies. My south-of-the-border soul brother Raul Castaneda was discussing the climatic conditions with his captains Juan, Roberto, and Fernando and with the clients, who soon became my newest friends. I was sharing this adventure with one of my best friends, Long Island fishing guide David Blinken. With him were three of his longtime clients: Alex and Guillermo Nunez, and Steve Townsend.

Raul is owner and lead guide at Tarpon Town Anglers & Lodge, a place I was visiting for the first time, but which was destined to forever become a part of me. After a brief dockside consultation we all agreed that the storm was moving slowly inland and south, and that it was safe to launch our pangas and begin the long and lovely journey north toward Los Petenes Biosphere Reserve and the vast expanse of mangroves, estuaries, coves, and grass flats we’d be exploring and fishing over the next four days.

This was our first of several stunning days on the water—casting to tarpon, snook, barracudas, and jacks as parrots flew overhead and green and yellow butterflies fluttered all around us. As the week unfolded I came to treasure every dreamlike moment. In fact, I fell in love with Campeche and the forests and waters that make up the Los Petenes Biosphere Reserve, a thriving ecosystem that hosts hundreds of resident and migrant bird species, plus crocodiles, sea turtles, and the occasional jaguar. It’s also an angling paradise.

As the panga skidded and bounced north along the mangrove-forested shoreline, the rising sun illuminated the Gulf waters like shards of broken glass—almost blinding in their brilliance. I sat on the bow seat watching as flying fish launched in front of us and tropical hummingbirds hovered just out of reach.

I was enjoying the ride so much that it seemed almost too soon when Juan turned the panga toward a sheltered bay, cut the motor, and began poling toward an armada of rolling tarpon. I could barely believe my eyes. There were tarpon to our bow and stern. There were tarpon to our starboard and port. Everywhere I looked, there were tarpon. We were surrounded. The poor bastards. I had them right where I wanted them. I could cast in any direction and find tarpon!

So I cast into the early morning half light and connected with a juvenile tarpon on my first cast and first strip of the line. My rod bent toward the water and an acrobatic battle ensued that consisted of half a dozen thrashing leaps, several head-shaking runs, and finally a quick release of my first tarpon of the morning.

With each jump I leaned forward and “bowed to the king” to allow enough slack for the fish to leap and shake its metallic body without tossing the fly or breaking the tippet. Even with these young fish, tarpon fishing is a complex and brutal dance where both partners take turns leading and following. And like any dance, it can flow like music one moment and unravel into something off-beat with a single misstep.

My second and third casts led to two more tarpon hooked, fought, landed, and released—each one a bit bigger than the last. I had to make a half dozen more casts before connecting with my fourth tarpon of the morning. It made a couple of spectacular leaps, tossing glistening jewel-like droplets into the humid sky. By the time I got him boatside I could see my buddy David watching me from the other boat, where he and Steve were casting—they too were surrounded by rolling tarpon. I had hauled in four tarpon in twice as many casts, and as is often the case, it was time for nature to reinforce my deep sense of humility. Over the ensuing hour I hooked eight more tarpon—and lost every single one. Mierda!

Tarpon Town and Campeche

Tarpon Town is a family-and-friends operation owned, managed, and guided by local Campechanos. It’s located in the heart of Campeche’s historic district just a block away from the famed 59th Street pedestrian area and two blocks from the downtown plaza (Cathedral Square). Each evening we simply walked to one of our favorite restaurants for our choice of elegant indoor or outdoor dining under the stars or beside the Bay of Campeche. I felt completely safe in Campeche and quickly fell in love with its friendly people and slow, relaxed, family-centered pace of living. I could live here for the rest of my life, if I were so fortunate. In fact, Raul’s renovated childhood home was a lot like the one I have dreamed of most of my life. It was as if I’d been there before.

In the mornings, just as the tropical birds began to sing, we’d enjoy a delicious predawn breakfast in one courtyard. And each afternoon after a fantastic day of fishing, we’d sip cold drinks in and around the beautiful plunge pool of the other courtyard.

