Tom’s Tarpon: A Last Minute Fishing Trip

Tom had given me the heads up that an opportunity might be coming my way.  What could it be?  Hmmmmm?  A position on the Drake board of directors?  Probably not.  An all expense paid trip around the world?  Nope.   I come to find out that he was going tarpon fishing and wanted me to be involved.  Cool! I figured he’d show up at my house and fish for some of the thousands of tarpon that swim through my back yard with all my friends.  It would be great, simple, and virtually no work on my part.  Perfect!  Hold on.

It comes to be that due to a cancellation, his friend Travis wasn’t going to be able to get out of work, and I was like the back up guy, that if he really had to, would invite along.  Good enough for me!  I was putting gas in the boat when he explained that we would not be fishing my home waters.  Instead, I realized that I had just sighed up to drive 8 hours to fish for the same stupid fish that we have here.  Now by stupid fish, I’m not knocking them.  I mean it, these fish are dumb.  They eat flies as good as any tarpon anywhere.  I was excited as hell and would have driven 20 hours to get a chance to mess with those poons.  I was on the road, and ready to see what was about to happen.

I drove all afternoon through the rain on bald tires (to keep it exciting) and showed up late at this stilt home in the woods.  Tom introduced me to Dave, his friend, and guide for the next three days.  We got to talking, and Tom revealed that he had never caught a big tarpon on fly before and that his goal was to get one.  Dave and I convinced him that the only way it counts is if you land it, no leadering BS, by yourself…a.k.a “the man up moment”.  Dave also threw down the infamous double dog dare by saying that if in three days, Tom, who has never caught one, can man up and wrestle one to the boat, that Dave would sport a mohawk for a month.

We charged up the clippers, and started with the shit talking.  The first time Tom got bit, I knew he had a lot to learn, and that it would be a pretty good show.   So I broke out the crappy old cameras and filmed it.