Tarpon On!
(Boca Grande Pass at Sunset)
I saw my first tarpon on a trip to the Florida Keys, back when I was twelve. We were visiting my aunt and uncle and Florida and the Keys were a land of magic to a young kid who loved the water.
At the time, the old Seven Mile Bridge was the link between Marathon and parts south. Portions of the bridge still exist and if you are ever down that way I encourage you to pull over to give the old span a look-see. Chances are, you’ll immediately question how two-way traffic made it across that narrow old bridge. The truth is it helped if passing trucks tucked in their side mirrors.
That old bridge wasn’t so accommodating for cars either, especially if you were in my aunt’s wide-bodied convertible. Fortunately, she was an experienced driver. Unfortunately, her way of avoiding oncoming traffic was rooted in the belief that you should cross those seven miles as fast as possible, foot to the floor.
I remember zooming over that bridge one day back then, 500 cubic inches of her big block General Motors engine powering us toward Key West. It was all sunshine and turquoise water with the wind drowning out any other sound until my aunt called out, “He has a tarpon!” It was an angler below, fighting an acrobatically inclined fish. Like many memories from that first trip, the image burned deep into my brain.
In the years that passed I kept an interest in the gamefish known as the Silver King, but I had only a few chances to fish for tarpon and none led to success. That changed earlier this month when Sally and I made a visit to the Gulf Coast.
Dave Hayden from Parsley Baldwin Realtors on Boca Grande asked me, “Going tarpon fishing while you’re down here?”
“Probably not,” I said.
“They’re here,” Dave said. “Might want to see if you can fish an evening half tide. Sandy Melvin from Gasparilla Outfitters is probably all booked-up, but he might be able to fix you up with someone else.”
I remembered Sandy from a fishing trip with my nephew on my first visit to Boca Grande fifteen years ago. “Maybe,” I said.
Two days later, Sally and I were heading out at sunset aboard Sandy’s boat, Boca Blue.
I’ve been fishing since I was old enough to sit upright on a dock, but when that first tarpon struck it was like nothing before. The rod bent over so far I was sure it would break. The first fish was 100 pounds, the second, 115. We released them both and before we were done Sally and I jumped two more tarpon that broke free.
Before we headed back in, Sandy, Sally, and I used a couple of small nets to scoop-up some crabs. We even managed to net a small sea horse that we examined before we tossed it back in. The three of us were on our knees leaning over the gunnel, nets in hand, while Sandy talked about a kids fishing tournament he started. In the background, we’d occasionally hear jumping tarpon that were likewise interested in the crab hatch taking place that night.
More than a hundred and twenty-five years have passed since Mark Twain wrote about Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Becky Thatcher. A lot has changed since then. Every once in a while, though, it seems some things seem to have stayed pretty much the same.
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