by Bill Graves
While most Maine folks use Florida as a winter get-away destination, my annual sojourn to the Sunshine State takes place each June. I’m no fan of warm weather, fussing when temperatures in Aroostook County reach the high 70s, but as with most sportsmen, when good fishing or hunting is at stake, weather is often ignored. Prime fly fishing for tarpon, the Silver King of salt water, takes place all along the Florida coast each May and June, so when those great game fish are at hand, so am I.
Nights seldom drop below 80 degrees and during the day, the mercury hovers in the mid-90s. Each morning when you leave the air conditioned comfort of the room, it’s as if someone tosses a wet beach towel over your head. Once in the boat, the blazing sun beats steadily down on an angler, then reflects back off the water surface causing a double whammy of warmth. Oddly enough, as soon as a pod of tarpon is spotted, all the heat and humidity is momentarily forgotten.
As if the heat alone isn’t enough of a burden to anglers, each and every day at some point there’s rain, and not just a light shower – a real gulley-washer with heavy thunder, lightning and wicked winds.
Now, I’ve never been one to let a bit of rain interfere with good fishing, but standing in an open boat holding a nine-foot graphite fly rod during a thunderstorm is just asking for the shock of a lifetime!
Last summer, my cousin Mike Wallace joined me on my annual tarpon trip, his premier outing for the Silver King. I managed to hook five and land three fish between 90 and 125 pounds, while Mike hooked two and lost both within a few seconds. One of the tarpon I lost after about five minutes and three jumps was the largest I’ve ever hooked in 20 years, the guide estimated it was at least 150 to 170 pounds. Mike and I both were anxious to return to Florida last month, but little did we know what was in store for us.
On day one, the guide decided we would fish from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. to take advantage of an incoming tide. Captain Austin Lowder and I have fished together for seven years and he knows the Sanibel, Captive and Boca Grande shoreline waters very well. He was right up front with Mike and I that first day, there had been plenty of tarpon around Monday and Tuesday, but fish had gotten more scarce daily, and it was now Friday. During the first two hours we never cast to a fish.
In the early afternoon, we found a couple of small pods of tarpon but they were moving fast along the flats and surfacing infrequently so no chances were presented. About 2 p.m., Mike and I each got a chance but the fish ignored the fly, about 30 minutes later a hundred-pound plus tarpon swung from a group of four and inhaled my third cast.
I set the hook, successfully cleared the line from the deck at my feet and got the big silver torpedo onto the reel. One short lateral dash and a headshake later, the fly pulled free from the ‘poon’s rock-hard mouth.
About a half an hour later, an off-shore breeze picked up and in conjunction with the changing tide, the beachside waves got larger. Standing on the bow casting deck was akin to straddling a hippo with the hiccups. Then the off-shore storm blew in and we ran for cover at full speed as lightning flashed and a torrential downpour chased us back to the boat launch. Not an auspicious start.
An early start on day two saw our trio buzzing at full speed toward Palm Island at 5:30 a.m. in the pre-dawn darkness. We spotted our first school of tarpon when only a hint of light painted the horizon, a fish swung at Mike’s fly, but refused to eat. We cast to five bunches of tarpon over the next hour and finally my line tightened, but before I could even set the hook, the Silver King spit the fly. Our day just got worse from there, it was like the entire population of tarpon vanished.
We saw plenty of porpoise, several sharks, many manta rays and even a sea turtle the size of a 30-gallon washtub, but no ‘Poon’. Wind and wave action finally drove us to the calmer waters of back-country coves, but there were no fish there either. Our daily allotment of rain arrived as we were putting the boat on the trailer at the launch, and as we huddled in the truck cab the electrical storm inundated the docks with boats and anglers seeking cover.
Day three, our final chance, turned into a wind and water nightmare within minutes of leaving the dock in the early morning darkness.
From the in-shore waterway we motored through Stump Pass and into the open ocean along the beach where we had seen several schools of tarpon the previous morning. Within seconds, we were being tossed among four-foot waves like a feather in a waterfall, and sea flew over the bow in sheets with every dip and crest.
After only a minute, our guide decided no amount of tarpon were worth the beating we were taking and we turned tail and headed for calmer seas in backcountry lagoons. For several hours, we hopscotched from spot to spot, seeing few fish and getting fewer casts.
In the early afternoon, I finally got my fly in front of a trio of passing tarpon and a small fish of about 75 pounds sped over and ate it. Then to my surprise and chagrin, the chrome speedster dashed right at the boat and the fly came loose before I ever got the chance to put tension on the fly line.
As the day progressed, the wind got worse, the seas rougher and the tarpon fewer. Our trip ended without a fish being boated, the first time in seven years, but that’s fishing.
You can’t control your quarry or Mother Nature. All you can do is keep trying, weather or not!