The cool and comfortable living room offers all the modern amenities, including an entertainment center we never used and a fly-tying bench that saw a lot of use. Beyond the incredible fishing, Tarpon Town offers a range of fascinating activities, including tours of ancient Mayan cities, Mexican handcrafts and villages, and Campeche’s beautiful Spanish Colonial sites and museums. Poolside massages and private Spanish and Mayan cooking classes are also available upon request.

I took a day off from fishing so Raul and I could share a traditional Yucatan breakfast and then explore the Mayan city of Edzná—an experience I will never forget. There is much more to any “fishing adventure” beyond fishing and catching fish. Campeche is the perfect place to do a little bit of everything—fishing, dining, exploring, and embracing the colorful culture of the real Yucatan.

Tarpon

Depending upon the time of year and the stage of their life-cycle, tarpon can be found in the deep, warm coastal waters of coral reefs, along shorelines, and in and near the surf, as well as prowling shallow bays and mangrove lagoons. Tarpon have the ability to get additional oxygen by gulping air as they roll on the surface, allowing them to survive in water with low oxygen levels. This allows juvenile tarpon to live, thrive, and grow in the stagnant waters surrounding the roots of mangrove trees while many potential predators such as sharks avoid these waters. Prey species such as guppies, killifish, and mullet have also adapted to this low-oxygen environment.

Tarpon are as prehistoric as they appear, with their massive eyes, armored scales, bucket mouths, and sleek, fork-tailed bodies that make them perfect high-speed predatory killing machines. Fossil research shows that tarpon have been swimming in our oceans for about 18 million years, while humans in any form arose around 6 million years ago.

Tarpon can reach lengths up to 8 feet and can weigh as much as 280 pounds. Males are smaller, and rarely exceed 100 pounds. The larger body size of females allows them to produce more eggs; therefore the survival of large females is vitally important to the continued success of tarpon. The life span of a tarpon can be in excess of 50 years.

According to Michael Larkin, Ph.D., “. . . tarpon reach sexual maturity around eight years old with spawning taking place in deeper offshore waters. Tarpon have a unique larvae phase in which they do not appear to feed and must be born in open waters with stable salinity. The larvae have long, slender bodies and very low energy requirements, and they avoid predation by being transparent. When larval tarpon reach their final stage of development they swim inshore and settle in mangrove lagoons that act as nurseries for the young fish. At the age of about three, tarpon tend to move out to various nearshore habitats following forage fish species such as finger mullet and needlefish.”

Strategies, Tactics, & Tackle

Sunrise is an excellent time to fish for tarpon because the nighttime lack of photosynthesis adding oxygen to their otherwise low-oxygen mangrove lagoon habitats forces them to “roll” at the surface more frequently to meet their oxygen demands. Each morning after a hearty and delicious breakfast served in the lodge courtyard, you will be driven to the docks and reunited with your local boat captain/guide for the day. It is quite a memorable panga ride from Campeche to the lagoons of the Biosphere Reserve, with the morning sun rising golden over the mangrove forests. You will arrive just in time to have the best chance of being surrounded by rolling tarpon in the 5- to 25-pound range, with larger juvenile tarpon possible. In the winter season you may go out into deeper waters in search of larger tarpon.

Bring 8-, 9-, or 10-weight fast-action rods with floating, weight-forward lines and at least 100 yards of backing. If you are in the late season and going for bigger fish in deeper waters, your 10-weight might be better served with a sinking-tip or slow-sinking line. I always carry an extra spool with a sink-tip line.

Also make sure to bring some 9-foot, 20-pound-test monofilament leaders and 40-pound-test fluorocarbon tippet material. Classic tarpon flies are the order of the day, including: Seaducers, Clouser Minnows, Cockroaches, Gurglers, EPs, Tarpon Bunnies, the classic Stu Apte Tarpon fly, and Gary Merriman’s Tarpon Toad. None should be longer than 3 inches.

