Tarpon Chronicles 2014 Day 2

May 13, 2014

We woke up to wind that was blowing even harder this morning, 30 miles an hour plus. The water at our first stop was extremely milky from the wind waves stirring up the bottom.  We couldn't have seen a tarpon unless it was swimming with it's back out of the water.  Another unpleasant wrinkle was an hour-long cloudburst.  At least the blackening skies gave us plenty of warning so we had time to don our rain gear.

Eventually we picked up and ran to a second spot.  Not long after we set up, a nice sized group of fish came our way.  Don was up and fired a beautiful cast.  I don't know what looked so different about the fly's position with relation to the approaching school, but both our guide, Scott, and I knew it was gonna get bit.  Everything was perfect!  The fish ate, Don struck, and the tarpon started to run. Then, like my fish yesterday, it reversed direction on us and jumped, leaving Don with loose line AND a fish in the air.  Needless to say, the fly fell out.  

When we fish we do it one person at a time, changing at half hour intervals.  After Don's hookup, realizing our window of fish movement might be short lived, he suggested I get on the bow even though he still had time left.  I stepped up and pulled the appropriate amount of line off the reel as a small group of fish approached, then drove a forty footer into the quartering wind.  A couple of slow strips of the fly and a large tarpon inhaled it, ran a hundred feet and cleared the water by five feet.  Twenty minutes and several jumps later I landed my first tarpon of 2014 ~ a wide fish estimated at ninety-five to a hundred pounds.  That fish would be our last of the day, but with the weather coming down tomorrow, it does leave us optimistic.