Tarpon.
The word has had a mystical ring to me ever since I've taken up
fishing as a passion. To see a tarpon leap, to see the fish that
Aubrey Thompson, banished from this list by the hoi polloi, described as:
"white water punctuated with that particular metalic glint that marks
feeding tarpon--like pieces of broken mirror being thrown up in the middle
of the panic. "
has been a dream of mine.
I had come to SouthWest Florida to fish for 2 fish, snook and redfish, and to
perhaps see the roll of a river tarpon, the small winter fish that live in
the warmer deep spots of the Florida rivers in winter. I had caught snook
and redfish yesterday, had not seen a tarpon, and had changed my plans
slightly.
Chockoloskee. End of the road. Everglades. The land of Bloody Watson,
featured in Peter Matthiessen's wonderful novel "Killing Mr. Watson".
I like places where roads ends; where green pervades on the map. Trace your
finger down the west coast of Florida, follow the road south. Past Tampa,
past Naples down to where the road ends in the Ten Thousand Islands.
This is a land of light and green. A hot tropical sun in a cloudless sky,
narrow river channels, and open shallow bays, all surrounded by the bright
green of mangrove thicket. Hard to tell where the water ends and the
mangroves begin. Hard to tell what is land and what is water.
This is a land of abundant wildlife, dolphins and manatees in the channels
and deep pockets; alligators on the mudflats, birds, birds, birds everywhere.
Audubon came to the Everglades a century ago. What were the birds like then
compared to now? To me it is a wonder; to see large birds, waders, predators,
scoopers around every bend.
The tale starts in Chockoloskee, a low island surrounded by mudflats at
7AM. The mist rises from the water as we set out, an 18' ActionCraft
flats boat skimming away under a blue sky and a rising sun. My fishing pal
back in Boston, a more serious software executive than I, playing
hookey. The guide had explained his plan to me, fish waaayyyy back in the
back country of the Everglades, 20 miles south of Chockoloskee around
Lostman's River. A chart of the region reveals a series of bays and
creeks leading southwards from Chockaloskee to Lostmans. He was looking
for big backcountry snook, mangrove monsters as he called them.
The boat wove southwards as the sun rose and the mist burned off. Creeks
100 yards wide in gentle S curves, oyster bars at the inside of
every curve. Deep cutbanks on the outsides. The creeks cut from bay
to bay, each bay a mile or two around in a circle, with twisty coves and
interesting islands in their middles. Many of the coves had creeks leading
out of them. Some went to other coves, some deadended in another bay.
Some went to other coves with other creeks.
A maze of twisty little passages, all of them alike.
A land where the novice would be hopelessly lost within the hour, a
land where an expert needs both a chart and their experience to find
a way. As a student of history I feel the presence of Calusa Indians
around me; those who lived here in harmony with the Everglades before
the white man came to this land a century ago. Men in moccasins paddled
wooden canoes down these channels; hunted here, fished here before my time.
That was then, this is now. Now is for fishing. We've run 10 miles or
so, stopping for a couple of tempting shorelines and caught nothing of
consequence. Now we work a back cove of a back bay; a shallow and muddy
arc, encircled with green. Ripples of mullet travelling show on its
surface, as we pole in a massive splash comes from the shoreline a few
hundred yards up.
"That was a monster - I saw its head - it was a 20 pound snook!" exclaims
the guide. We work towards the spot, tossing jigs tipped with shrimp as
close to the mangroves as we dare. The goal is to put the jig in the
dark shadowed pockets of water under the mangroves and at the same time
not to put the jig in the mangroves. If you put a jig in the trees you
pole in after it. And disturb the shoreline and whatever is sheltering
there.
I'd been doing well all morning and had avoided hanging up in the trees.
Until the 50 yard strech of shore right before the spot the snook had
jumped. Two hangups in a row and we're sure I've blown the spot. Then the
guide points down to the right of the boat. 10 feet off the side swims a
moving log, a 3 foot snook cruises by nonchalantly. I toss the jig across
its path and it spooks, leaving the characteristic "mud" of a large
fish which has taken off in a hurry, erupting the mud beneath it into
a cloud with the force of its tail.
