It's Tarpon Time in southwest Florida

MAY 10, 2009

It?s Tarpon Time in Southwest Florida! Yes, the big silver beasts are back for their annual spawning migration, and seem to have begun littering the nearshore beaches off Casey Key, Manasota Key, and Venice.

Because tarpon actually are nocturnal feeders, it stands to reason that late night and very early morning hours would be the best time to present a fly that would be enticing enough to trigger a ?Let?s Eat This? reaction. However, most folks watched too many re-runs of ?Jaws,? and are mortally afraid of being in the dark where there could be sharks.

So, the majority of our tarpon angling happens from just before dawn (yes, Virginia, there ARE sharks out here but they really WON?T bite the boat in half) and continues through the early morning.

Which is why I drove 1,500 miles to take Kate, Ghost and Heart back to Michigan two weeks ago. English setters simply do not understand why Dad has to get out of bed at 3:30 in the morning and disturb their peaceful snoring. Nor do they comprehend climbing into all of our respective crates when it?s still daylight at 7pm. Double Ditto for Kate.

Which is why the three of them are freezing up on the 45th parallel while I?m roasting in blazing sunshine with temps that hit 93 yesterday.

But what about the *&%# FISH!!!!!! you ask. Ah, well. Yes. Bob Darnold of Sutton?s Bay, Michigan, and his nephew-by-marriage, Kurt Liederman spent three days with me last week chasing tarpon and assorted other finny creatures.

We rocked & rolled outside Stump Pass on Wednesday and never saw a live fin. Bazillions of tarpon were running silent and deep below us in the nearshore Gulf (according to my Garmin 172C), but wouldn?t come up top. Finally, when Bob nearly pitched off the deck of my Hewes Redfisher, we headed back inside Lemon Bay.

Spanish mackerel and a variety of other finned animals came to the proffered flies and jigs?particularly a couple of cobia! I had glanced behind the boat and saw two large brown shapes floating at the surface.

?Cobia,? I yelled, and Kurt made an absolutely perfect cast. The smaller of the two?a mere 30-pounder!?immediately ate the glass minnow imitation and for the next hour Kurt deftly played that fish on an ultra-light rod rigged with 10-pound line and a 20-pound bite tippet.

Meanwhile, the other cobia?which must have weighed in at more than 60 pounds?kept nudging the hooked fish, and generally was curiously wondering what was up with his buddy. We got that cobia to the boat dozens of times, but always JUST out of netting reach. I did touch the leader at one point, so it counts as a legal catch, but after just over an hour the line SNAPPPPED and everybody groaned.

Kurt was impressed with that fish, but tarpon was the name of the game and Bob was concerned about his ?sea legs in the rolling water of the Gulf.? So, we went to Plan B. Which was the Myakka River, where scores of juvenile poons in the 10 to 50-pound class abound. With some 80-pounders thrown into the mix to keep everybody?s adrenaline rush at peak levels.

I guess Kurt described the situation quite aptly when he said, ?if tarpon were torpedoes this boat would have been sunk a hundred times.? Simply put, they were EVERYWHERE. Tarpon to the left of us. Tarpon to the right of us. Tarpon exploding out from underneath the boat in a muddy swirl.

And yes indeed, Kurt jumped two on Thursday?both in the 60-pound class. Alas, he did not heed the guide?s warning that ?setting the hook on a tarpon is like driving it into the side of this boat.? We got the jump, but both fish threw the hook.

Friday was MOS. Only without the jumps. We had big guys constantly around us the entire time we were in the main river, and had several different pods of 10-to-20-pounders frolicking back and forth in one of the residential canals.

They absolutely would NOT, however, eat an artificial offering. Capt. Gospo had the same frustrating experience with his clients that day. ?Fish all OVER the place,? he lamented, ?but maybe this damned full moon got them all screwed up.?

Who knows? They?re fish. I HATE fish! Or, as my old Chilean friend Oscar Feliu once muttered, ?Damned fish are just like women. One night YES, next night NO!?

Well, I guess Gary Sibbald will find out this week when he comes back down from Ontario. He?s got a raging case of Tarpon Fever, and I?ve got the cure!

ENGLISH SETTER UPDATE

Kate says the Little Guy?who turns two years old next month?has a raging case of Bird Fever. ?He runs from window to window looking at the mourning doves and whining pitifully. It?s still only 45 degrees up here, so it feels like bird season.

?Looks like it, too,? she said. ?The trees are all pretty bare, but at least the daffodils are starting to bloom, so there?s SOME color out there.?

Ghost, who will be 12 years old on Friday, is acting like a dog half that age, according to Kate. ?Except she?s been digging big holes in the dog pen and got her nose absolutely impacted with sand and dirt. Poor thing could hardly breathe, and kept sneezing constantly.?

Sigh.

Two months before I?m roaming the woods and waters of northern Michigan with all of them.

At least I?ve got several hundred thousand tarpon to keep me company down here!

Tight Loops,
Capt. Tony