Early bustling in the kitchen woke me this morning before the Sun broke the hold of night. My brother was preparing a lunch, and by the time I had fully opened my eyes, he had us driving to Flamingo in the Everglades.
We arrived around 6am and launched from a hurricane tattered tourist center in the park. From there, Dave drove his Maverick boat to a flats area known for feeding tarpon. It was unbelievable! In my brother's words, there were acres of rolling tarpon. Unfortunately, they were rolling in morning conditions which made sighting the fish hard. This combined with my poor casting left us almost empty-handed for the morning.
Until... I made a short cast to a school of approaching tarpon. One of the large "tanks" made two attempts at my fly, and on the second I hooked him! For the next five seconds I was in another world. Then, like a Sumo wrestler fighting a babe, the tarpon jumped and tossed my fly. Wow! What an amazing fish.
After a morning of little success, my brother decided to spend a few hours fishing for dinner--tripletail. We "flared" past crab pots searching for tripletails hiding behind the large buoys. I must have cast to and missed 6 fish before I finally landed one, and it took three hook-ups before I caught one legal to keep.
With dinner in the cooler, we headed back to this morning's spot expecting a repeat in the tarpon action experienced earlier. It was not to be. Dave poled the boat a solid four hours, as we searched for laid-up or rolling tarpon. Nothing. So, we packed it up and called it a day.
Tonight, we feasted on the tripletail. My brother breaded the fillets with crushed Ritz Crackers (a fisherman's secret) and they melted in our mouths. A great end to a fun, sun-burnt filled, day.
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