The track shown below demonstrates the deep water habits of large tarpon. This large female was tagged in Florida in June and migrated to Louisiana. The fish swam directly through the area which had been impacted by the Deep Water Horizon drilling explosion the year before.
Satellites Track tarpon
in the gulf
Tagging Traveling Tarpon
"A seemingly universal constant that we have uncovered over the years is that tarpon have an innate desire for ocean water temperatures of 78 to 79 degrees. It’s an almost magical temperature band that tarpon seek, and they can suddenly materialize almost overnight in good habitats with that water temperature. How tarpon know where and when to locate such specific temperatures is, in fact, another mystery to science. We know that tarpon can tolerate high water temperatures, and often make feeding sorties into very warm water pursuing prey like menhaden and mullet.
Giant tarpon weighing way over 130 pounds are well known shallow-water inhabitants, especially in the Florida Keys and northern Caribbean. But PAT tagging has shown migrating tarpon are deep-water fish too. Tarpon spend significant amounts of time in waters 30 to 100 feet deep; and we’ve documented them diving to depths greater than 500 feet, usually at night. Some of the deepest diving tarpon have been documented during migrations north from Mexico, but also fish moving northward from Trinidad. It’s a natural, unbounded and never-ending jigsaw puzzle."