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Megalops Atlantica . . . At last! A Tarpon Odyssey by Brad Miller
The cruising school interrupted their stalwart journey north and broke into a circular pattern. In this way, tarpon follow each other, head to tail, for five to ten minutes in a supposed pre-spawn behavior known as a “daisy chain”. This formation is what makes the strong of heart quiver at the knees. They ranged from eighty to over one hundred fifty pounds. Fish in this “ring” configuration are perhaps the ultimate target for the fly angler. If your target fish does not take, your fly can still attract subsequent interlopers bringing up the rear. It’s like trying to get a date from a merry-go-round full of women, just keep trying and you might get lucky! Fish in a daisy chain are unfettered, relaxed and often ready for a quick appetizer made of feathers. The sun descended to the endless horizon over the Gulf of Mexico. A light wind broke the surface. I figured another 45 minutes and we’d be done for the day. The tropical tranquility masked the schizophrenic drama topside. Our guide madly triangulated the flats skiff to head off the brooding armada of silver kings. We readied ourselves with the giddy fervor of high schoolers - looking for trouble on a Friday night. “There chaining!”, exclaimed our guide. The school undulated in the slow circular dance of which dreams are made. The daisy chain was twenty feet in diameter. Fish took turns rolling on the surface and lazily dropping down six or eight feet while replacements rose from the depths to gulp the hot moist Gulf air. Tarpon (megalops atlantica) are primitive fish capable of getting oxygen from water (through gills) and air (gulping). This aids juvenile fish growing up in brackish channels with low oxygen levels. They can simply resort to an amphibian approach to breathing, if needed. Tarpon also gulp air during a battle to gain strength and wear out their combatant. “Get ready!” he said, eyes riveted on the ring of giant tarpon engrossed in a primordial mating ritual performed as such for thousands of years. “All right, gimme’ a fifty footer ten feet ahead of the lead fish”, he whispered with his right arm outstretched pointing in case the fish were eavesdropping. Coiled line vanished from the front deck below me as a quick false cast, aided by a sharp double haul, shot sixty feet of slime line fifteen feet in front of the last visible tarpon. “Let it sink”, he said as the weighted streamer fell slowly. The pattern was large globs of purple and black saddle hackle known adoringly as “Blue Death”. I held up for an eight count and sent the fly to a depth of around six feet. “OK strip”, he said and I stripped in short bursts praying one of the fish in this weird oceanic square dance had a hankering for an hors d’oeuvre. . . Ten years earlier March 15, 1991 Belize, Caribbean I dumped a wimpy cast in front of an oncoming six pack of Belize tarpon. The weight forward #10 floating line caught a puff of wind, thanks to an open loop, and collapsed in an awful heap. Belize silver kings are generally smaller than the giants Nonetheless, a seventy pounder rushed the fly, detecting it beneath the pitiful coils of fly line languishing above. The fish attacked, mouth agape as I stripped wildly to recover from my “deer in the headlights” presentation. I gasped at the great open mouth set to crush my pitiful offering. I spasmodically set the hook and skillfully wrested the fly unscathed as a welder’s helmet jaw slammed shut on nothing but salt water. My first shot at a big tarpon was lost to the premature hook-set we northerners know so well. Tarpon Myths Explored Myth #1: Tarpon fishing is prohibitively expensive. Fact: Tarpon fishing is expensive, especially if you fly off to some far flung destination after the promise of guides for $150.00 a day (this is considered cheap) or some package deal including bonefish and permit. The money you save on guide fees, you easily replace with other travel expenses and medications for gastrointestinal disorders. Most Caribbean flats packages are really a bonefishing trip with a few shots at accidental permit thrown in if your lucky. And since permit rarely eat flies, it’s largely a hoax. Tarpon are regarded as the lesser of the three since they are difficult to pattern and therefore disregarded as a prime target. A tarpon trip is usually a first light assault on a known school of rolling fish that rarely take. Ask anyone who’s been to Belize lately. Suggestion: If you want to catch a tarpon, go tarpon fishing exclusively. Save time, money, and hair follicles and fish SW Florida tarpon in May or June. Fish are always there and their movements are predictable. Guides are expensive ($350 - $500), but split between two people, can be manageable. Figure about four days on the water. Two will probably be a wash owing to bad weather or bad luck. This will leave one or two days of decent conditions. Morning and evenings are sometimes best. Ask if the guide will do a split day: 3-4 hours in the morning - (6:00am - 10:00am, break time from 10:00am to 3:00pm, and 4 plus hours in the late afternoon until dusk, say 3:00pm to 7:00pm. This is usually dependent on the distance required to run to the fishing area. I suggest fishing in areas where you can do a split. You get much more fishing time if you are only running for ten or fifteen minutes. You may gain as much as an hour or more per day of prime fishing using this technique. Ask the guide up front. Myth #2: You don’t need a guide to catch a tarpon. Fact: Unless you are experienced and know exactly what’s going on with local conditions and fish movements, you need a guide! You can catch tarpon by renting your own boat, but this requires experience. I know $500 per day for a guide is high, but it is worth it. Tarpon fishing is the only kind of fly fishing where it is almost imperative to be guided. You can wade a bonefish flat on your own and do OK. This is different. Fish will rarely show themselves requiring special fish spotting skills and techniques. Also, good tarpon guides are hard to book during prime season so one must think well ahead - up to one year! There are always new guides coming on the scene with whom you can experiment with only a week or two notice. Suggestion: Hire an experienced