While exploring the creeks and inlets deep in the forest, short, fast, precise, casts of 10 to 40 feet are the norm. In the lagoons, on grass flats, and over deeper waters, your casts may range from short and repetitive 20– to 40-foot shots under the mangrove canopy to longer casts of up to 90 feet across flats and open water.

As is often the case, the farther you can cast accurately, the more opportunities you’re likely to have—but long casts are not required to catch tarpon at Tarpon Town. I connected with numerous fish quite close to the panga. I could have jumped off the platform and tried to ride them. They were that close. In fact, I cast to a small school of bigger fish in the 40-pound range that repeatedly swam right under the panga, while refusing my attempts at “tarpon foolery.” If what you’re looking for is many opportunities to fish for tarpon—both sight casting to cruising fish and blind casting to likely spots that can lead to explosive hook-ups and joyful releases—I can’t imagine a better place than Tarpon Town.

Reserva de la Biosfera Los Petenes (Los Petenes Biosphere Reserve)

The Reserve is a 314.6-square-mile (814.8-square-kilometer) UNESCO World Heritage Site—a vast natural area of vital importance to a myriad of species, including tarpon. This region of the Yucatan Peninsula may be the premier location in the world for finding juvenile tarpon because it includes every habitat type required for them to thrive. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf of Mexico, adjoining the 423.7-square-mile (1,097.3-square-kilometer) Ria Celestun Biosphere Reserve to the north and the town of Campeche to the south. Anglers and visitors at Tarpon Town can freely explore this extensive, uniquely beautiful, and nearly pristine stretch of vibrantly alive coastal waters and mangrove forests. Wildlife includes more than 300 species of birds, two species of crocodiles—American (Crocodylus acutus) and Morelet’s (Crocodylus moreletii) crocodiles—and 47 species of mammals, including jaguars, ocelots, and bush dogs. Tarpon, snook, jacks, various snappers, sharks, and many other species of gamefish thrive throughout the Biosphere’s waters.

The karstic limestone geology of the area creates a vast freshwater aquifer that includes multiple cenotes, and freshwater springs form in the rock substrate. It is this geology that supplies the many freshwater and brackish streams flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, shaping the perfect tarpon habitats for each life stage, including creeks, inlets, mangrove-lined lagoons, beaches and sandbars, healthy turtle grass flats that stretch for miles, and deep offshore waters where the largest tarpon live, feed, and roll with abandon.

The primary coastal tree species here are the endemic button mangrove (Conocarpus erectus) and Campeche wood (Haematoxylum campechianum), as well as several other mangrove species. Mangroves are key and vital components of coastal ecosystems, which are unfortunately rapidly declining globally with dire consequences for wildlife and human life. Coastal ecosystems are in peril due to human development, pollution, invasive species, and the deleterious impacts of unnatural climate change.

By trapping sediments within their networks of roots, mangroves stabilize coastlines and help prevent natural erosion caused by waves, tides, and storms, as well as unnatural and rapidly increasing sea level rise due to the acceleration of climate change. This is not a hoax, my friends. As anglers and naturalists who love being out in Mother Nature, we need to be advocates for her protection.

Mangroves help to mitigate coastal damage due to storm surges—natural and manmade. Mangroves perform other important ecological functions, such as filtering pollutants and trapping sediments, thereby improving water quality in coastal areas that support healthy coastal ecosystems nearby, such as coral reefs and sea grass meadows. Globally, mangroves are home to a vast array of fish, crustaceans, invertebrates, reptiles, birds, and mammals, and they provide the nursery grounds for many fish species, including bonefish and tarpon.

Mangrove forests are even more efficient than terrestrial forests at carbon sequestration—the capturing and storing of carbon. This helps mitigate our current situation of unnaturally accelerated climate change by reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. As I write this, it is 105 degrees outside my Texas Hill Country home—in May.

