Pimp My Carp (Okay, Tarpon Time!)

When asked by co-workers where we were going on vacation, I told them Tarpon fishing in the Keys.  Their response was usually "Why would you go the whole way to the Keys to fish for carp?"  After explaining it so many times that it was Tarpon, not carp, I finally hit on this -- "A Tarpon is not a carp, it is like a salt water "Pimp My Carp."
 
This year's trip was pretty good.  On the first day, visibility in the water was such that even I could see fish coming from over 200 feet.  This was a huge advantage because by me being able to see fish from the deck of the flats boat, my guide could watch one direction from the poling platform and I could watch the other.  By spotting fish at a distance, it was easier to position the boat at a reasonable distance from the fish and also to play the wind in our favor.  If you have ever tried to punch a Tarpon fly into the wind, you will understand why positioning the boat to take advantage of it is paramount.
 
In the morning (8Am - noon) I had 29 opportunities to cast at fish.  Some of those were one cast shots and some were three or four cast shots.  I had 3 bites; 1 blast the fly several feet out of the water, but miss it; and 1 fish ram the fly with a closed mouth.
 
The first bite resulted in me doing what I do at least once a trip and that is to raise the rod to set the hook instead of keeping it pointed at the fish and just strip strike.  Raising the rod simply pulls the fly out of the fish's mouth and that is just what happened.
 
The second fish, which while I can't say it was the biggest Tarpon I ever had hit, it was among the biggest, blasted the fly at about 15 feet from the boat.  It immediately jumped twice, but unlike most Tarpon, did not run at all, but just thrashed about on the surface near the boat.  I actually had to hand strip line in, because it would not run to the reel -- and that ended up being my undoing.  After two more jumps, the fish decided to run a bit and I found that the stripped in line had found its way around my left foot.  As the line shot off the deck, the line tightened around my ankle like a noose and I had to sit down to attempt to free it.  As I was doing this, the fish jumped two more times.  On the second jump, because the line was tight from my ankle to the fish, the 16 lb. leader broke and the fish was gone.  Even though pants and socks, I had a red line around my ankle for 2 days.
 
On the third bite, I could feel the leader sliding through the fish's mouth on the first strip, but could also feel the hook skipping acroos the boney jaw without sticking on the second.
 
During lunch (noon to 12:30) I had two more shots at fish.
 
In the Afternoon (12:30 to 4 PM) I had 19 more shots at fish that showed varying degrees of interest, but no bites.
 
On the second day, heavy cloud cover restricted visibility to about 50 feet until 9 AM.  After that, the sun came out and once again, I could see well enough to contribute to the fish spotting effort.  In the morning I had 12 shots at fish.
 
On shot # 10, three different fish in the pod chased after the fly with the 3rd one finally blasting it.  A good strip strike produced 4 jumps at the boat before it took the fly line and a substantial amount of backing.  We chased it with the boat and regained the backing.  At that point it jumped 2 more times and ran deep into the backing again.  Both forearms were cramping and I was raising a pretty good blister on the forefinger of my reel hand -- even through sun gloves and a stripper finger sleeve.  We gained the backing again by chasing it with the boat.  At this point, the fish had moved from the very shallow water of the flat to water that was in th 20 -- 30 foot range.  While it did most of its fighting within sight, on occassion, it did sound straight down.  Following one of these soundings, it suddenly, and surpisingly for being this far into the fight, ripped into the backing again and then did a triple jump.  During the jump, I heard a small "tick" sound, but paid no attention to it.  We regained the backing and did the tug-of-war thing for a while.  Four times we tried to get its head up to get a lower jaw grip, but each time it showered us with salt water form its huge tail and took off, although only until the backing was in the guides.  After some more heave-ho action, the guide was able to touch the leader to make it a caught fish.  As we were debating whether we really wanted to bring what the guide had offically deemed "just a mean fish" into the skiff or not, it sounded again and circled the boat.  With the rod in the water up to the reel, I walked it around the boat before it came blasting to the surface again, showering us and snapping the tippet (we had the drag cranked down pretty hard at this point).  As we stood there wondering what had just happened, I looked at the rod and it became apparent that the "tick" sound was that of the ferrule splitting length-wise.  In fact, it turned out that both female ferrules of the 3 piece rod were damage during the fish fight.  I had hooked the fish at 9:30 AM and we touched the leader at 10:55 AM.  We estimated the fish to go about a buck twenty five.
 
