May 13, 2007 By Craig Foster 6 min read

“Too short, get the line up, get it back out there now at 12’clock.” “Perfect Strip! Strip! Strip!” “He’s got it. Set the hook!” “Give it to him again, “Hold that line. Hit him again. Bow to his jump – bow, bow.” “Get the rod tip up, get some line on him.”

“Pow!”

The resounding .22-like crack of your 20-pound shock leader snapping like it was nothing. The guide gives you the questioning look like “You have fly fished before, right?”

At this time the score – Tarpon 5 Craig 0, but I was just getting warmed up or so I told myself. My fly fishing addiction has now landed me in Miami, Florida fishing the Biscayne Bay for the Silverking, but this trip was different then my past tarpon journeys because this battle was to be played out at night under the lights of Miami.

I arrive in Miami around 11:30 a.m. and quickly grab my gear and a taxi to head to the hotel.

After checking in, I give Alex Rodriguez a call. Alex, a Florida native, has been fishing for tarpon long before I even knew what a tarpon was. I had been told stories about Alex for about a week now and how his new strategy for catching tarpon was boating more fish than average – and anything to put the numbers in my favor, I was in on.

Fighting a tarpon on a fly rod does not last much longer than the first hook set when the silver beast blasts out of the water with explosive authority, which demands respect clearing the surface twice his body length and then crashing back down with all of his body weight making short work of your leader.

That is why, when asked how the fishing was, you get two answers – jumped 16, boated 4.

After getting a hold of, Alex we decided to meet up at the hotel marina about 3 p.m. He suggested that I get some rest as I was going to need it for the night to come. I didn’t bother to tell him that was going to be impossible … like I could sleep with the thought of tarpon on the end of my line.

Now after checking my gear for the 20th time and wearing a hole in the hotel floor pacing back and forth, it was time to go fishing.

We started out searching the different coves for roving tarpon with Alex keeping his new-found strategy a secret and only saying you’ll find out soon enough, when, all of a sudden, Alex gets a grin on his face and starts shouting “Three o’clock!,” “two poons heading at us,”.

“Make a short cast, let them swim into it.”

With the excitement of casting to my first tarpon of the trip, I forgot everything I knew about casting a fly rod. With my casting arm going as fast as my heart, it wasn’t long before the end of my fly rod looked like a seagull was building a nest out of my fly line and leader.

A half hour and a second leader later, we were back to fishing with Alex, who I am sure, was wondering if this was the first time I had ever held a fly rod. After a few more failed attempts, which ended in similar fashion, I learned how to control my excitement and fall back into a natural rhythm. About the time this happened, the sun was well below the high rises of Miami and the night game was about to begin.

Alex climbed down off the polling tower and dropped the twin motors down without a word being spoken.

I could tell that it was time to put his new found strategy into play and that we had an appointment to keep with some very hungry tarpon.

As we neared one of the numerous bridges that stretch out over the bay, Alex shut the engines down and resumed his post on the polling tower and told me to rig two fly rods up a 10wt and 12wt with shrimp patterns tied mostly out of Marabou to let it ride higher in the water column.

As we neared the lights of the bridge, riding the outgoing tide, I noticed six or seven shrimp off the bow of the boat, then 12, then 20, then … Tarpon!!! Not just one or two, but a whole wall of tarpon. It was like nothing I ever experienced before. Eighty- to 100-pound fish rising and gorging on these shrimp like the bows back home feeding on a caddis hatch.

After regaining my senses, I was on the casting platform landing my marabou creation on the noses of some very aggressive tarpon.

I felt a small nudge on my fly similar to an early spring nymph hit back home on Meadow.

Believing a fish this large has to hit harder than that, I barely set the hook not wanting to rip whatever small fish from the water with a nine-foot, 10wt when it was the rod being ripped from my hands with Alex now screaming, “Grab my rod. Get it! Get it! Get it.”,

I grasped the rod just before it was dragged overboard.

Now with a death grip on the rod, Alex is shouting down commands to me from the coaches box , “Hold that line and hit him again! Set that hook!!! Come on hit him!”

With that I put a hook set into that fish that would make Bill Dance proud, and the next thing I knew an 80-pound tarpon was jumping out of the water over my head and doing back flips that would make any gymnast jealous.

The fish stripped my reel of fly line and was making quick work of my backing. This made me wonder did I hook a fish or a train. The rod was doubled over and I could feel the stress of the graphite pulsing in the cork handle.

It didn’t take me long to realize this fish was mad and he was heading to Mexico and dragging me with him.

The fight lasted for about an eternity, which Alex assures me was more like 15 to 20 minutes.

After weighing the fish and releasing it (a respectable 80 pounds), Alex looks at me with a smile and says, “You ready to go back and catch a real tarpon now?”