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Hanging on!

FIRST TIME TARPON

Fly fishing for tarpon is usually one of three things: easy, hard or frustrating. It’s easy if the fish are willing to eat and stay hooked. It’s hard if the fish aren’t willing to eat and it’s frustrating if the fish won’t eat or will eat but won’t stay hooked or they just don’t show up or are laid up and have lock jaw.

Much has been written and filmed on this one species. The amount of money spent by anglers to pursue these bad boys in areas all over the globe would astound you. The season begins in earnest for Florida, Belize and other destinations in May and June. Many hard core tarpon anglers plan their calendars around the tarpon migration and make annual trips south to do battle with these magnificent fish.

I have had a few encounters with tarpon, usually while bonefishing. They were just passing through and one or two half hearted casts was all it amounted to. Some of these fish were migrating and some were resident fish that stayed in the area year round. It was exciting to see them and often made me wonder what it would be like to go on a trip targeting tarpon and nothing else.

I got my wish two years ago down off of Sugarloaf Key in the Florida Keys. It was for my 40^th birthday that my wife set up a week in the Keys and that gave me an opportunity to book a guide for two days of tarpon fishing. The problem was all the well-known guides were booked up and most of them stay that way sometimes up to a year in advance. I got a recommendation on a less well known guide and went with it. Shane Wood was his name. He was your typical young transplant from Montana who came down for a summer season and never left. He was in his seventh season as a tarpon guide.

We left out of Key West and ran a short distance out into open water. Shane staked up on a small underwater sandbar and we waited. Soon enough three tarpon cruised over the light sand and their dark bodies were easy to see. The first fish ate my fly and I hit him hard three times to drive the hook into his boney mouth. He jumped three times and the hook came out. My first tarpon on the fly and it was as exciting as you would expect.

One fish I cast to came out of the water to eat the fly. I could hear Shane on the poling platform laughing at the aggression of this fish.

The most memorable fish I hooked over the two days I was able to fish went about eighty-five pounds. Not a bruiser in terms of tarpon but the largest fish I had ever had on a fly rod. I fought him for an hour and we followed him for over three miles before disaster struck. I managed to get him to the boat and when he saw Shane leaning over to lip him he took off around the back of the boat. As I was trying to move with him I slipped and fell. The fish used this opportunity to make his way around the outboard, pinning my rod against the base of the poling platform. You can guess what happened next. The 11wt. didn’t stand a chance and snapped like a twig. Game over. I had no leverage with half a rod and the hook fell free.

We never boated a single tarpon in two days. That didn’t bother me one bit. I was able to get the hook into eight fish and all that did was light a fire in my soul for this prehistoric creature. Is it the power, the size, the speed or the unpredictable nature of tarpon that mesmerizes so many anglers?  All of the above. I now know what all the fuss has been about.