This has become our new normal and is contributing to the recent and previously unprecedented seasonal phenomenon of entire stretches of spring-fed rivers going dry to the limestone—killing all aquatic life. From the streams of the Texas hills to the coasts of Mexico, riparian habitat is key to everything else—water is life. In short, we need mangrove and terrestrial forests to be restored and protected globally, or the consequences will be far more dire than the loss of a “fishery.”

One Last Cast

We all enjoyed an amazing week of fishing adventure and friendship, and every angler caught many tarpon each day. As our final day of fishing was coming to its end, I was looking for a chance to redeem myself after hooking 12 tarpon in a row earlier in the week—and losing 8 of them. And I did catch and release tarpon every day I fished, while seeing and casting to countless more fish than I caught. But my “12 fish redemption” never came. Instead, the fishing gods decided to keep me humble—something I have no difficulty with on any given day. Parrots called from the mangroves as I made one last cast and saw Fernando motioning to me to reel in and prepare for the boat ride home. David and I sat just across the cooler from each other, with ice-cold celebratory Modelo Especials in our hands. It had been a good day that would come to end with dinner and drinks and as much laughter as we could endure.

We worked hard for every fish on that last day, and we discovered that Guillermo and Alex had worked just as hard for roughly the same number of tarpon brought boatside. This had been Steve Townsend’s scheduled day of solo fishing—just him and his guide in a panga. That evening as we enjoyed dinner beside the Bay of Campeche, I listened silently as Steve told the story of how he had returned to that same cove where I’d caught four and lost eight tarpon earlier in the week. Once again he found it alive with rolling fish, just as we had that day. The difference was, he managed to hook and land all 12 tarpon!

Perhaps my redemption wasn’t about me going back and catching those lost fish. I had a wonderful week at Tarpon Town, fishing, dining on amazing regional foods, and enjoying cold Mexican beer and heartwarming tequila and exploring Mayan ruins and Spanish Colonial fortifications that once fended off pirates. Perhaps it was all about me hearing about another person succeeding where I had not, and in the end feeling truly joyful for him. In both fishing and friendship, life offers lessons. All we have to do is to let go of our expectations and hold on to our freedom, to choose gratitude and joy.

Recommended Gear

All the classic tarpon flies work at Tarpon Town. Bring Seaducers, Clouser Minnows, Cockroaches, Gurglers, EPs, Tarpon Bunnies, the classic Stu Apte Tarpon Fly, and Gary Merriman’s Tarpon Toad. Flies should be 3 inches or shorter. Bring tapered 20-pound-test saltwater leaders and a spool of 40-pound-test fluorocarbon material for bite tippet.

• Hardy Marksman Z 9-weight | $995
• Scientific Anglers Magnitude Smooth Infinity Clear Tip | $150
• Duck Camp Lightweight Performance DriRelease Hoodie | $80
• Simms Solarflex Guide Glove | $60
• Umpqua Deceiver HD Big Game Fluoro Pink 40 lb | $26

Book Your Destination

A quick flight of less than two hours via United Airlines from Houston was my way of getting there. But there are alternate routes through Miami and Dallas via American Airlines, and through Atlanta via Delta, all flying nonstop to Merida, Mexico. When you land, Tarpon Town drivers will meet you and drive you down the four-lane freeway for an enjoyable journey of less than two hours to Campeche and your new home away from home, Tarpon Town Anglers & Lodge. There you will get settled into your room and enjoy an evening cocktail in the courtyard before strolling through historic colonial Campeche to one of the many outstanding restaurants for dinner and drinks. In the morning after breakfast in the courtyard you will embark on your fishing adventure—one that will become a fond and treasured memory.

tarpontown.com

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Steve Ramirez is a Texas master naturalist, poet, and U.S. Marine Corps veteran. He is the author of four books published by Lyons Press: Casting Forward (2020), Casting Onward (2022), Casting Seaward (2023), and Casting Homeward (2024).

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