In about 2 minutes and after hearing Noles scream like a little girl when a small furry animal rubbed up against him in the dark, I was rolling to the water's edge. We were shortly joined by Manning and, not long after that, Shamus. Yes, Shamus. Before the sun came up. I had to double check to see if it was really him. Seems most of the gang was all there. The others had excuses that, I won't offer any judgement as to their validity when it comes to tarpon fishing, included being a wet nurse, mowing the lawn and/or finishing up the latest crochet creation.
While DaveR, Shamus and Noles went north in search of fish that were there yesterday, Manning and I stayed in front of the launch and went in search of pinfish, squirrelfish or grunts as a breakfast offering for the tarpon that the others were chasing to the north swam down to where we were sitting. We both got our bait, Barnacle got his 4 inch squirrelfish to chew into submission and the floats went out. I got a hard tug early that got the adrenaline flowing only to get cleanly cut off immediately. Shark, big mackeral, who knows. Never saw the fish but the leader was cut as if it was done with scissors.
This was a bit disconcerting as I had no more of my Owner Mutu circle hooks and had to resort to the other Owner circle hooks I had as back ups. Oh well, there was no store out there on the water and none of the local tackle shops have a delivery service so I used what I had. After a couple days of using 30 pound leader to get the jumps and run before popping them off, I was back to 60 pound and wanted to boat a fish today.
After what seemed like several hours, not seeing a single fish, my float went down, the line went tight, silver went flying and the battle was on. This one almost immediately decided that Mexico would be a good place to be so it made the run due west. After getting a good sleigh ride, I tossed out the drift chute. It did what it was supposed to do and stopped me but it had very little effect on the fish who just kept on going as I watched the line on my spool disappear quickly.....
In comes the drift chute so I can get myself to and over the fish again. Got some more big jumps and one 3/4 jump about 10 feet off the bow. With that jump, I would have sworn the fish was about 1,000 pounds. With the early sun at my back and completely lighting up the silver like a mirror, it filled my eyes.
10 or so minutes in, I had the fish under control for the most part. It wasn't ready to be landed but I had leader in the rod tip several times and was able to drag it backwards many times. A couple more minutes of that and she'd have been posing for a picture. Plus, Barnacle was growling it into submission. If he had his way, that tarpon would suffer the same fate as the earlier squirrelfish. Or so he's convinced.
Then this happened
The point where you are pulling with all you have and in a split of a split second having absolutely no weight can be a bit unsettling. It's happened a few times to me and I'm very surprised I haven't rolled over backwards yet. I think I might have spit out a few cuss words but Dave quickly reminded me to check the fish. Damn guy could care less about my hurt feelings.
The fish did swim away green side up so I'm pretty confident she made it.
It's been a good tarpon week for me!
