A hot tarpon takes to the air after grabbing a worm fly.

Some things just haunt you forever. I first moved to Key West on January 1, 1971 as a Navy JAG officer assigned to the Boca Chica Air Station. It took me about an hour to track down a few local anglers and a few days later, I caught my first tarpon, a 40-pounder, at night on a live shrimp. Happy New Year, indeed!

Thirty-four years later, I’m still obsessed with tarpon but now fly fishing is my drill. Tarpon are, undoubtedly, the consummate flyrod fish, but one particular tarpon phenomenon has eluded me for years.

I recall a meeting of the Key West Anglers Club in June 1971. The late Capt. Bob Montgomery was giving his fishing report: Sailfish offshore, lots of permit around, no tarpon. I thought, how could there be no tarpon the first week of June? I had to ask, and after the laughter in the room died down, Bob simply said, “They’re all down at Bahia Honda Bridge, eating worms.”

Worms? At first I thought he was joking, but a little later he explained the so-called worm hatch. It normally occurs a few days after the full moon in summer and all the tarpon leave the flats and gang up in the channels to feed on some goofy worm that hatches and then tries to swim out to the reef without turning into something’s lunch. That was my introduction to the mysterious palolo worm.

I caught my first tarpon on fly with Bob, who recently passed away, and I’ve never forgotten his comic description of a worm hatch. Unfortunately in all those 33 years, I never had the good luck to actually fish a hatch. Lord, have I tried! And, “You should have been here yesterday” has a stinging meaning for me.

Anglers gather at the height of the hatch, when palolo worms, and worm-crazy tarpon, flood Middle and Lower Keys channels.

The worms only hatch when conditions are ideal. It’s triggered by calm weather and an outgoing tide at dusk a few days after a full or new moon in May, June or July. I’ve heard of hatches of various magnitudes from Broad Creek in South Biscayne Bay to the tip of Key West. Sometimes they happen throughout this entire region on the same nights, sometimes not. They can also be very localized. You have to be at the right spot at the right time and the whole thing only lasts about two hours. Only the worms know for sure. So it’s a fleeting opportunity.

In mid-July many years ago I was fishing with Capt. Robert “RT” Trossett out of Key West. We planned to run out to the Gulf wrecks to look for permit, but as we passed Calda Bank just north of Key West Harbor, we spotted tarpon rolling everywhere. They were up shallow on the bank and were gulping something with great enthusiasm. Hundreds of fish in the 20- to 50-pound range were rolling, busting and slurping up some unseen delicacy. This was the first time Trossett had seen this phenomenon and we didn’t have a fly rod in the boat. We did jump several fish on surface plugs before the fish stopped feeding abruptly at 8 a.m. It was as if someone had thrown a switch. Trossett went back the next two days with his flats skiff and fly rods and had some career days. He figured out it was some kind of shrimp or marine worm hatch, but he never did find any samples of the animals in the water. By the third day, the fish were gone. Again, this was just after the full moon.

Over the years I gradually gave up offshore fishing and now rarely pick up anything other than a fly rod. Tarpon monopolize my time these days. Palolo worms are always on my mind. Many tarpon flies are designed to look like, or accidentally look like palolo worms. And some that are supposed to mimic the worms really don’t. Many of these flies were obviously invented by guys who have never seen a worm hatch. Even small versions of the popular Apte II tarpon flies look like worms to some degree, and Capt. Chris Dean in Miami ties a very effective worm hatch fly that is about 10 times the size of the actual creature. But they all catch fish during worm hatches.