How big can Tarpons actually get?

The Tarpon is a large coastal fish that is a member of the Elopidae family of fish. They have a dark blue to greenish back and silver body, sometimes lsightly darker in estuary waters. Tarpon are native to the Atlantic Ocean and certain parts of the Indo-Pacific Ocean and are a greatly sort after fish by coastal anglers.

The Tarpon can grow up to a huge eight feet in length (2.3 meters) and can way in excess of 200 pounds. The record weight of a Tarpon caught off the coast of Florida is a whopping 243 pounds according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, there has also been reports of some Tarpon growing up to 400 pounds in weight but there is no evidence to back this claim. Although Tarpon can grow to such large sizes, the average weight of a Tarpon an angler catches is about forty to fifty pounds.

The Tarpon is a slow maturing fish and takes anywhere from seven to fourteen years to become a fully grown adult, it is due to this that it is not very common for anglers to catch a Tarpon of a larger size.

Tarpon have capabilities many fish do not have, they can live in water that is devoid of oxygen by breathing oxygen from the water surface. Many anglers love to fish for Tarpon due to the sizes they can grow to and also because they put up a real fight partly due to being able to launch themselves in to the air. 

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