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Baby Tarpon Hookset Hi Speed Only

An evening phone call from Maine from Jeremy Cameron. “Hey Marsh, I’ll be flying to Florida, I’m renting a car and I’ll be at your place at 12 noon tomorrow. Can we hit the Tamiami Trail for a couple of mornings?” ”I’m free. Let’s do it”, I said. So, I email directions to my place to Jeremy, and we are at the Tarpon creek by 1:45 the next day. Some serious wind had blown in overnight and the day’s best fishing was well gone by, but I wanted to show Jeremy the spots and give him the casting tour of this great fishery. We saw Manatees, several huge Alligators, jumping Mullet, and several Tarpon to which we cast tiny Clousers. I got one solitary good hit. Tarpon fly fishing is hard, even Baby Tarpon are hard to hook and hold. Jeremy landed a small Snook and we knew the Snook fishing would be still good, so we headed back to the canals that parallel Rt. 41. Standing on a guard rail back casting a Deceiver between speeding cars and trucks, Jeremy was dialed in to ‘his spot’. He’s had success at this hole on an earlier trip to Florida and I think the confidence factor played a role for him, because he landed several plump Snook, and a huge Gar in addition to briefly hooking other “unknowns” (I think they were probably Tarpon). Our mutual friend, headrush999, called when we got home to my place and came over to chat about the next day’s plans which end up being an early 5:30 AM trip back to the Tarpon Creek on the Trail. This time the weather was cold, windy and rainy. It was dismal. But in the car as we sip our coffee, I keep saying stuff like, “Well, we know there are fish there, and that

they like to eat real early…” As we rig up at the Creek, Dave has his windbreaker on and I have my fleece pulled up snug while Maine guy Jeremy is off and in a sweater and shorts, still armed with Maine winter-seasoned blood. He shoots film and Dave and I fish. I keep asking Jeremy to fish but he’s more interested in working with his video camera to capture this magical place, the rolling Tarpon and Dave and me casting. Our reward is a splendid video of an 18-lb. Baby Tarpon hooked and played. Around 9 AM we went back to “Jeremy’s Snook hole” and sure enough, the fish were on the prowl and also on the bite, crashing bait along the shore to give us casting, hooking and landing fun for another 2 hours. When the weather’s terrible, not many guides venture out with clients to fly fish in the choppy waters. An alternative, even though conditions are miserable is to fish the Trail like Jeremy, Dave and I did; Tarpon Creek, a place where you can cast safely fromland land Baby Tarpon and eager Snook in the canals of the Everglades.