When I picture flyfishing for tarpon, the first thing that comes to mind is the setting. I see turquoise flats stretching to the horizon and then melting into deep blue, all of it rimmed with thick green mangroves. That’s not where I ended up.
I saw the man with the machete first. He was leaning on the fat end of a downed mangrove that was blocking the way upstream. He stood on a branch chopping away, but his efforts had produced only a slight notch in the tree. There were three others waiting in the boat, the youngest resting the butt of an automatic rifle on his knee. Their uniforms gave them away as members of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s National Guard—as notorious as the waters they patrolled. The State Department estimates that 200 metric tons of cocaine makes its way through the country annually, much of it through this vast river system, which extends into Colombia.
The look in my wife’s eyes suggested that what she was about to tell me would be a crushing blow. “I wasn’t able to get a ticket for you,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” The ticket in question was to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which, in the world of our teen and pre-teen daughters, is serious currency. My wife had secured six such tickets to the sold-out concert at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. All of which were allotted to my daughters, their friends, and their moms. I put my hands on my wife’s shoulders, looked her straight in the eyes and replied, “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll try to find something else to do.”
My first tarpon on a fly was a stout, laid-up fish that ate my worm and broke me off an hour later. I was a teenager at the time, and fortunate to have a father who took me on an annual spring trip to the Keys. But as I grew older and started achieving some success on the bow, my focus shifted to permit. Like many permit anglers, my trips often ended with a long flight home, followed by a long-winded explanation to my wife about how I could spend three days fishing, catch nothing, yet still feel the trip was “a step in the right direction.” At the height of my addiction, I was focusing more on the seconds ticking away on my watch than I was on scanning the water. I’d lost the mental game before even stepping on the skiff.
Megalops atlanticus. The name belongs more to a creature in an ’80s horror film than a fish out roaming the flats. They are so big and powerful it is hard to imagine them existing in real life. I saw Flip Pallot and Jose Wejebe cross paths with these monsters…
Survive, is what an angler does the first few minutes after hooking a striped marlin. My friend Nick and I shout with joy, accompanied by excited words in Spanish from our new friends. We watch a reel getting emptied and watch the fish leap, flip, and dive. Thirty minutes later and it’s the post-release chatter,…
Revivalists and renegades in South Florida’s Everglades It begins as a subtle unzippering across the surface. Nothing more than shape and motion—forcing the brain to calculate distance to target, direction of movement, and speed of travel. These computations form the basis of what comes next: an attempt to drop a bottlecap-sized fly in the path…
“Journey of the Silver King” follows Megalops Atlanticus on his poon-y quest for sex, grub and a seat at the throne. With the help of Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, his Keys Kingdom is looking prime for an on-time royal welcome. Journey of the Silver King from Bonefish and Tarpon Trust on Vimeo.
Mystique, mayhem, and the palolo worm hatch Late May, Florida Keys. Four in the afternoon. Skiffs buzz back to docks with tired guides and sun-drunk clients. Thoughts of missed shots and cold beer. A dying easterly rustles palm fronds; thunderheads lurk like massive silver anvils. Oceanside, brown bonefish flats sport crisscrossing prop scars. Between the…
“Plus ca change, plus c’est même chose.” Like most trout fishermen my age, normal procedure is to find a place to get into some river and wade, an approach that confers a granular view of all on offer—details of bottom, hydrology, insect life, and general atmosphere. On balance, there are better ways to catch fish;…
For artist Cody Richardson there’s no more enticing silhouette than the one belonging to a certain fish that he hasn’t yet caught. “To me it’s like the elk hunting of flyfishing,” he says of permit, as he pours us a couple of beers in his Windsor, Colorado workshop. “They’re so smart and you have to…
In early May, we headed south to the Florida Keys to grab Clyde and deliver him north. But while we were down there, we figured we better get into some tarpon. But we weren’t just there to jump of even catch a tarpon. It’s what we were going to do after landing the fish that really…
PIPELINES GET A BAD RAP, which they often deserve. Last November, the Keystone Pipeline—of Standing Rock protest fame—leaked more than 200,000 gallons of oil from a below-ground crack, adjacent to Sioux lands near the Lake Traverse reservation. The irony was lost on no one, least of all the protesters who were forcibly evicted from their…
From Alaska to the Keys, the on-the-water epidemic is real It all started several decades ago in Alaska. I was a newbie guide, hoping to land a nice tip. So, when my clients asked if they could spend the morning bonking sockeye spawners, completely ignoring the egg-crazed bows bouncing off their waders, I obliged. The…
This was once one of my favorite spots in the Catskills. Paul and I used to fish it a lot before he moved to Montana. It’s a good place for Isonychias in the fall, and fishing a big dry in October in the East is something to be relished. I was last here more than…
9 lessons from a seasoned storm vet Harvey left its mark on Texas. In its wake, Irma, what’s being called one of the most vicious storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, is passing Puerto Rico and now barreling toward The Bahamas and South Florida, where she could make U.S. landfall in the Keys as early…
Brought to you by another year of high-caliber flyfishing films, The Drake’s 11th Annual Video Awards in Orlando last week saw the crowds pour in to celebrate creativity, sharp storytelling, and gripping fishing footage across a spectrum of honored categories.
