Catching a mighty, high-jumping tarpon is one of the goals of dedicated big-game fisherman. Most of the tarpon fishing is done in South Florida, the Keys, or Central America. My brother Dave and I have had two very unusual tarpon fishing adventures on the north Gulf coast of Florida, near the villages of Old Homosassa and Crystal River. We were familiar with fishing the beautiful Homosassa and Crystal rivers, both as clear as crystal and flowing from underground rivers.

One of our adventures came from Dave's acquaintance with the owner of a sporting goods store, who told him, "If you meet me at the end of May on the night of the full moon, I'll take you down the Crystal River and you will hook a tarpon."

Unbelievable as this sounded, Dave and I took him at his word. He took us a few miles down the river in bright moonlight, and we trolled huge red and white wooded plugs up the river. My plug wouldn't wobble properly, but to our surprise, after a while Dave did get a hard strike; but the fish wasn't hooked, and we couldn't see what it was. We kept on trolling, enjoying the moonlit ride; and about midnight a huge tarpon struck Dave's plug! It made seven leaps completely out of the water and finally shook the hook and escaped. The tarpon was well over a hundred pounds - an impressive sight. We were happy, and our host's tall story turned out to be true after all!

My other adventure occurred in the Spring, also. I had learned from our fishing friends familiar with the Homosassa river, that trophy-size tarpon - some have been caught that weighed over two hundred pounds and larger ones have been hooked and lost --- come inshore to spawn in a particular bay near the mouth of the river where it empties into the Gulf. These spawning tarpon, feeling vulnerable in the shallow water, are even more wary than bonefish. A small elite group of fly fishermen keeps breaking size records. I decided to try it. One of the local guides, with a boat uniquely designed for this kind of fishing, loaned me his long heavy rod and took me down the river at an illegal sixty miles per hour and up the coast. (I brought up the subject of smuggling and he quickly denied it, although I hadn't accused him). These tarpon boats (probably also used for bonefish in the Keys) are very shallow draft, have a flat deck in front for the fly fisherman to stand on, and a precarious high platform mounted over the engine in the stern, on which the boatman stands to spot the fish and silently move the boat with a long pole. The boatman stops the engine far enough away to avoid spooking the tarpon, and moves the boat to the limit of casting range. The fly is quite small, not longer than an inch. The rod and line are heavy enough that the fisherman needs to be in good condition. Being sedentary and short, I found it quite a chore. I finally made a good cast, and a huge tarpon had a fly in its mouth - but spit it out!

So, I still haven't caught a tarpon.

As we were returning, the guide was poling us through a shallow spot when his pole slipped on a rock. He fell into the water. As he was swimming to the boat, I pointed in back of him and yelled that he had lost his hat, which was true. But he thought I was yelling, "Shark!" and flew back to the boat.