Here is a story I wrote for an online zine about 2 years or so back.... Hope y'all enjoy:
Megalops Atlanticus: A Humbling Encounter with Giant Tarpon.
Living on a tiny tropical island in the Caribbean may have some disadvantages. I just never figured out what they were. For a Natal South Coast fishing addict the Cayman Islands were and absolute paradise. Crystal clear 29 degree flat calm waters year round, fantastic exotic species to fish for and only working 3 maybe 4 days a week makes for a rather perfect existence for a 22 year old !
Not that work ever kept me from the ocean in anyway as I worked as a fulltime charter boat captain so I was on the water everyday, work or not running snorkel and dive charters or fishing so life was all around a rather enjoyable affair. Myself and my best mate another south African, Dylan Balfour spent basically all our free time fishing as much of the island as we could. From offshore trolling for tuna, Wahoo and barracuda to bottom fishing the reefs at night for snapper and grouper, to the crystal clear shallow flats for bonefish to the mangrove ponds and channels and estuaries for tarpon and kingies we did it all. The great thing about Cayman is that although a lot of people fish, it is mainly a subsistence type hand line affair in regular spots for little panfish. The gamefish populations inshore on the flats and in the mangroves, although not radically abundant,went about there lives relatively unharassed by anglers.
Now Dylan and I both grew up on a steady diet of light tackle and fly fishing and being both of the adventurous spirit Cayman became our oyster. We spent days and days exploring the island, about 75% of which is uninhabited, looking for secret honey holes full of our favourite quarry, Megalops Atlanticus, Tarpon. Once you catch , or should I say hook one of these puppies, as a fisherman you are changed forever. Blistering speed, unstoppable power and the aerial antics to put any tigerfish or largemouth bass to shame turned them into our prime target for a good part of the year. We started chasing them in the tiny mangrove creeks leading off the North Sound, a large coral lagoon with a lattice work of mangrove creeks and canals leading off it with everything from deerhair sliders on the long rods to soft plastics on the spinning sticks and topwater walk the dog lures when we came across schools of fish busting bait along the beaches. Most fish ranged anywhere from 1 to 30 pounds and in those smaller sizes the aerial show from these silver plated missiles is tough to describe. Fishing up under mangrove canopies we had numerous fish, upon hitting a fly, launch themselves three or 4 feet out of the water right into the trees and there would be a mad scramble into the mangroves to rescue our prized quarry to return them safely to the water to grow bigger and fight another day.
Then our whole world changed when we discovered a way to successfully chase the big mammas. Now giant Tarpon are a completely different breed of fish when it comes to pursuit. The juveniles (anything under 50 pounds is considered Juvenile in the Tarpon world) can sometimes be very easily fooled and on a good afternoon catching 4 or 5 is not impossible. But the big kids are as they say, a different kettle of fish. Not easily spooked they are just sometimes (most times) plain indifferent to your offerings and they are obviously not nearly as plentiful as their younger brethren. But our time did come.
We were doing some maintenance on our work boats one afternoon. Our boats are moored in a wide canal leading onto the North Sound which is about 800 metres long and perhaps 150 wide at its widest point but for the most part is about 30 to 40 metres wide. We were busy reglassing the starboard transom corner where one of the cleats had pulled out during a storm a few weeks before and taking our time about it too. It was late summer, gorgeous afternoon and the beers in the cooler where making working slowly rather easy. While waiting for a layer of glass to cure and enjoying our second beer, sitting on the back platform feet in the water the miraculous happened. A pod of tarpon suddenly materialised just off the stern of the boat. Moving slowly and lazily with the air of confidence only big fish can they cruised by us and on up the canal. As you can imagine all thoughts of work, not there was a lot to start with, vanished and there was a blur of movement as Dylan and I both made a mad dash to the car to grab our rods which, naturally, went wherever we did. The only tackle we had with us was our baitcasting tackle. 7ft casting sticks matched with a Shimano Calcutta 400 and Dylan with and Abu Garcia 5000. Not exactly the right tackle to be taking on 150 plus pound fish. Or so we thought. But we figured what the hell lets just try jump one anyway. The initial strike and first jump is what Tarpon fishing is all about. Its helluva difficult to keep them on much longer than that anyway because Tarpon have a doctorate in hook throwing techniques but we were game to give it a shot anyway. Which fisherman would pass up the shot at a 150 pound fish on beefed up bass gear?