Facing ripping winds and tarpon of the hard to find variety, podium experience proved to be the key ingredient for top anglers grinding it out at the 54th Annual Invitational Gold Cup Tarpon Tournament in Islamorada, Florida, with the three winning teams having all been past Grand Champions.
FROM THE SICKLE’S CURVE of Great Abaco Island’s eastern shore, the next piece of solid ground for 3,500 miles is the African continent. Between those shores lies ample room for inspiration. This is perhaps why noted American sporting artist Vaughn Cochran called a summit. “Years ago, when I managed fishing lodges, I had this idea…
Dan caught the only inconnu. Let’s get that out of the way. “Dan” is Dan Armstrong, a well-traveled, Bozeman-based photographer who occasionally gets invited on spectacular fishing trips with the tacit understanding that his job is to record the heroics of the writer and keep his hands off the rod. But it was our last…
After months of negotiations, this week Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed into law a bill that could help reverse the 40-year ecosystem decline occurring in the Florida Everglades. SB10, sponsored by Sen. Rob Bradley, will fund the creation of a 78-billion gallon deep-water reservoir (enough water-holding capacity to fill 120,000 Olympic-size swimming pools) south of Lake…
Grip & grins, screaming reels, and airborne salmonids are the bread, butter, and bacon of flyfishing media. It sure gets the heart thumping to see that tarpon thrash its head side-to-side in midair. The film tours capitalize on this adrenal desire and know how to deliver. But there are times you don’t want your heart to…
Castaway Films’ latest trailer for Atlanticus travels deep up northern Costa Rica’s jungle river systems in search of triple-digit tarpon. The freshwater fishery, fed by seasonal rains, is also stomping grounds for garfish, sawfish, bull sharks, and cute, cuddly caiman. The feature length film is due Jan. 2018. Meantime, here’s a snippet of what’s cooking.
Tommy Robinson remembered his moment of enlightenment. It took place in the ’70s, back when nobody believed you could catch permit on a fly. Robinson grew up in Key West, and began guiding before he’d even graduated high school. But on this day he was an angler, fishing from the back of the boat while…
IT’S 3:00 A.M. IN THE EVERGLADES AND TIM BORSKI IS LOOKING FOR SNAKES. I’m riding along with him as we drive very slowly down State Road 9336—the only four-digit road in Florida. It is 34 miles from Florida City to Flamingo, a distance we are currently covering at about 15 miles per hour. “Right up…
This week Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT) shared the results from its two-year Tarpon Genetic Program that, thanks to the efforts of anglers, guides, lodges, and researchers, saw more than 23,000 scale samples collected from across the world. Nice work people.
Corazón, from filmmaker R.A. Beattie, starts with Mike Dawes telling the story of donating half his liver to save his father’s life. But mostly it’s about Mike’s friend—well-known Mexican flats guide Sandflea—a man whose physical heart is damaged, but whose symbolic heart is flawless. Through Mike and Sandflea, we get a glimpse into the best parts of friendship:…