Tarpon:

Darkness hits your face like a shot as you race into a black void at 45 mph. A bucket of saltwater hits you from somewhere off the bow of the boat, but you never see it coming. Shortly after leaving Key West the skiff\'s running lights are extinguished so your guide can navigate through osmosis to your final destination. It’s a trip you’ve taken many times before when chasing Florida’s Silver Kings. Racing across the ocean with a billion stars overhead, the life you’ve left behind is temporarily lost. It never fails.

It’s still well before sunrise, yet light enough to distinguish mangroves from blackness as the skiff slows to idle. Lost in the visuals of a strange yet familiar place all suddenly goes quiet. Your guide removes the long graphite pole, your only means of motion, as he prepares to methodically patrol the placid waters from high atop the poling platform. At this juncture, eyes and ears work in unison for that unmistakable sound or sight a tarpon makes when it rolls to take in life’s air.

Morning’s first light yields the giant fish\'s scales gold as it rolls. All onboard see the fish at the same time. A hundred feet of fly line lays coiled at your feet. A size 2/0 Black Death hangs loosely from your fingertips. The tarpon rolls again: 90 feet, twelve o’clock! Carefully clearing the fly, 80 feet of line in several short false casts is worked from the 11 weight rod before letting the fly land. Your heart races, eyes pierce dark waters as you strip the fly...suddenly the line goes tight at the same time 100 pounds of silver explodes from the beneath the shallow waters, throwing your fly before crashing back to the ocean sanctuary.

Such is tarpon fishing, where an “eat”, a “jump” or “leader grab” describe the events of a day. Anyone who has fished for these incredible fish knows these words, shares in the frustration, and marvels in the experience. Rods break, leaders part, reels jam, Murphy’s law reins supreme. It is the kind of fly-fishing where your equipment, clothing, and skills will be put to the ultimate test. Even if you are prepared, there are no guarantees. Come May we’ll be headed again to the Keys in hopes of an “eat”, to “jump” a tarpon and, if we’re lucky, even land a fish.

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