I was quickest to rig up, my rod being pretty much rigged but for the leader which I replaced with a 6 foot section of 100 pound mono. Tarpon don't have teeth but have a mouth as hard as a cinder block and they can chafe through a leader in no time. This I attached directly to my mainline, 30 pound Power Pro braid, which being the same thickness as 8 pound mono greatly increases your capacity and with the lack of stretch vastly improves your hook setting power as well, both of which I was soon to be making good use of ! I tied on a red and white Top Dog , a surface walking Zara Spook type lure that had proven very effective on smaller tarpon on the beaches. Nothing beats surface strikes from big fish and we were pumped to see one of those fatties hit a surface plug. I ran down back onto the boat and started searching for the pod of fish. Nothing. I thought that I'd been skunked again by the big guns. We sat watching the water for about another 10 minutes staring so hard at the water my eyes started to go fuzzy and trying to will the shoal to come back. Just as we figured they had swum out back into the Sound there they were. Six fish , the lead fish a good 6 feet long and as solid as a bull terrier. They were swimming parallel to us out the canal towards open water about 60 feet away. I got my cast in first, lucky for me and despite nerves and a thumping heart in my chest, it was on the money. 20 feet ahead of the fish and about 10 feet otherside them. Dylan just laughed as he said
" Nice cast mate but those fish are gonna kick your ass " I just grinned and started working the Top Dog back towards me. When the lead fish got to within about 15 feet of the lure she veered slightly towards the plug and my heart jumped into my throat.
" Just keep it moving" I kept saying to myself as I had learned that as soon as you stop a lure most tarpon lose interest.
Then it happened. That lead fish went from a lazy cruise to mach speed in a split second and just charged my plug. There has a huge explosion of white-water as my plug disappeared into a maw the size of a 5 gallon bucket. I just stopped! I was in shock. And I think that brief moments hesitation was my saving grace as it gave the fish time to turn and get a good hold of the plug. I've learned not to set hooks to early , especially on Tarpon as their hard mouths and slow closing jaws require a good wait till you feel the fish before setting back on the hook. After what seemed like forever but was probably about a second or two, as the spray from the strike was settling I heard Dylan shout " Hit her !!! " and I unloaded a heavy sweeping side strike to drive the 6/0 singles we fit on our plugs home. And all hell broke loose.
Many a great writer has tried to describe the first 30 seconds of a fight with a big Tarpon and some have even come close to getting it write. I could never come close but I'll try. A second after I struck 150 pounds of armour plated glistening silver muscle came rocketing out of the water, 8 feet into the air spinning and spiralling with her gills flared and head shaking like a Staffie with an old takkie. From 70 feet away you could hear the gill rakers rattling like giant set of maracas, trying to shake loose the plug that miraculously found perfect purchase in the left hand corner of that concrete mouth. And again she rocketed out the water. And again. And again. 5 times she launched herself skyward in the first 20 seconds , each time crashing into the water with a huge splash and pulling of a couple of yards of line and jumping again. I just stood there hanging on and bowing the rod everytime she broke the surface to try and keep her from throwing the hook. All the while I was just laughing and laughing and laughing. We had done it. We had finally hooked one of these beasts on an artificial lure. We were all smiles. But that was not the end of it.
After the fifth jump she stayed down and made a beeline down the channel at mach pace. After she had pulled a good 150 yards of line and showed no sign of slowing down I got worried. The entire canal is lined with boats from 25 feet up to 90 feet, all with heavy running gear underneath them and barnacles and all manner of other line cutting devices. All that fish needed to do was swim along under a boat and it would all be over. But for some reason she kept making straight for the open ocean and I thought we would be hunky dory for a while.
Then she turned up a side canal. My heart sank. I thought that's it. Once she's around that corner that's it. the corner of the wharf around which she was swimming was encrusted with barnacles and I knew that short of jumping into the water and swimming after her this was the end.
