Tarpon, Tarpon and More Tarpon

Wow, the past few days have been a blast!!! I've been fishing the near shore waters off of Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel and the tarpon have been seriously on the feed. Once located it doesn't take long for the first hookup and they are big boys! Most of the tarpon are over 100 pounds and we landed a few that were easily near 150 pounds.

My most memorable trip was with Sue and Rob Phelan. They are locals and this was their first tarpon adventure. They managed to hook up with 4 huge fish but were unable to bring one to boat side. Sue said that was probably best! She expressed what many of us feel when going after the silver king. The beginning of the battle is the most fun. There's nothing in fishing like the hookup and then the initial jumps of a tarpon, especially when the first jump is right next to the boat!

One of Sue's fish did just that. It exploded straight up out of the water off the stern of the boat, shaking it's head and throwing water and bits of bait everywhere. Sue screamed out loud like she was on a roller coaster ride at Disney! The fish crashed back into the water and then proceeded to do 3 more fantastic jumps before blasting off for Mexico. After fighting the fish for 10 minutes or so she turned the rod over to her husband, Rob. He worked the fish for a few minutes and then one of those bad things happened that's usually associated with tarpon fishing... the brand new Quantum Cabo reel blew up! I later found out that one of the center gears threw a tooth and that ruined several other gears in the process. Needless to say, when the reel locked up we lost the fish. Afterward Sue told me it really didn't matter. She was so juiced on adrenalin her hands were still shaking almost an hour later. Welcome to tarpon fishing!