Bobby I saw a post of yours in a BCP thread about wanting to feed your Tarpon. Not wanting to hijack that thread decided to address it here in your thread.
I'll tell you some of my limited knowledge gained by diving with them. I dive daily through the winter and see Tarpon very regularly. Not daily, but at least several times a week. The ones I see are nearly always in the 4 to 5 ft. length range.
I rarely see them go after a fish during the day. Most of my sightings they are lounging mid water a short ways out away from the reef. If approached carefully can get within ten or so feet but ocasionally closer. Not much helpful feeding information for daytime.
But night is a different story. It is rare to get through a night dive without one or more Tarpon showing up. They have learned to hunt by divers lights. They will come from behind cruising right past the diver, sometimes within inches of our heads but usually about arms length away and swim lazily right in our light path. We have learned to move our light away from their path to keep them moving in different directions because if we do not they will target a sleepy fish and nail it. It is really weird to watch. They look like sidewinder missles. They do not go in a straiht path to the fish but wander back and forth, side to side as if they are using some kind of sonar rather than sight. Or maybe it is just that their sight is not that keen in the low light and they are alternating which eye is seeing the fish. Sometimes as they get really close to the fish they will turn almost upside down for the last incremental manuver when they capture the fish.
I did a pre dawn dive about a month ago and two Tarpon showed up and stayed with me right up until there was just enough light from sunrise for me to partially see without the dive light. Then they were instantly gone.
Ok, for the part that might be helpful to your feeding them. Because of the way I have observed them feeding in subdued light, it is my belief that most of their feeding is done in twilight of dusk and dawn as well as on moonlight nights. I've seen them hanging around the dock on moonlight nights or if there is a lighted dock tarpon will be around it. I think they feed on non-nocturnal slugish fish as the fish are getting ready to go to sleep or getting ready to wake up. When light is good enoguh for the tarpon to slightly see but the target fish is sluggish. They don't make a racing run at the fish until the last foot or two. More like a slightly increased speed methodical homing in on them. Bobbing lazily back and forth as they home in on their target.
So you might want to try going out to your pond at night with a flashliht and give them some light to fish by or install a low wattage dock light. Solar yard light might work. I think this will give the tarpon a feeding advantage.
We avoid doing that while diving by not focusing a light on any single fish for long. If the tarpon heads toward a fish we move the liht away so they loose contact, only to circle around and try again.
My grandson was here to dive with me for a couple weeks and I watched him target a fish with his light on a night dive and let the tarpon get it. It is fun to do once just to watch it happen but I wagged my finger at him to not do it again. The Tarpon have already gained a bad habit of hunting by divers lights and we do not need to give them an unfair advantage at cleaning out the reefs fish population.
