Having had one unsuccessful trip out with a guide over Cape Canaveral way (that cost me a fortune) I thought, maybe, it was not to be. So much money for no reward, I could never afford it. Then, about five years ago I came on holiday to Cape Coral in Florida. I was drawn to the villa we rented because it was on a saltwater canal with the promise of good fishing off the boat-dock for exotics like mangrove snapper, jacks, cats and even alligator gar. I fished off the boat-dock and had great fun catching all sorts of stuff. In the house next door a couple were just moving in. Typical Floridian silver surfers, Bob, an ex NASA employee, turned out to be an avid fisherman moving there for his retirement. We hit it off straight away.
Bob duly invited me out for a session on his Ranger bass-boat, fishing a local lake for Largemouth Bass. We had a great day and on this trip he told me that the reason he moved there was for the tarpon. Although an accomplished angler he had no real tarpon experience. On another visit the following year he took me out after tarpon but he was still learning the ropes and we didn’t have a sniff. As fellow angler we became firm friends.
To the present…
After a couple of years I am back in Cape Coral and Bob is now a very accomplished tarpon fisherman. A member of the Cape Coral Tarpon Hunters Club he is currently fourth in their annual competition to catch the most fish. He has bought himself a new boat, a 22ft centre console Sea Hunt that is built for the job and after a few beers an invite for the next day was forthcoming.
It’s 0530 and the boat is packed and we are off from his boat dock at the bottom of his garden. The slow meander through the canal system eventually led us out into the bay and off we went vaguely in the direction of Sanibel and Captiva Islands. For no reason I could quite fathom Bob came to a stop in the vast expanse of the bay and declared that this would do nicely. It looked no different to the other several thousand acres of sea all around us.
We dropped anchor and then before casting a line Bob explained the rules. It appears that tarpon fishing in one of team work with everyone having a job in a given situation. Duly noting the ground rules we finally cast out a bait and sat down to wait for some action. Four rods all rigged the same way. I asked Bob what a tarpon bite looked like and even as I said it realised how stupid a question it was. We put out free-lined chunks of mullet on 60lb class Shakespeare Ugly Stick rods with matching class Shimano multipliers. Bob explained patiently that the first indication would probably be the eruption of a tarpon out of the water as the rod bent double and the reel screamed as it gave line on the drag , 50lb mono main line to a 150lb mono leader.
My job was to watch the rods as Bob busied himself doing general boaty stuff and preparing baits etc. I noticed that one of the rod tips was knocking away and after mentioning it I was told it was probably a shark and that I should tighten down to see what’s what as the sharks chew up the baits. A few minutes later Bob was cutting the leader on a 3 ft black tip shark, no getting near those teeth which were very impressive. Hey … not a blank. Over the next hour another two black tips came to the boat as well as two 4 ft bull sharks. Bob wasn’t really interested, it meant he had to refresh the baits, but I was happy as Larry.
At this point one of the rods starts knocking again and I said to Bob “looks like another shark”. With all the patience he could muster he tells me to tighten down and get the shark in ASAP so we can get a new bait out. I did. All hell then breaks loose as a six foot bar of silver launches itself out of the water not 30 ft from the boat. In the understatement of the year Bob calmly says “Oh … it’s a tarpon”. Shark my arse. Thus starts the most surreal experience of my life.
Thanks to www.acuteangling.com
I am holding on to the rod for grim death as this fish decides to head off to Sanibel Island, jumping multiple times to try and throw the hook. I can vaguely remember Bob fiddling with something around my waist. He was fitting the fighting belt and boy did I need it. It really was a fight, brutal and uncompromising. I felt that most of the time I had no control but gradually I gained line and started to get on top of the fish. After 35 minutes of sweat drenching physical exertion I finally got to the position where Bob touched the leader and with an extravagant gesture shouted at the top of his voice “Touched”. There are others watching. With that touch, at 1120 am I had officially caught my first tarpon. If I thought that was it I was sorely disappointed as another 15 minutes of hard slog in the Florida heat passed before I finally had the fish alongside for the hook to be removed and the fish swam off to fight another day.
As I sat in the boat, exhausted, sweating buckets, elated and with, I admit, a tear in my eye, I mustered enough energy to ask Bob … “How big was that Bob”. “Oh” he says “that was a 120 ld’er” as if it had been bought of the fish counter from Tesco’s. His best this year is a whopping 185lb and later that day he added one of 150lb. I also added my second of the day that went 75lb, a relative tiddler by all accounts.
So, that’s it. My account of a dream come true. Sorry no pictures but the chance never arose while getting the fish back no worse for wear; this was absolute priority over a trophy picture. I do, however, have the swivel from the leader as a souvenir!
Stu Binnie
