Tarpon fight ends skepticism, but frustration builds

By Willie Howard, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Thursday, August 3, 2000

After years of fishing for tarpon with light tackle, I have watched only in frustration as they rolled to show themselves on the surface but refused to bite.

All that changed early one morning last week while fishing in Big Mud Creek in St. Lucie County with guide Jeff Sacks. Sacks had told me the tarpon had been thick. I was skeptical about getting them to bite, though, especially because I had to awaken at 4:45 a.m. on the second day of the lobster sport season to cast at the fish that never seem to eat anything attached to a hook.

At first light, we were greeted by dark clouds and lightning to the north. We fished along the east side of the Indian River Lagoon, keeping the boat ramp in sight, until the rain clouds passed.

We ran under the giant power lines, turned east at Marker 4 and idled into the deep creek, which is overshadowed by the huge concrete reactors at FPL's St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. Within a minute, the backs of rolling tarpon and their bubbles began to appear on the surface all around us.

Sacks put out two rods rigged with live shrimp on circle hooks and began fishing with soft plastic baits. He recommended that I hold my rod ready and throw my bait, a three-eighths-ounce D.O.A. Terror-Eyz, at rolling fish.

"If you can cast to rolling fish and lead them a little, that's good," Sacks said. "Tarpon are kind of curious. If they hear the sound of the bait hitting the water, they'll go toward it. If they want to eat it, they will."

That last part, getting a tarpon to actually eat, has always been difficult for me. This day seemed no different. We cast and we cast. The tarpon rolled all around us, but they didn't seem to care much for our offerings. As usual, the tarpon seemed to be rolling in front of us as if to demonstrate that we were wasting our time. As usual, I was beginning to feel tarpon angst.

After a couple of hours we decided to move back toward the creek entrance to chat with angler George Santry. I was just introducing myself to Santry and reeling up my lure near the boat when I felt a bump. Then I was hooked up. The spool of my little Penn 4400 began to spin, and the big silver beast leaped 4 feet out of the water and landed with a robust splash.

I can't print what I said next, but it was an expression of pure angling joy. Santry watched from his Hewes flats boat as my fight began. I'd never fought a 100-pound plus fish on 12-pound-test line. Fortunately, I'd rigged it with a Bimini twist and 60-pound monofilament leader. Sacks had done this many times before and was an excellent coach.

After that first jump, I just held on and let the fish run, being careful to keep the rod tip bent into a C shape. I'd seen other anglers let a tarpon pull out their line for hours. I was determined to fight this fish, but I didn't want to break him off. Keeping the pressure up would be key.

The fish jumped a few more times. It was huge. It was beautiful. Fighting it with 12-pound-test line seemed like trying to steer a horse with dental floss.

Within a few minutes, I was switching hands on my rod and shaking the tired hand to regain blood supply. Sacks told me to work against the fish. Half an hour into the fight, I developed a rhythm. When the fish went right, I pulled left. When it went left, I pulled right.

After 40 minutes, the fish was coming up for air more frequently and was 25 feet from the boat. Tarpon don't have to surface to breathe, but they gulp air on the surface to supplement their oxygen supply. I began to feel the fish getting tired; it seemed to give a little when I put a bend in the rod hard against him.

I felt like it was time to finish the fight, to get this fish to the boat. I added drag by putting a finger on the reel spool. The fish took a hard lunge away from the boat and a coil of line came flying back at us.

I stared in silence for a few seconds. I was elated from having had the fight and mad at having been too aggressive with the drag near the end.

Now I'm dreaming of jumping tarpon. And I'm worried that I'm going to want to spend countless hours of time that I don't have trying to hook another brawny silver king.

Those tarpon always have frustrated me.