tarpon guide specializing in fly fishing. Some guides will fish bait as well, should you go with a non-fly angler. Make every attempt to get a referral. Specifically look for someone who’s more than just a nice guy. Get somebody with known credentials who’s put other anglers consistently on fish. Advertisements in flyfishing magazines will not guarantee a quality experience. Your author has third degree burns from fast talking charlatans sounding for all the world like Lefty Kreh. Myth #3: Winter in Florida is a great time for vacation and tarpon fishing. Fact: It’s a great time for vacation but seldom reliable for tarpon fishing. Winter fishing in south Florida (January through March) is very sporadic and difficult to pattern for silver kings. Early season action can be excellent around the Keys, but not as predictable as late spring to summer. Go ahead and give it a shot if you are down that way, but don’t expect too much. Frequent cold fronts can send fish deep and unavailable to the fly angler. Fish certainly are taken from December through April. However, most seasoned guides will tell you to come back in May or June to get in on the real consistent action. Area guides often lament when the snow birds leave, the good fishing is just beginning in Florida. Weather in May begins to mellow, winds die off, cold fronts are rare and nearly nonexistent once June arrives. In certain areas off the south west coast of Florida, annual migrations perennially occur when tens of thousands of tarpon cruise close to shore, moving all the way up the west coast of Florida and into waters of neighboring Gulf states. Most of the famous hallowed tarpon waters are off south and west Florida. Beginning in May, fishing from Fort Myers north begins to heat up as migrating silver kings show up within a mile of shore. Suggestion: If you combine moderate predictable weather with the migration of thousands of fish, you have the most reliable formula for success. Type tarpon into your favorite search engine and look for fishing opportunities in May and June from Fort Myers to Tampa and even north of there. Ask the guides when the most consistent, predictable action occurs. Last year a reported fish over 200 pounds broke Billy Pate’s (the tarpon flyfishing equivalent of Ted Williams) long standing record of a IFGA fly caught fish taken near the famed tarpon “pig pen” of Homasassa, FL. Myth #4: A thirty foot single haul, straight line cast is all you need. Fact:: Guides will sometimes even tell you this as you prepare for your trip. A thirty footer will work. But to throw a thirty footer into the jaws of a twenty five knot wind, requires skill. To throw a straight thirty footer in wind, you must be able to reliably punch out a sixty footer. You will almost always encounter pesky wind conditions or spooky fish requiring longer casts. Every tarpon trip I witness countless chances are lost to poor casting ability. Invariably, the angler (myself included) did not practice at home under a variety of conditions. Also, you are throwing slow sinking line and weighted flies which compound the problems. Combine poor technique, a queasy stomach and tricky sphincter, and you will fail almost every time. Suggestion: You are spending a fair sum of money for such a trip. Don’t ruin your trip by short changing yourself on casting practice. You should be able to double haul a 12 weight outfit effectively out to sixty feet. Rent a video on fly casting. An intermediate - level casting tape should include double hauling which is a handy technique for any fly fisherman. It helps to shoot line on thebackcast, as well. This will aid in getting a lot of line aloft quickly. Good tarpon anglers take one or one and a half false casts before shooting out a sixty to eighty footer. You must be able to act quickly and efficiently when the light turns green. Your guide will give you a quick lesson if asked. They will not offer many unsolicited tips.
June 17, 2001 7:45PM Boca Grande, Florida I felt the line hesitate and then a seismic jolt. I strip set hard and the fish did nothing for a split second. This allowed for a couple hard side sweep sets, with simultaneous stripping. The Gulf erupted twenty feet from the boat. Out off the spay catapulted a one hundred and thirty pound silver king that arched into a back llayout and hit the surface full force. Shards of froth, water, and slime shot asunder before the sea parted and the fish disappeared only to explode forty feet starboard.. “Good God!”, I exclaimed as it exploded again into a berserk tail walk covering thirty feet before crashing down into the blue. The fish came out again in a complete somersault, this time fifty feet out. I cleared all the coiled fly line off the deck and got the fish on the reel. Away it went jumping one more time nearly one hundred feet out. Forty five minutes later after chasing the fish and playing tug o’ war, we finally got it to the boat. The guide slid it upside the skiff for a quick picture. We thoroughly revived the tarpon before release. I can almost feel the pain in my stomach muscles from pulling nonstop, as hard as I could, for nearly an hour. My jaw muscles still tingle from the mile-wide smile pasted on my mug for the next few days. This was the culmination of one journey and the beginning of another. I had finally caught my first giant tarpon on a fly. . . a goal set ten years earlier! The point is simple: If you want to catch such a fish, stack the odds in your favor and learn from dopes like me. You will eventually succeed! There is nothing in the angling world that rivals tarpon on the fly. (Come to think of it: Battling a thirteen pound chrome steelie out of dark water ain’t too bad either!) Next time your mind drifts toward a new fishing challenge, consider one where aspirin and Maalox are every bit as important as a 12 weight fly rod.
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The fish rolled lazily. A large head emerged and disappeared followed by the caudal and tail fin. Its eye showed a vacant timeless stare. I counted six or seven knowing the school probably held twice that number beneath the slate-blue surface. They appeared dark while submerged, but as they rose and broke water, they took on an iridescent gold and green hue. 
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