Suppose because FAOL had a glitch last weekend I’ll have to repost the lost chronicles of attempts at tarpon in a 2 foot chop…but that was near the end of the day! Started by casting to rolling tarpon on calm waters in a bay with the ambition of sleepwalking with the #11 weight & a 4" EP fly ! The Florida work ethic of put off today what one can do tomorrow because of it’s “hot” just can’t apply to the line speed needed to cast a fly 60’ or more. No lazy make the backcast & go out for a cup of coffee routine, there’s about 1 mississippi, 2 mississippi, 3 mississippi,4 mississippi TOO LATE to cast to that silver king ! The double haul in a 2 foot chop isn’t really too difficult when your trying the snow plow skiing technique to keep ones balance in the bow of a boat, unless of course one can’t see the tarpon because they are either a dark brown shadow, a gob of gray like a bait ball, a reflected silver flash or green, gold & white against the wave caps ! Just getting too old & too slow to play peek-a-boo over & through the waves while the boat bounces along. Amazed that a guide can see a pod of 'poon a hundred yards away & then pick them up after they’ve dived down to 20 some feet in these conditions. Almost 10 hours of casting a not-so-aerodynamic fly with an iron broomstick can make one realize they ain’t in shape to be pulled offshore a few miles by some 150 pound plus fish to fight in 4 or 5 foot swells after a couple hours ! 3 foot waves are breaking over the bow of the 17 foot flats skiff pointed into the sun & wind while the happy daisy chaining tarpon are waiting for the fly to hit the salt, but can’t stand in the bow of the skiff & keep balanced ! Have to cast from the deck & try to see the tails over the wave caps in the distance as the boat bobs up & down…just gotta do this again !
Where did you post it?
JC, I’m pretty sure it was in here. When you got everything back up and running, it seems as if we lost some threads. They appear to have ended around June 26 or something like that. 'Tis a little fuzzy on the chronological order of things.
I think I posted to Dave to cut a leg off a bar stool and park it on the side of a hill on the windiest day he could find to practice casting to them Tarpon off the bow of a flats boat. HA!
Yep, the article was here. I’m sure it got
caught in the cyber event over the holiday.
It was a good read. Chock full of
chuckles.G Warm regards, Jim
Yup, you’re right. There was a section of the BB that went up, but was stuck on the old server. I loaded up the site to the new server from a copy of FAOL that was about 5 days old.
Probably posted on June 30 because I had casted the #6 weight with a #7 WF-I for snook the day before & threw the #11 weight for the tarpon. Should have gotten the heaviest bamboo 9 foot rod & an old heavy Pflueger reel to throw flies at the snook & practice for the #11 weight, which would have been a whole lot lighter after the bamboo; thus resulting in muscle cramps in places that I forgot existed when typing ! As for FL_SKIBUM’s idea of a short legged bar stool on the side of a hill on the windiest of days, where in south Florida is there a hill other than around bridges or a swale ? A 3 foot hill isn’t like the foothills of the Rockies ! It would have taken a bar stool with 4 different length legs to even get close to the 2 foot chop & the quartering waves action ! A bar stool in a high wire act would be a simulation of the conditions that, as a spectator would be very interesting !