The tripletail is unique fish.
My first encounter with one many years ago began as I spotted a floating coconut and also spotted a tripletail floating along side.
Strong winds knock Florida coconuts down and make great structure for this species. At times the fish may appear to be a brown plastic bag floating in the water until it comes to life.
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Tripletail look like a pan fish on steroids, are great fun to catch and a powerful fish once hooked.
Tripletail were once a well-kept secret but that no longer is the case as more anglers now target these fish.
They look like a pan fish on steroids, are great fun to catch and a powerful fish once hooked. They sometimes jump right out of the water.
Some anglers compare the fight to that of a snook. They make you earn your catch.
Tripletail are generally dark brown. Some have a more mottled brown and white appearance. They have a sort of prehistoric look about them and are not the most attractive fish.
Tripletail are most often seen near structure as well as floating object, which sometimes makes them an easy target. The biggest obstacle anglers face is trying to pull these fish away from the structure before they wrap or tangle the line and break off.
Tripletail are good eating. Their name implies they have three tails but actually they just have the anal and dorsal fins. They are a curious fish and sometimes if found on a crab trap line offshore they become a surface fish and they can be seen by the trained eyes of a good angler.
Tripletail swim and float on their sides as flounder do. As they decoy as floating debris they are able to strike smaller fish, shrimp and crabs with great success.
Tripletail can be slow to strike bait so a slowm twitching bait usually works best below a floating cork. Often tripletail will sun themselves near the surface.
Having a landing net onboard is the best way to get this fish safely into your icebox as they have teeth and sharp fins.
Tripletail are often found in the same haunts as cobia another highly sought-after fish. Weed lines are a good place to find both species.
Tripletail are not a schooling fish so they are most often caught in specifically targeted certain areas with structure of a weed line.
