High-jumping Babies

Now, and for the next month, tarpon will be at the peak of their season in the broad tidal bays and rivers which break the sweeping curve of the Gulf Coast. Sought from Mexico to Miami, but perhaps most intensively along Florida's west coast from Cape Sable to Tampa, the tarpon is the Gulf's great game fish—big tarpon, that is, say from 50 pounds up. Lesser known—but no less exciting—is the sport of angling for so-called baby tarpon in canals, estuaries and rivers running into salt water.

Sometime in late spring the big tarpon concentrate on the edge of the Gulf and school up to spawn. The resulting fry move up the tidal creeks and fresh rivers to mature in sheltered shallow waters until they can attain the proportions necessary for survival in the sea. In these small mangrove-lined streams, which swell and fall with the tides, tarpon range in size from that of small bream to hungry 30-pounders. (The mature seagoing fish weighs up to 200 pounds or more.)

They are true game fish right from the egg. Tiny tarpon only weeks old can be taken on light trout tackle and flies. The baby babies are almost as hard to land as their massive parents and are prized trophies for the really good fly caster. The babies are fish to try the best of anglers who use trout and bass-weight fly rods, spinning gear or light bait-casting rods. Spin casters use 6-to 10-pound monofilament, bait casters 10-to 15-pound test line, depending on the sensitivity of their thumbs and the speed of their reflexes in releasing the spool at the beginning of a fast rush.

Baby tarpon are found upstream wherever the tarpon ranges, but perhaps the most productive waters are those which encompass Florida's Ten Thousand Islands region. The islands stretch 60 miles along the lower west coast from Naples to Ponce de Leon Bay at the mouth of Shark River. They comprise a total area of nearly 600 square miles.

The majority of the islands are tiny oyster bars covered with dense mangrove thickets. The number grows annually as oyster shells pile up above low-tide levels and provide a rooting ground for mangroves. Some of the islands are large, six to 10 miles long, a mile wide, and contain high ground in all but the rare super tides.

The islands abound in insect life. In the best of the season the tarpon fishermen must be able to endure the fiery sand fly and be prepared to enjoy fishing in a bath of mosquito repellent. May, June and July are top months for baby tarpon, but a determined fisherman can take them any time. In the winter months they are harder to find and harder to make strike, as well as harder to hook and boat.

Tarpon are constantly on the move after they reach five pounds. They work in the channels of the creeks between the shallow bays. They are here today, gone tomorrow and must be hunted out. There are days when they are nowhere to be found. The smallest tarpon lie still in the cover of the mangrove roots, waiting for shrimps or minnows to drift by on the outrunning tide. In the inside waters of the Ten Thousand Islands, all game fish feed on the ebbing tide, and are most active from half out to the slack water of the turn. Outside, on the edge of the Gulf, they feed on the incoming tide as well, as food fish push in from the sea.

As the baby tarpon moves and feeds, it gives the angler his single advantage. Fishermen always know when they are "in" tarpon. The fish has a curious roll similar to a feeding porpoise, except that the tarpon shows only its dorsal fin and tail. The loosely formed schools of tarpon are hunted down in fast utility runabouts powered by inboard engines from 100 hp up. Astern, the runabouts tow fishing skiffs powered by outboards of from 10 to 25 hp. The fast boats cover the watery miles of the Ten Thousand Islands; the skiffs—manned by veteran guides—penetrate mangrove-canopied creeks where it seems nothing could pass.

APPROACHING THE FISH

Since tarpon are sensitive to the grind of gasoline engines and the pounding slap of fast boats, the skiff fisherman must cut his outboard power the instant he sights a rolling fish, and push ahead on oars. He must keep carefully to the side of the channels in which the feeding fish move up and down, rolling as they strike. The tarpon fisherman presents his plug, or streamer, if he uses a fly rod, across the channel just to the edge of the jutting mangrove roots, and preferably in a direction quartering upstream from the boat. When they are striking freely, tarpon will hit almost anything that moves in the water. But good days or bad, they are most often hooked on a darting plug which will come to the top when it is motionless. The silver-flash finish attracts more strikes.