As I re-hydrated, the guide changed out rods -- I like to fish a 10-weight, which while being a little light, is easier for me to make a good presentation with.
 
 
Shot # 11 was pretty bad, mainly because of my cramped up arms not being able to make a very good effort, but shot # 12 produced a strike at 11:25 AM.  The fish made two water clearing leaps and ran deep into the backing.  We gave chase and ended up gaining the backing rather quickly.  While this was a mightly fish (about 95 lbs.), it had no where near the attitude that the other one did.  We did some tug-of-war and at 11:55, touched the leader for a catch.  With the fish close to the boat, we could see that it had several loose scales.  I told the guide that I wanted to try to boat this fish because I wanted a scale as my trophy.  Of course, the fish was not going to help in this matter and no sooner had I said that we need to boat this fish, it made a short run and did a sommersalt jump, landing on the leader and snapping the tippet.
 
Lunch was interrupted by 2 shots.
 
The afternoon saw many pods of fish that accounted for 33 shots, but the only excited interest that was shown was 1 rammed the fly with a closed mouth.  With the condition I was in, while I would have loved to have caught another fish, I am not sure I was up for it physically.
 
I met the guide on Day 3 and with a Tropical weather front coming in from the Bahamas, visibility would be poor at best and we would need to duck around cell after cell of thunderstorms, so we cancelled the day.  I spent most of it sleeping on the beach recovering from the previous day's fish fights.
 
All in all, some good casts were made, some bad casts were made (only one in the back of the head), a lot of fish were cast toward, some ate the fly, some were caught, some were not and I booked for next year before I left.
 

Greg,
 
It was a great trip.
 
We stay in Key Largo for 4 days and then go to Key West for 2 days.  When fishing, I use Captain Duane Baker who resides in Tavernier.  Since we are after giant migrating Tarpon, we always fish the ocean side.  We usually put in at Harry Harris or Pennecamp and run north for varying distances depending on where the best visibility is.
 
With 50 shots the first day and 47 the second, including two prolonged fish fights, that was about the best seeing of fish I have had in 7 years.
 
We ate at some of our usual spots -- Caroline's in Key West; The Fish House in Key Largo, The Calypso in Key Largo; Zane Grey's at the WWS and also tried a few new places. 
 
We hit The Green Turtle Inn in Islamorada for the first time.  This place has been written about a lot in the old Keys fishing articles.  We tried to stop last year but it was closed.  It turns out they completely remodeled the joint -- it took away some of the dive ambiance, but the food was good including some outstanding conch bisque. 
 
In Key West, since we stayed at the Marquesa, we had dinner in the Marquesa Cafe (get reservationas at least a month in advance).  It is rated by Zagats as one of the Top 100 in the US and it lived up to it.  Give it a try next time you are in KW. 
 
While in KW, we had lunch at the Hog's Breath because I use their spices at home.  It was okay, but not super.  We had some Hog's Breath Ale and after reading the label, found out it was made in Pitsburgh (that's right, only one "t"), PA by Wainwright Brewing.
 
We also did have a few Key West Sunset Ales and they were as good as usual.
 
We also had our favorite treat from the Blonde Giraffee -- Dark Chocolate covered frozen Key Lime Pie on a stick.
 
I figured that once you experienced the whole Tarpon thing first hand that you would go back year after year.  Now you just need to visit us on the Little J during the spring hatches and you can ink in two vacation permenantly.

Great story!

Bowhunter,
 
I do have some photos of the tug-of-war part and some great scenery shots from Key West.  I'll put them up on this thread when I get some time to resize and download them to PhotoBucket.