Tarpon rolled all around me, while a bull shark cruised off to my right. Further up the shore, a pair of dolphins slammed mullet into the bank. A half-hour before, a manatee floated close enough I could have reached out and touched it.
This was about as far as I could get from my trout streams in the Rockies, but I was still holding a fly rod. As different and exhiliarting as it was, I was struck by how quickly I fell into the rhythm of long casts on a 9-weight, stripping in flies the size of small trout, and strip-setting when jacks blew up my fly. Fishing is still fishing, whether you’re in saltwater or a high-country pond. Some days are easier than others, but every outing has its own highs and lows that you adapt to. Granted, swapping a 4-weight for a 9-weight and an Adams for a Deceiver is a culture shock, but after you work the kinks out, it feels familiar enough that you don’t quite feel as out of your element as you’d expect.
That’s not to say your first time trying something new won’t go off without a hitch. When Max first handed me a 9-weight with a mullet fly the size of some of the trout I usually catch, I was acutely reminded of my shortcomings as a fly caster. When a snook hit my fly, I jerked my body too much and moved the rod, trying to stop a trout set I’d already committed to.
By the last day of the trip, with a few nice fish under my belt, I thought I’d be ready for the tarpon we stumbled upon. They were rolling in a long bay, gulping air and blowing up balls of mullet at random intervals. This wasn’t your classic tarpon fishing, where you scan the flats for cruising fish and cast to intercept them as they move from one flat to the next. This was blind-casting in off-color water, hoping the fish would blow up a topwater fly as I stripped it back towards the skiff.
My first take was a strong fish that peeled some line off my reel, but it turned out to be a saltwater catfish (a fish I’d never knew existed until it was in the net). After that, a jack blew up my topwater fly, putting more of a bend in a 9-weight than I thought was possible. And that jack, as my buddy Max informed me, wasn’t anywhere close to as large as they can grow.
Some rain blew in, and that seemed to kick the tarpon into high gear. They rolled more frequently, chased more mullet, and there was this anticipation hanging in the air that you could almost taste. I cast at every fish as it flashed on the surface, and caught a few jacks doing it.
Then, on one retrieve in a lull between fish, a huge wake shot towards my fly. I sped it up, and felt a tug as the fish tried to eat it. Falling back on my trout fishing habits, I let the streamer die, because trout will often short-strike their prey, then double-back for the final eat.
Tarpon, apparently, take that personally. Max hollered at me to keep stripping, so I pulled hard on the fly. He told me to keep the speed even, so I slowed it down, and the tarpon slammed it again. This time, I tried to strip-set by pulling the line and yanking the rod to my left, a tactic that sometimes works with trout, but just pulled the fly free from the cavernous mouth of a tarpon.
Max told me to keep the rod pointed at the fish and keep pulling until it started pulling back. I pointed the rod towards the fish that was still, improbably, chasing my fly. It ate one more time, and I yanked hard with my line hand to set the hook.
Except that my hands were wet from rain and the sea, and the line slipped through my fingers. There was a faint tug, a huge splash, and the tarpon swam off.
I’d had four chances at it, and blown them all.
I hadn’t worked the kinks out, and I felt as out of my element as I had when I stepped out of the airport and into the humid Florida air. Fishing is fishing, sure, but this might have been the lowest low I’ve ever felt, even more than losing a two-foot brown trout at the net last spring.
Some fishing demands more from you, though, and while I’m sure there’s an important life lesson in there somewhere, I don’t want to worry about it until I get to go back and take another crack at a tarpon.