tarpon

Here's a link to a photo of a tarpon I caught about a week and a half
ago in Belize:

http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/web/tarpon.JPG

I just got home and I'm beat. I'll post details later if anyone is
interested.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Nice little fishy.
Please post details.



"rw" wrote in message
ink.net...
Here's a link to a photo of a tarpon I caught about a week and a half ago
in Belize:

http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/web/tarpon.JPG

I just got home and I'm beat. I'll post details later if anyone is
interested.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

rw wrote:

Here's a link to a photo of a tarpon I caught about a week and a half
ago in Belize:

http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/web/tarpon.JPG

I just got home and I'm beat. I'll post details later if anyone is
interested.


details... please. about belize too, i hope.

jeff

rw wrote:

Here's a link to a photo of a tarpon I caught about a week and a half
ago in Belize:

http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/web/tarpon.JPG

I just got home and I'm beat. I'll post details later if anyone is
interested.

I'll add my voice to the chorus for details, please.


Chuck Vance

"rw" wrote in message
ink.net...
Here's a link to a photo of a tarpon I caught about a week and a half ago
in Belize:


how did it taste?

wayno (well, *somebody's* got to represent timbo's position around here)

I've heard Tarpon taste like chicken....

Like Jon, I'm anxious to catch a Tarpon like that someday.

bruce h

wrote:

I've heard Tarpon taste like chicken....

I've heard they taste like rattlesnake.

Like Jon, I'm anxious to catch a Tarpon like that someday.

Same here. And they can be caught even along the Gulf Coast of
Texas. Last year a local guide (truly local; he lives in Wimberley)
caught what was likely a 200 lb. tarpon (on a flyrod) down at Port
O'Connor: http://reel-time.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33221


Chuck Vance (who would settle for that one's little brother)

"rw" wrote in message
ink.net...
Here's a link to a photo of a tarpon I caught about a week and a half ago
in Belize:

http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/web/tarpon.JPG

I just got home and I'm beat. I'll post details later if anyone is
interested.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Looking forward to all the details, from the fight, to the boat setup, and
the lodging and travel. Great fish.

Willi and I just got back from a trip to Belize where we were joined by
Charlie Thompson, a friend of mine from Stanley. I'll just describe
catching the tarpon and leave the overall trip report to Willi because I
suck at TRs. Suffice to say that the trip was great fun and we caught
quite a variety of fish and saw some amazing things.

We were fishing in a cove at a place called Tarpon Caye, about 10 miles
offshore from Placencia. Our guide was Julian Cabral who owns nearby
Whipray Caye. The lagoon was full of a phenomenal number of glass
minnows and lots of tarpon feeding on them and breaking on the surface.
I was blind casting a sinking line from the bow of the boat with a
plastic "fly" called a gummy minnow that imitates a wounded minnow,
except it was a lot larger than the naturals. It seemed somewhat futile
to be completing with what seemed like billions of bait fish.

I was about to give up my casting spot on the bow to Willi when the
tarpon hit the fly very near the boat. I did a hard strip-strike and my
hand didn't even move an inch. The fish ran about 40 yards from the boat
and jumped two or three times. It looked HUGE! Then it went on a long
run heading out of the lagoon, taking a shocking amount of backing from
the reel. It jumped again, a couple of times, maybe 150 yards from the
boat, and then started another run for deep water. By the time Julian
fired up the motor and took off after it I was down to VERY little backing.

We caught up to the fish just outside the lagoon over a coral flat,
maybe two to three feet deep. Julian hoped it would stay on the flat,
where it would tire faster than in the deep water, but I was getting
worried that it would break off on the coral, so I was relieved when it
got to the drop off and headed straight down into the deep. Then I
discovered that its run had burned out the drag on the POS Lamson reel
on Julian's rod that I was using. If the drag was set at, say, 20 lbs,
it actually ranged from zero lbs to 40 lbs on every revolution of the
spool. I'm amazed the rod didn't break before Julian loosened up the
drag. It was bent double.

Now I was faced with the daunting task of hauling the fish up from the
depths using a reel with no effective drag. It was not easy. I pulled it
up near the surface and it dove again, and this happened several times,
but each time the fish took less line. When it finally seemed exhausted
(and my biceps were exploding), it took a gulp of air and started down
again, and that happened several times.

Julian timed the fight. It took 45 minutes to get the fish into the
boat. He didn't have a scale, but we figured it was about 80 lbs. In
case you missed the photo, here's the link again. :-)

http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/web/tarpon.JPG

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Great story! Fantastic Tarpon.

bh