For more than 40 years, I’ve fished for big Florida Keys tarpon from early spring through summer in my backyard. I never go about it nonchalantly. I most always have a personal goal in mind. Not just to catch fish, but like most dedicated anglers, to take a bigger one than the last time. Say, a silver king that would tip the scales at 100 pounds or more, on a fly rod with 6-pound-class tippet, or perhaps a baitcasting outfit spooled with 6-pound-test line.
It’s the sort of challenge that takes plenty of preparation. It calls for you to be in the right place at the right time. Plus a little good luck thrown into the mix. But that’s only part of it. Behind every good light-tackle angler is a good guide, or boatman. Locating, fighting and landing big fish on light gear is a team effort. It takes two to tango, and as those of you who have done this know, a 100-pound tarpon plays its own tune.
I certainly know that now, as I did by the end of one particular late June day in 1977. I arranged to fish with Capt. Hal Chittum, who was one of South Florida’s new breed of guides. He told me, regretfully, that the big ones had all but deserted. If we found any real tackle-busters, I wanted to try them in several categories. The 6-pound-class flyrod world record was 36 pounds at the time. In the IGFA 6-pound line-class division, I held the record with a 791⁄2-pounder. We decided to rig up several outfits—baitcasting tackle with 6-pound line, and fly rods with 6-pound-class leaders and 80-pound-test bite tippet. Hal and I spent several hours tying leaders, testing lines and sharpening hooks the night before going out.
Back then, the IGFA allowed 15 feet of double line plus 15 feet of leader to qualify for that category of line-class records. To play it safe we measured 14 feet of double line, tied on an additional 12 feet of 30-pound-test monofilament and attached a foot and a half of 80-pound-test bite tippet. I used a No. 254 3/0 Wright McGill hook, triangulated needle-sharp with a pocket stone. I slid a 1⁄4-ounce hollow-head worm sinker on the leader before tying on my hook. Since large, live shrimp—a superior tarpon bait—are scarce in mid-summer in the Keys, I threaded a 5-inch orange plastic worm on the hook.
We chose an 81⁄2-foot Shakespeare graphite fly rod that would cast a size 8 fly line, and a single-action fly reel with 300 yards of backing. The fly was an orange-and-yellow divided (splayed) wing streamer that Hal tied to my specs on a 2/0 hook. I nail-knotted a 7-foot, 40-pound-mono butt section to the fly line, coated the knot with Pliobond, and then tied two feet of 6-pound-class tippet to a length of 80-pound mono with a Huffnagle Knot. The bite leader was precisely 111⁄2 inches long between the eye of the hook to the class tippet knot.
We were legal, locked and loaded.
We launched my skiff at Islamorada Yacht Basin (the Lorelei), and ran to Sandy Key Basin not far from Flamingo. I soon hooked a tarpon in the 80-pound range on my second fly cast. Hal (the bionic poler) kept me close to the fish, and the fight lasted one hour and one minute. We knew this was the fish we needed. At Flamingo’s official weighing station it weighed 821⁄2 pounds, the new flyrod 6-pound-class world record.
Two hours later, after properly documenting my fish, we returned to the same area to try for the 6-pound line-class tarpon record. Hal’s role here was again very essential. Poling the skiff silently in four feet of water, he had to quickly get us into position for ideal presentation angles. After several tries and misses, a big tarpon broke from a pack, followed the plastic worm and inhaled it right off the bow. I set the hook, and quickly thrust my rod toward the fish as it instantly jumped before peeling off 150 yards of line. Even bionic Hal could not pole the skiff fast enough to keep up. That gossamer 6-pound line could part on a snag or another fish. So Hal fired up the outboard to give chase. Once close, he killed the engine and resumed poling. I stood on the bow and fought the big silver king as it leaped magnificently.
The shallow depth helped me greatly—the tarpon could not make a deep dive and force me to try and pump it back up. Eventually, I could wind on enough line to fight the fish off the double line. Instead of three or four pounds of pressure, I could now confidently apply perhaps eight or nine. Within 30 minutes, the tarpon gave up, lying confused and exhausted on the surface. Hal picked up the 8-foot kill gaff, spiked it under the gleaming silver belly as I in turn slipped a short-handled release gaff through the fish’s lower jaw.
At Bud and Mary’s Marina in Islamorada, the fish weighed in at 107 1⁄2 pounds—the new IGFA 6-pound line-class world record, certainly the result of a team effort.