Now this is where having one of the finest boat captains I know as your best friend comes in handy. Quick as a flash Dylan had our 42 foot jet boat started and undocked on his own, no small feat taking into account the 4 docking lines and boats tide up everywhere and a 150 pounds fishing screaming away from you. But he saved the day that boy and I am eternally grateful to him for it. He backed that boat down that canal like an F1 driver in the chicanes dodging boats and moorings and enabling me to get a ton of line back on the reel and get around that ominous line cutting corner. From then on it was a straight out slug fest. Tarpon have a incredible dogged resistance and are stubborn to the maximum. No matter what we did that beautiful beast just kept taking line. I pushed my tackle to the limit and learnt a lot about how far one can push that kind of tackle and what size fish you can take on with the right techniques. About and hour into the fight of her towing us up and down all over creation we got hit by one of those amazing late afternoon summer squalls. 40 knot winds and driving rain soaking us to the bone but with me on the back platform and Dylan on the bridge upstairs, our smiles never left our faces. Happiness is a tight line and your mates there to enjoy it. The squall passed and about another hour and a half into the fight we were getting closer. Dylan had been doing miraculous things with the boat enabling me to stay attached to our prize and if he hadn't been there or been as skilled the fight wouldn't have lasted more than a minute.
The hardest part was yet to come though. Landing this puppy. We had a gaff on board but as there was no way we would ever stick a gaff into a tarpon, as the whole thing for us is to get a picture and release our prize, things got a bit tricky. The problem is that the boat was never designed for fishing, it's a dive boat so landing a 150 pound fish on bass tackle with only two of us on board and the helm upstairs with the wind blowing a steady 15 knots now with boats all around us moored up making it now a very tight space meant we were not going to get many shots at this. Neptune was smiling on us that day and Dylan's gaffing skills were in top form. I managed to get the fish alongside the boat a Dylan took one slow smooth shot with the gaff in the mouth and through the bottom jaw.
She kicked around a bit resoaking us again in the process but Dylan hung on for all he was worth and I dropped the rod and both of us, exhausted but ecstatic, managed to slide her gently onto the back platform of the boat. What a magnificent creature. Tarpon have huge metallic scales that go from a deep green on there backs to brilliant polished silver on there flanks and belly. We were awestruck by this fish and the high fives and hugs for a fish we both caught as it was a team effort,went on for a goodly while . As exhausted as we were we had to get a picture and get this baby back in the water. Dylan grabbed the camera and I summoned the last of my strength to hoist her up for two quick shots before we eased her back into the water. The fight took a lot out of her and she was nearly spent. There was no way we were going to let a fish that had fought so bravely and given us so much pleasure not swim away safely so I jumped into the water with her and cradling her in my arms swam her round and round in circles and then grabbed her by the bottom jaw. Holding her like this and spinning myself around in the water with her mouth open rushing water over her gills. After a couple minutes she started getting her kick back and I held onto her till she was to strong for me to hold and I let her swim off. With a strong kick of her tail she cruised away into the depths towards the open ocean.
I climbed out of the water dried myself down and we jumped into the truck and made our way home. The whole drive home we never said a word to each other. We both knew that we had just experienced something very special and were both reflecting on it in our own way. The smiles never left our faces. To catch what was our ultimate fish, on an artificial lure, on baitcasting tackle , overcoming all the obstacles during the fight, to experience the raw power and sheer beauty of such an amazing fish and in the end to watch her swim away healthy and strong to fight another day was an awesome and humbling experience. We got home sat down opened a beer and both just started laughing. We talked and analysed the fight into the wee hours of the morning and both agreed on one thing above all else. Fishing is an experience which enriches ones life beyond anything that I know. To be able to share that with a good friend, a family member , or a spouse that is what it is all about. All I can say after my experiences is this : Get out there and let nature humble you. Let those fish kick you ass. Don't go catching, go fishing, if you catch, fantastic. If not smile and enjoy the sunset. And in all things , Live Life and Love It !!!!!!!
Tight lines and good sunsets to you all.
