Sunday, June 24, 2007

Scratch it off the List

I'm down in Stuart, Florida right now at the Hewes/Maverick/Pathfinder/Cobia dealer meeting representing Yamaha. We didn't have much going today so I had the opportunity to go fishing. Before I go into the actual day, I want to say that one of the things that I have written down to do before I leave this earth is to catch a Tarpon fly fishing. I've never even been Tarpon fishing let alone fishing for one on the fly. Well today the opportunity would present itself to scratch it off the list. It's number 24 on the list of 27 by the way.

Phil (boss man) and I met our captain at the dock at 7am and headed out. Our captain was a real good dude named Mike that was a pleasure to fish with. We fished the beach side of Jupiter Island. Which by the way is where there is an obscene amount of wealth. Tiger and Greg Norman both reside on the island so we saw a few nice places.

We finally found the Tarpon and started fishing. Phil got hooked up but it spit the hook quick after one jump. About another 20 minutes later he hooked up again and this one jumped 3 to 4 times before it finally spit it. Tarpon, by the way are known for their acrobatic displays. So Phil passed the rod off to me.

I was into for about 30 minutes when I finally got hooked up....and it was on!!! It immediately made a huge run and finally made a jump. When it jumped I didn't even realize it was my fish because it was beast. Long story short I fought it for about one hour. We touched the leader, which is considered a catch and said farewell to our friend. I have to say that the fish kicked my butt all over the place. I'm a tad sore right now needless to say. Mike said it probably went for about 100 pounds. Nice!!!

After that, Phil got hooked up and had about the same amount of fight time with some awesome jumps that we got pics of. See below. It was cool because this was Phil's first Tarpon so he was pretty stoked about the whole deal. The people around the meeting were also amazed that I had never Tarpon fished before and got one on my first shot...On a fly no less....

All in all, it was freakin' awesome and I officially get to scratch something off my list....

Here are a few pics from the day. Mike took some pics with his big camera so hopefully I'll get a few more of my fish from him....

Sunrise before the morning's fishing adventure....

Phil spooled up....Great shot....

Captain Mike....Great dude....

Me getting smoked headed towards the beach...I think you can see Greg Norman on the beach rootin' me on....

No comments: