OUTDOORS/Evan McGlinn
Permits Apply With Leaping Tarpon on the Fly
Key West, Fla.
Standing in the dark at 6:30
A.M. at the Key West Yacht
Club, Mike Wilbur too one look
at me and Richard Lundell and
immediately started laughing.
There we were, fly rods in hand,
wide-eyed and babbling about
tarpon. Mike had guided us only
three weeks earlier, but the urge
to go chasing tarpon was too great
and now we were back.
If it seems a little excessive to fly
to Florida twice in one month and
pay $350 a day to go fly fishing,
I would fully agree with you. But
we’re not talking about 15-inch
trout here. Tarpon are so thrilling on a fly rod, anglers become
addicted.
From mid-May through June,
tarpon are migrating north and
can be sight-fished on the flats
here in shallow water. Capable of
weighing more than 200 pounds,
they have large silver scales, sad
puppy-dog eyes and are almost
prehistoric in appearance. Unlike in trout fishing when the
game is largely won once the fish
takes your fly, once “the Silver
King” is hooked, all hell breaks
loose. Tarpon are strong fighters,
and, unlike a bonefish or a permit, they are spectacular jumpers.
Once airborne they shake their
huge silver heads back and forth
faster than a jackhammer.
•••
Mike staked the boat on the edge
of a flat and waited for the fish
to come. Guides know the areas
and lanes where tarpon travel and
can put you right in their path.
They literally swim right past
the boat. The first morning my
casting was mediocre. I had been
trout fishing days before with a
light five-weight rod and it took
some time to get my whole body
into double-hauling the beefy
12-weight. Later, I hooked into
a fish but failed to set the hook
well enough.
Tarpon don’t have any teeth but
their huge bucket-like mouths are
as hard as concrete and setting
the hook is vastly different than
other sorts of angling. With tarpon you never raise the rod when
you feel the fish take. Instead,
you must pull down hard on the
fly line with your stripping hand
while pointing the rod low and
at the fish. The tarpon will run
and put the line on the reel, but
you have to keep constant tension
with your stripping hand.
Evan McGlinn, a former reporter
for Forbes, is a freelance writer.
If you are lucky enough to still
have the fish on the line at this
point, you must then prepare for
the jump. You can feel it coming
as the tarpon surges through the
water. Once airborne you have to
bow your rod to the fish creating
slack in the line. Without bowing, the tippet can easily break. If
you manage all these maneuvers
successfully, problems still occur.
Knots explode, fly rods can break
and tangled fly lines can wrap
around your feet.
Two days later, we met up with
another guide and friend, Todd
Bowen. Todd has what is rumored to be the fastest flats skiff
in the Keys, and it was the perfect
vehicle for running us out to the
Marquesas - a group of islands
some 25 miles due west across
the Boca Grande Channel. Going there was a gamble. The
weather had been bad for days,
and Todd hadn’t been there in a
week or so.
But he figured the tarpon would
be at home. He was right. There
wasn’t a lick of wind, and the
glassy water made it easy for us
to see the hundreds of tarpon that
were scattered across the flats and
channels. I hooked into two fish,
and both got off. Finally, I boated
and released a small 30-pound
fish and handed the rod to Richard.
•••
Todd poled us onto the flats as he
waited for traveling fish to come
toward us. This particular flat
was a mile-long gridiron, which
had hundreds of spots made up
of light sand bottom that makes
spotting fish much easier. A tarpon coming toward the boat looks
like a long black log and, when
you see 20 of them at a time you
realize that the plane rides and
sleep deprivation are worth it.
Todd tied on one of the infamous
“eye flies”. It’s a traditional Keys
tarpon fly pattern with two large
plastic beads glued to the end of
100-pound monofilament. Todd
paints the beads fluorescent orange and green and they work
wonders.
Minutes passed.
“Big school coming at 1 o’clock
about 200 yards out,” Todd
calmly informed Richard, who
was busy smoking and trying to
untangle the fly line from around
his feet. Richard started dancing
like John Travolta to get in position.
Like a motorcycle gang, a school
of 100-pound fish closed in on
the boat. When they were about
70 feet away, Todd yelled “cast”
and Richard made a quick false
cast, double-hauled and put the
fly a little short of the lead fish,
In between expletives, he quickly
picked the line off the water and
tossed again. He stripped the fly
with short, jerky movements.
You got a looker,” Todd yelled,
he as he saw the lead tarpon follow the fly. And then something
really wild happed.
A huge permit – a cousin of the
pompano and one of the most elusive and difficult fish to catch on a
fly swirled and chased the fly. The
lead tarpon, feeling challenged by
the permit, charged Richard’s fly
and swallowed it whole. Richard.
jammed down hard with his stripping hand, and the fish left a hole
in the water as it took off. Richard
played the 90-pound fish well as
it cart-wheeled across the flat. After a couple of minutes, the tippet
broke. This is what is popularly
referred to as the “long distance
release.”
Only afterward did we marvel
at what had happened. Todd
estimated the permit to be “way,
way over” 50 pounds. We were
glad to have hooked the tarpon,
but if Richard had landed that
permit, he would have shattered
the current world record on a fly
rod.
Tomorrow is another day.