The rest of thr story...

[Captain]

A great day Tarpon fishing. I caught three the first being the smallest (about 50 pounds) the second one was 180 to 200 and the third was about 100 pound. Of course the best video I have on my phone is of the first (smallest) one. The guide was videoing with my phone on the big fish and ran out of memory as I had him on for over an hour. He's got some pretty good video on his phone and if he emails me tonight I'll try to post here. Florida law will no longer allow you to bring a Tarpon into the boat and photograph them. You can only make a picture of the fish beside the boat OR if you end up in shallow water you can get in the water with the fish and cradle it an make a picture that way. But you cannot "lift" the fish out of the water. This really sucks because you have no reference of the size of the fish just laying in the water. (Keep this get in the water option in mind for later in this story) My guide friend is a Cuban and great guy, but on TOP of Florida's strict law he treats every fish as if it's his pet. He will not allow you to play the fish down to where you can hold him on the side of the boat for a picture. He claims if you wear the fish down that much many of them are killed by sharks. I sorta had an issue with this policy as I would have loved to made some good pictures of the big fish I caught. But as soon as the leader comes in contact with the end of the rod he considers it a caught fish and is ready to cut the line and allow the fish to live. After we had released the big fish I let him know if we hooked up on another I wanted to get to a sandbar and get in the water so I could have at least one good picture. He insisted there were too many big sharks out there to get out of the boat, and I did in fact catch a shark last year that was 10 foot or better. But I told him I was up for the risk. Sure enough I hooked up on the third fish and worked him for about a half an hour. I felt he was wearing down and told Frankie to head for the closet sandbar and I wanted a picture. This fish was about half the size of the big boy but it was still about 5 or 6 foot long. Again Frankie told me getting in the water with a fish that is fighting and in distress was not a good idea. He had no sooner stated his concern that a 18 foot plus shark came up and attacked my Tarpon right beside the boat! He started making pictures as I had the fish all the way in. We are in a 24 foot Pathfinder and this shark is almost as big as the boat. It was UNREAL to watch that shark make short work of a hundred pound Tarpon and it was very unnerving to have a shark that big literally touching the boat. The odd thing was we watch this huge shark toy with this hundred pound tarpon. It was just like a cat playing with a mouse. He would put the tarpon in his mouth and toss him. At one point we cut the leader to let the tarpon go and he swam under our boat to hide. The big shark would bump the boat and finally the tarpon make a run for it but the shark was on him and this time he did not play. Blood went everywhere and it was over. Frankie looked at me and said you still want to get in this water. So I guess I'll never get one of those classic "old style" Tarpon fish pictures. He made plenty of pictures of the shark attack and as soon as he emails them I'll post some here. 7107 The only picture of the big boy.

[Arty]

One

[Arty]

Two

[Arty]

Three

[Arty]

Four

[Arty]

Five

[Arty]

Here you go Cappy. Best I could do on my iPhone. Pretty much just did screen shots of the pdf. But they still clear enough and big enough to CERTAINLY tell what is going on.

Ps... I'd have to change my shorts if that would have happened to me

[Chicken Dinner]

Dayum, Gina!

[LJ3]

Holy shit! What a ride that must have been!

And your dumb ass was gonna get in the water where the 18' shark was.

[Captain]

I was thinking about it, but I don't think about it anymore... He sent me this video clip of the big fish. This is all I got of him. https://youtu.be/-9VTFspoN-A

Fought him for over an hour
Here are some odd and end clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UJ6QdzNHe4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z586h7lvR7E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X1kIChPnwM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vWXp9LpnXU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaomOeR1Vwg

[Thumper]

Us Florida boys ain't askeered of no dang sharks .... OR gators! It's those damn Yankees driving on our roads ya' gots ta' be askeered of! ;)

[LJ3]

I'm jealous. You need a go pro with a head mount. You couldn't possibly look any more goofy so it won't distract from your appearance.

Looks like a good time!

[johnboy]

Don't sweat it too much about not getting pics. You know what you caught and who gives a rats ass what anybody else thinks. I literally have no pics of my best fish except those in my mind. Looks and sounds like you had a GREAT time.

[LJ3]

Here's the dude I caught. If you look at my buddy in the back he has a death grip on me and the guide because big ass sharks were swirling all around the boat :)

7117

[Captain]

You couldn't possibly look any more goofy so it won't distract from your appearance. Looks like a good time!
You say that and then post a picture of yourself doing your best Gomer Pole impression! Hahahahahahahaa

[Thumper]

Lynn and I spent the weekend in Miami (or possibly Ft. Lauderdale?) one weekend and they had a big dock at the hotel where they rented jet skis, paddle boards and small sail boat type thingies during the day. One night we mixed a couple of cocktails and went out to sit on the dock. There were a couple of bright lights shining down into the water at the end of the doc where we sat and I swear there must have been 150 Tarpon running around that dock! During late Spring, they show up in massive numbers and are a hoot to catch. Those things are real dinosaurs and are said to have been around for 100 million years (true story). We see them all the time, mostly on the Gulf coast where we hang out most often. The cool part is, you can also find them running the freshwater marshes and rivers, as well as brackish backwaters, etc. They are one of the ultimate game fish and there are some real monsters out there!