And here are some pics of the fish:
Megalops Atlanticus: A Humbling Encounter with Giant Tarpon.
Living on a tiny tropical island in the Caribbean may have some disadvantages. I just never figured out what they were. For a Natal South Coast fishing addict the Cayman Islands were and absolute paradise. Crystal clear 29 degree flat calm waters year round, fantastic exotic species to fish for and only working 3 maybe 4 days a week makes for a rather perfect existence for a 22 year old !
Not that work ever kept me from the ocean in anyway as I worked as a fulltime charter boat captain so I was on the water everyday, work or not running snorkel and dive charters or fishing so life was all around a rather enjoyable affair. Myself and my best mate another south African, Dylan Balfour spent basically all our free time fishing as much of the island as we could. From offshore trolling for tuna, Wahoo and barracuda to bottom fishing the reefs at night for snapper and grouper, to the crystal clear shallow flats for bonefish to the mangrove ponds and channels and estuaries for tarpon and kingies we did it all. The great thing about Cayman is that although a lot of people fish, it is mainly a subsistence type hand line affair in regular spots for little panfish. The gamefish populations inshore on the flats and in the mangroves, although not radically abundant,went about there lives relatively unharassed by anglers.
Now Dylan and I both grew up on a steady diet of light tackle and fly fishing and being both of the adventurous spirit Cayman became our oyster. We spent days and days exploring the island, about 75% of which is uninhabited, looking for secret honey holes full of our favourite quarry, Megalops Atlanticus, Tarpon. Once you catch , or should I say hook one of these puppies, as a fisherman you are changed forever. Blistering speed, unstoppable power and the aerial antics to put any tigerfish or largemouth bass to shame turned them into our prime target for a good part of the year. We started chasing them in the tiny mangrove creeks leading off the North Sound, a large coral lagoon with a lattice work of mangrove creeks and canals leading off it with everything from deerhair sliders on the long rods to soft plastics on the spinning sticks and topwater walk the dog lures when we came across schools of fish busting bait along the beaches. Most fish ranged anywhere from 1 to 30 pounds and in those smaller sizes the aerial show from these silver plated missiles is tough to describe. Fishing up under mangrove canopies we had numerous fish, upon hitting a fly, launch themselves three or 4 feet out of the water right into the trees and there would be a mad scramble into the mangroves to rescue our prized quarry to return them safely to the water to grow bigger and fight another day.
Then our whole world changed when we discovered a way to successfully chase the big mammas. Now giant Tarpon are a completely different breed of fish when it comes to pursuit. The juveniles (anything under 50 pounds is considered Juvenile in the Tarpon world) can sometimes be very easily fooled and on a good afternoon catching 4 or 5 is not impossible. But the big kids are as they say, a different kettle of fish. Not easily spooked they are just sometimes (most times) plain indifferent to your offerings and they are obviously not nearly as plentiful as their younger brethren. But our time did come.
We were doing some maintenance on our work boats one afternoon. Our boats are moored in a wide canal leading onto the North Sound which is about 800 metres long and perhaps 150 wide at its widest point but for the most part is about 30 to 40 metres wide. We were busy reglassing the starboard transom corner where one of the cleats had pulled out during a storm a few weeks before and taking our time about it too. It was late summer, gorgeous afternoon and the beers in the cooler where making working slowly rather easy. While waiting for a layer of glass to cure and enjoying our second beer, sitting on the back platform feet in the water the miraculous happened. A pod of tarpon suddenly materialised just off the stern of the boat. Moving slowly and lazily with the air of confidence only big fish can they cruised by us and on up the canal. As you can imagine all thoughts of work, not there was a lot to start with, vanished and there was a blur of movement as Dylan and I both made a mad dash to the car to grab our rods which, naturally, went wherever we did. The only tackle we had with us was our baitcasting tackle. 7ft casting sticks matched with a Shimano Calcutta 400 and Dylan with and Abu Garcia 5000. Not exactly the right tackle to be taking on 150 plus pound fish. Or so we thought. But we figured what the hell lets just try jump one anyway. The initial strike and first jump is what Tarpon fishing is all about. Its helluva difficult to keep them on much longer than that anyway because Tarpon have a doctorate in hook throwing techniques but we were game to give it a shot anyway. Which fisherman would pass up the shot at a 150 pound fish on beefed up bass gear?
