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. Attachment 7107 The only picture of the big boy.