[Captain]

I just noticed on one of the pictures of the shark attacking my tarpon you can see my line still in the tarpon mouth. So I guess you could say I was using a 100 pound tarpon for bait. :D

[LJ3]

That's one big ass Minner my friend! You back at 'em today or Cheryl taking you to the clothing outlets?

And I'm not Gomer. Far more handsome than that! Ruggedly handsome is what I am!

[BarryBobPosthole]

Awesome story, video, and pics Captain. What equipment were you using? Looks like that rod was whoopin' that tarpon's ass pretty good. And what did the guide meanwhen he said 'If he comes up out of the water don't forget to pop that rod'?

That is a nice shark! I thought he might be a bull shark but that dorsal is tall as hell which makes me think maybe its a mako? I've not heard of either of those making 18' though so it'd almost have to be a big sand tiger? They are some awesome animals!

We had a beach house we rented in Bonaire that had a back porch with a ladder that went down into the water. The snorkeling there was awesome. There were lights off the end of the porch and at night the big tarpon would slash in there at the baitfish around the lght. We got in and snorkeled with them at night but they were too wary. Besides, they'd prolly give you a football knee injury the way they raced in.

Neat experience, Captain. I gotta go do that some day.

BKB

[BarryBobPosthole]

And the more I look at it the more I think now its a hammerhead. Which are common in Florida too. I remember a thirteen footer was caught right in Tampa Bay when I lived there. Made me thonk twice before I jumped out of my buddy's boat to cool off after that!

BKB

[Captain]

You are exactly correct Posty, it is a Hammerhead. Good eye.
What I think you are hearing him say is to "drop" the rod. Whenever you are fighting a Tarpon they will leap 10 foot or better out of the water and shake their head. If you have a lot of pressure on the line when he jumps he will throw your hook back at 'cha. I have caught enough Tarpon that I know to bow to the fish when he jumps, but I guess it just habit for Frankie to tell folks to drop the rod (bow to the fish) as he is a guide and is use to taking folks out that have never fought such a fish.
Also when you fight a large Tarpon after he gets his jumps out and is just pulling the boat around you have to pull your rod sideways not up like you do on freshwater fish. The reason is you cannot wear him down lifting on him, especially if he is more than a hundred pounds. He can just use his weight to hold bottom and rest for another run. So you pull him sideways to make him turn his head. Think riding a horse and moving the reins to turn the horses head. This action actually turns the fish much in the same way you turn a horse and it is really the only way to stop him from having rest period. You try to keep his head turned all the time to wear him out.
We were using G Loomis medium heavy 7' saltwater/green water fast action. one piece rods with Shimano reels (3500's), 80 pound power pro braid with 60 pound & Seaguar Fluoro Premier Big Game leader. Fishing live bait.

[airbud7]

Damn Nice Cappy!.........However!....Tell who ever shoots video from a smartphone to turn it sideways (horizontal)................

[Thumper]

Hammerhead??? I didn't see any red hair! ;)

[Captain]

Damn Nice Cappy!.........However!....Tell who ever shoots video from a smartphone to turn it sideways (horizontal)................

7124

[Bwana]

Now I REALLY want to go!!

[Captain]

I gots a question for LJ or any of you other camera and picture knowabouters.
The feller made pictures of the shark eating the Tarpon I had on the line with his camera (a droid, not that I think that matters). I asked him to send them to me so I could tell the story a post here.
Sometime that night he does send them but they are in PDF form and a couple of pictures per page. How can I break them out of the PDF from and back to an image form?

[LJ3]

I have no idea what he did to make them PDFs but if you send them to me I can convert them and put them online so you can download the full resolution images. Easy peasy.

[airbud7]

Yea Cappy, Like LJ said its easy.........However you will never get an image better than the original...


PS: about the camara sideways on videos.......You instantly go from SD(standard) to HD(high)....The choice is yours....

[Captain]

Thanks LJ. I'll send the PDF's to you. Something about a app that puts them in PDF form and they transmit (for the lack of a better term) in a text? I cannot understand him half the time.
AirBud, I'm aware of the "turn the phone" sideways rule. Please note I was fishing and HE was filming. I guess it works the same way with Droids too? I was unsure.

[BarryBobPosthole]

What I wanna know is how to do picture captures from video.

BKB

[Arty]

What I wanna know is how to do picture captures from video. BKB iPhones do that

[BarryBobPosthole]

I have gopro HD video I was to capture images off of.

BKB

[LJ3]

If you install the gopro app on your phone you can play all the videos and do screen shots of the parts you want a picture of.