Chasing Silver

It was Memorial Day weekend, I remember taking the wife n kids to the sand bar early in the day on the bay boat and texting David to see if he was up for an afternoon fishing session on the skiff. We arrived at the ramp as a wave of fisherman were coming off the water. “It was tough” was a common phrase we heard, but that didn’t deteriorate our hopes. We had a spot that we had been seeing schools of Bulls feeding late in the afternoon on the edge of a bar. Very few people in our area venture off shorelines, so a bar in the middle of open water was probably untouched all day. 

We arrived to our spot and it was a memorable late afternoon! There were tailing bull redfish everywhere! David started on the front with his fly rod. First cast he had a 40inches fish chasing his fly all the way to the boat. Unfortunately the fish never committed and in the process spooked a bunch of others.. 2 more shots at other fish and none would commit. For some reason we all think we can convince the fish better than others, so I begged for a shot. First fish I saw was the biggest submarine of a redfish I had ever seen. Same result though, the fish followed my fly all the way to the skiff and turned last second. Bummed out, but not willing to give up, David pushed me closer to a deeper edge of the bar hoping that would change our luck. 100ft at 11oclock, I saw it. The biggest inshore tarpon I had ever seen just sitting on the edge of some grass. Normally late summer we have a few tarpon that migrate through our area. Not many, but enough to get 1 or 2 shots at them on the flats.

This fish was 13 years in the making for me... The time period where this class of Tarpon graces our shallow flats here in Mosquito lagoon is maybe a couple weeks of the year. Yes I could run the beach, fish the inlet, or sit in deep water to catch them... That's just not my style. This is a very special type of situation. Each year that I've run into fish this size it has always been while holding smaller redfish setups leaving me under gunned. This particular day I happened to have the correct rod, reel, and fly in my hand. The rest was the day I had always dreamed of! The perfect cast, the eat of the fly, and the great face grab by David all made it come together.

I cast a laser at this fish. It’s facing away from me at a diagonal so as I’m stripping my fly towards the fish, it sees it. The tarpon slowly swims over to the fly and slurps my large baitfish pattern. I strip set and the fish explodes like a bat out of hell. I jump to clear all my fly line as it clears the deck and we are on! David is so excited and I’m jumping up and down.

 10 seconds later I realize this fish is almost 200 yards away and my backing is rapidly disappearing off my reel! David cranks the motor and we recover most of my line, but this fish decided she wasn’t a jumper. On one of her only jumps we saw the fly was perfectly placed on its upper lip! 30 minutes later we had the fish boat side and up on a nearby sand bar.

 This fish was one of the most magnificent fish I’ve ever put my hands on. After a few quick pictures we towed it out to deeper water and let the cooler water flow through its gills. She gave a good kick and was off for her next adventure.