I was quickest to rig up, my rod being pretty much rigged but for the leader which I replaced with a 6 foot section of 100 pound mono. Tarpon don't have teeth but have a mouth as hard as a cinder block and they can chafe through a leader in no time. This I attached directly to my mainline, 30 pound Power Pro braid, which being the same thickness as 8 pound mono greatly increases your capacity and with the lack of stretch vastly improves your hook setting power as well, both of which I was soon to be making good use of ! I tied on a red and white Top Dog , a surface walking Zara Spook type lure that had proven very effective on smaller tarpon on the beaches. Nothing beats surface strikes from big fish and we were pumped to see one of those fatties hit a surface plug. I ran down back onto the boat and started searching for the pod of fish. Nothing. I thought that I'd been skunked again by the big guns. We sat watching the water for about another 10 minutes staring so hard at the water my eyes started to go fuzzy and trying to will the shoal to come back. Just as we figured they had swum out back into the Sound there they were. Six fish , the lead fish a good 6 feet long and as solid as a bull terrier. They were swimming parallel to us out the canal towards open water about 60 feet away. I got my cast in first, lucky for me and despite nerves and a thumping heart in my chest, it was on the money. 20 feet ahead of the fish and about 10 feet otherside them. Dylan just laughed as he said
" Nice cast mate but those fish are gonna kick your ass " I just grinned and started working the Top Dog back towards me. When the lead fish got to within about 15 feet of the lure she veered slightly towards the plug and my heart jumped into my throat.
" Just keep it moving" I kept saying to myself as I had learned that as soon as you stop a lure most tarpon lose interest.
Then it happened. That lead fish went from a lazy cruise to mach speed in a split second and just charged my plug. There has a huge explosion of white-water as my plug disappeared into a maw the size of a 5 gallon bucket. I just stopped! I was in shock. And I think that brief moments hesitation was my saving grace as it gave the fish time to turn and get a good hold of the plug. I've learned not to set hooks to early , especially on Tarpon as their hard mouths and slow closing jaws require a good wait till you feel the fish before setting back on the hook. After what seemed like forever but was probably about a second or two, as the spray from the strike was settling I heard Dylan shout " Hit her !!! " and I unloaded a heavy sweeping side strike to drive the 6/0 singles we fit on our plugs home. And all hell broke loose.
Many a great writer has tried to describe the first 30 seconds of a fight with a big Tarpon and some have even come close to getting it write. I could never come close but I'll try. A second after I struck 150 pounds of armour plated glistening silver muscle came rocketing out of the water, 8 feet into the air spinning and spiralling with her gills flared and head shaking like a Staffie with an old takkie. From 70 feet away you could hear the gill rakers rattling like giant set of maracas, trying to shake loose the plug that miraculously found perfect purchase in the left hand corner of that concrete mouth. And again she rocketed out the water. And again. And again. 5 times she launched herself skyward in the first 20 seconds , each time crashing into the water with a huge splash and pulling of a couple of yards of line and jumping again. I just stood there hanging on and bowing the rod everytime she broke the surface to try and keep her from throwing the hook. All the while I was just laughing and laughing and laughing. We had done it. We had finally hooked one of these beasts on an artificial lure. We were all smiles. But that was not the end of it.
After the fifth jump she stayed down and made a beeline down the channel at mach pace. After she had pulled a good 150 yards of line and showed no sign of slowing down I got worried. The entire canal is lined with boats from 25 feet up to 90 feet, all with heavy running gear underneath them and barnacles and all manner of other line cutting devices. All that fish needed to do was swim along under a boat and it would all be over. But for some reason she kept making straight for the open ocean and I thought we would be hunky dory for a while.
Then she turned up a side canal. My heart sank. I thought that's it. Once she's around that corner that's it. the corner of the wharf around which she was swimming was encrusted with barnacles and I knew that short of jumping into the water and swimming after her this was the end.