We see the snook, or its twin brothers mud twice as we finish the shoreline
of the bay but have no joy. My misplaced casts had ruined that spot.
Also a small shark has moved into the bay behind us and is chasing mullet
around in tight little circles, periodically breaching a third of its body
out of the water as it attacks them.
We move on. The guide calls on his radio for his father; also a guide to
compare notes. It turns out his father is 2 bays ahead and has caught
a small snook. We motor across the two bays, seeing a number of alligators,
including a 12' long one. One of the bays harbors a few dolphins who are
chasing bait right up against a mudflat. The water is so shallow the
dolphins appear to be sideways in the water as they swim, splashing great
sheets of water with their tails, herding bait in an organized team approach.
A narrow creek with alligators basking in the sun on its banks and now
a large bay with the white dot of a boat far across it. We run the bay
at high speed slowing as we approach the boat. Its my guides father.
We stop the boat to talk. Behind me on the bay's expanse I see large
circles of disturbance. Dolphins I assume.
Then the father says he thinks there are tarpon in the bay. Now we
watch intently, a guide and a fisherman in each boat. A circle, a back
shows; its not a dolphin by any means of the imagination. The fin is
small; theres a silvery glow to the rounded back which rolls by in
a shimmer. The exposed backs are huge; sometimes a dorsal and a tail
fin are seen together, maybe 3' from each other. The water boils as the
backs show; dolphins slice water smoothly with little disturbance.
"Tarpon. Big monster tarpon!" say my guide. I naively ask what big means.
His father tells me "those are baaaad boys, those are full sized adult 150
pound tarpon".
I'm shaking with excitement. This is a life moment for me; something
I had dreamed of; a chance to live a dream. Our boats split as
we both move back into the center of the bay where we have seen the circles.
My guide has not rigged for tarpon, he has 6 1/2' medium rods, with 10#
test line and Penn 4400 reels. His leader is only 20# test line. This
is equipment for a baby tarpon, not for monsters.
We quitely run into the heart of the bay under electric motor. Tarpon
are everywhere around us. Boils of water and a silver flash under the
surface; a roll of a tarpons back and fin, or most exciting; the entire
6 or 7' long fish coming to the surface in a massive explosion of water.
As the tarpon come up I can hear them gulp for air; a snort or sighing
sound. I've read that tarpon gulp air as they roll on the surface; a
primeval vestige of a ancient fish, fish that can breath air. I now have
a sound and a memory to go with what I have read.
As we move out I'm blindcasting in front of us with a 5" red and white
swimming Mirrolure plug. A tarpon boils to the left 50' off. I turn
and flick the lure in the direction of the boil and reel back slowly.
The rod goes down in a pull that cannot be described. There is no
hit or strike; there is just immense force and weight; power beyond
description. The feeling that sticks with me is that I never felt a hit;
I just felt the fishes power in a smooth and instant moment. The drag
burns, not jerky or intermittent; but in a steady roar. This fish does
not tug or shake its head; it is just swimming. I set the hook.
The water explodes; up, up, UP, UP! A silver shape, a slab sided rectangle
of glittering light climbs out of the water until its tail is clear and
shakes its head and twists its body in an arc. It seems minutes till it
falls and hits the water with a thunderous crash that throws water 20'
out around it. The water boils again, up, but a sideways lunge this time;
the whole body out of the water in a 30 degree angle as it shakes its
head back and forth, back and forth. The fish crashes back; the line is
dead, snapped.
I am shaking; I scream for joy, I yell, I holler. For 15 seconds or
so I was connected by a thin strand of line to raw and elementaral power;
a force of nature. I am touched in my soul by this. I am content and
complete. The moment and sight is mine for ever; etched in the pathways
of my mind, imprinted on the muscles of my arms.
The guide quiets me. The fish are still feeding and my noise could
spook them. He takes a couple yards of 50# leader from his father and
ties it to our lines. We now have 4' of leader on top of the 10# test.
None of the 4 of us have any hope or intention of trying to land a fish
of this size with this light equipment; the goal now is to hook a few
more and hang on as long as possible. For the next hour and a half;
dead noon under a blazing Florida sun, glass calm surface we hook
100-150 pound tarpon, 7' long fish on light tackle. By the time its done
we've hooked 17 or 18 fish; 7 on my rod. The party on the other boat had
one on the line for the longest time, maybe 5 minutes. I had one on
for 2 minutes, a fish that stayed deep after the hookup and ran, ran, ran,
emptying the spool as we chased it by electric motor. It jumped over 100
yards out and was gone; leaving me with a reel's worth of line stretched
across the bay. Surprisingly we only lost 3 lures in our boat during 10
hookups. Invariably the second leap would toss the hook back in our face.
Visions I remember clear as day. My guide hooking a fish and seeing it
explode out of the water 6 feet in the air, parallel to the water and
travelling an extraordinary distance in that position before crashing
back into the water in a torrent of spray.
The shadowy shape of an 7' fish directly under the bow as I am casting.
The eerie, almost heartstopping moment of fear as it waves its tail;
the water boils at my feel and mud explodes in a cloud. I expect it to
come out of this cloud in a sliver leap. My guide has repeatedly warned
me that if one of these fish jump in the boat to get out immediately. A
full sized tarpon will break your leg as it tears the boat to pieces.
The silver-green boil of a tarpon rising up out of the deep to take my lure
almost at boatside, turn in an incredibly tight body arc, and dive almost
straight down the rip the line from the spool in a rush. And then the wait,
the wait; I know its coming, I can feel it coming, the eruption as the fish
comes out of the water as a rocket flies; not in a lightning bolt of
speed but more in a steady and constant acceleration that never seems to
stop. Until the tarpon reachs its apogee far about my eye level; stops, and
hangs in the sky; a sliver glitter, a sliver light, a sliver motion, that
seems pinned to the blue sky, hung on the horizon, until gravity claims
it and it crashes down.
A tarpon is about time being paused; about the world stopping for an
instant as it appears. To watch someone hook a tarpon, hear them hoot;
hear the drag sing and then to wait, to wait, until the fish erupts.
It climbs, it climbs as if it will never stop and then for a moment,
an instant, forever hangs on the sky before crashing down to the waters
surface. Then the wait, the pause before the fish surges skywards again;
this time at a different angle and inclination as the massive head shakes
to toss the lure. And finally the silence and calm as the fish goes
free leaving quiet and awe behind.
These fish are graceful in their power. As they surface to feed I can
see the sheer power and force of the tarpon. Periodically one
feeds within 10' of the boat, the murky brown water first showing green,
then green-silver as the fish rises; then the back and dorsal roll on the
surface as the tail propells it downward. There is no thrash or frantic
motion in their feeding; it is more a smooth application of force.
The incredible resemblance of the tarpon to its family member the herring.
The slab sided silver body; broadbacked and deep sided on top and narrowing
almost to a V at the belly. Also; that the body has little taper; the
silvery sides seem almost rectangular from the head almost back to the
huge tail.
These memories and more are imprinted on my mind; moments to remember
and to savor; images to freeze frame into my mind. What must it
be like to fight a fish like that to a standstill, bring it boatside;
touch its side, and then release it. I long to, in a future trip,
experience the next level, but today, today was enough. More than I
expected, more than I could have hoped for.
A small boat, a hidden back bay, isolation in the Everglades. Isolation
and quiet punctuated by the explosion of the tarpon. Green mangroves,
brown water, blue sky, and the incredible glitter of a giant silver fish
climbing up out of the brown and green to suspend itself for a moment,
an instant, but forever in my mind against the blue sky.
Larry Backman
February 22, 1996