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Location: Maple Grove, MN | I spent last week surf fishing in Puerto Rico. I got a lot of different fish species to hit ranging in size from about 20 to around 70 inches. One never knows what will hit in the surf. I managed to get Tarpon, Barracuda, Jacks and Grouper interested enough to hit. Man do those saltwater fish fight hard though. Tarpon are just nuts and those big Barracuda are like Muskies on steroids. It sure is easier to get them to hit than to land them though. The Tarpon go straight in the air and Barracudas have incredibly hard mouths. I managed to catch a few fish anyway.
The hot baits were 3-4 inch swim baits and 4 1/2 inch popper lures. The poppers are topwater lures that are designed to "pop" by throwing water when jerked and can be made to jump like a bait fish - if one jerks hard enough. Things got really nuts when I made the poppers jump in the air on the retrieve. That is when I got the big fish going and even had mobs of seagulls and pelicans chasing the lure at times. I can't tell you what a rush it was to have 6 ft Tarpon, 4 ft Barracuda and big Jack fish going after a surface bait. They were coming right out of the water after that thing. At one point, I had an entire school of Tarpon chasing it and none of them caught it. But they did throw a lot of water in the air and got my heart racing. 
The groupers and smaller Barracuda preferred the swim-baits. I just had to get the bait up close to the rocks to catch them. But then I stepped on a couple of sea urchins that went right threw my Crocs, into my feet and quickly reminded what intense pain felt like. I really do not like sea urchins. 
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weekend fishing