Now this is where having one of the finest boat captains I know as your best friend comes in handy. Quick as a flash Dylan had our 42 foot jet boat started and undocked on his own, no small feat taking into account the 4 docking lines and boats tide up everywhere and a 150 pounds fishing screaming away from you. But he saved the day that boy and I am eternally grateful to him for it. He backed that boat down that canal like an F1 driver in the chicanes dodging boats and moorings and enabling me to get a ton of line back on the reel and get around that ominous line cutting corner. From then on it was a straight out slug fest. Tarpon have a incredible dogged resistance and are stubborn to the maximum. No matter what we did that beautiful beast just kept taking line. I pushed my tackle to the limit and learnt a lot about how far one can push that kind of tackle and what size fish you can take on with the right techniques. About and hour into the fight of her towing us up and down all over creation we got hit by one of those amazing late afternoon summer squalls. 40 knot winds and driving rain soaking us to the bone but with me on the back platform and Dylan on the bridge upstairs, our smiles never left our faces. Happiness is a tight line and your mates there to enjoy it. The squall passed and about another hour and a half into the fight we were getting closer. Dylan had been doing miraculous things with the boat enabling me to stay attached to our prize and if he hadn't been there or been as skilled the fight wouldn't have lasted more than a minute.
The hardest part was yet to come though. Landing this puppy. We had a gaff on board but as there was no way we would ever stick a gaff into a tarpon, as the whole thing for us is to get a picture and release our prize, things got a bit tricky. The problem is that the boat was never designed for fishing, it's a dive boat so landing a 150 pound fish on bass tackle with only two of us on board and the helm upstairs with the wind blowing a steady 15 knots now with boats all around us moored up making it now a very tight space meant we were not going to get many shots at this. Neptune was smiling on us that day and Dylan's gaffing skills were in top form. I managed to get the fish alongside the boat a Dylan took one slow smooth shot with the gaff in the mouth and through the bottom jaw.
She kicked around a bit resoaking us again in the process but Dylan hung on for all he was worth and I dropped the rod and both of us, exhausted but ecstatic, managed to slide her gently onto the back platform of the boat. What a magnificent creature. Tarpon have huge metallic scales that go from a deep green on there backs to brilliant polished silver on there flanks and belly. We were awestruck by this fish and the high fives and hugs for a fish we both caught as it was a team effort,went on for a goodly while . As exhausted as we were we had to get a picture and get this baby back in the water. Dylan grabbed the camera and I summoned the last of my strength to hoist her up for two quick shots before we eased her back into the water. The fight took a lot out of her and she was nearly spent. There was no way we were going to let a fish that had fought so bravely and given us so much pleasure not swim away safely so I jumped into the water with her and cradling her in my arms swam her round and round in circles and then grabbed her by the bottom jaw. Holding her like this and spinning myself around in the water with her mouth open rushing water over her gills. After a couple minutes she started getting her kick back and I held onto her till she was to strong for me to hold and I let her swim off. With a strong kick of her tail she cruised away into the depths towards the open ocean.
I climbed out of the water dried myself down and we jumped into the truck and made our way home. The whole drive home we never said a word to each other. We both knew that we had just experienced something very special and were both reflecting on it in our own way. The smiles never left our faces. To catch what was our ultimate fish, on an artificial lure, on baitcasting tackle , overcoming all the obstacles during the fight, to experience the raw power and sheer beauty of such an amazing fish and in the end to watch her swim away healthy and strong to fight another day was an awesome and humbling experience. We got home sat down opened a beer and both just started laughing. We talked and analysed the fight into the wee hours of the morning and both agreed on one thing above all else. Fishing is an experience which enriches ones life beyond anything that I know. To be able to share that with a good friend, a family member , or a spouse that is what it is all about. All I can say after my experiences is this : Get out there and let nature humble you. Let those fish kick you ass. Don't go catching, go fishing, if you catch, fantastic. If not smile and enjoy the sunset. And in all things , Live Life and Love It !!!!!!!
Tight lines and good sunsets to you all.
And here are some pics of the fish:
