Tarpon Season, Key West

Here’s a photo I came across from one of my old Key West files. This was taken six years ago at the height of tarpon season off Key West. That’s me posing with thirty pounds of a sixty pound male tarpon that had a bad day off the Marquesas. The other half of this fish was swimming towards Cuba, safely tucked away in the stomach of a twelve-foot hammerhead.

Every tarpon guide in Florida has photos like this. Shark attacks are part of the game down here, that’s because a struggling tarpon on the end of a fly rod is like a clanging dinner bell out on the flats. The amazing thing about this picture is that this particular tarpon wasn’t even hooked.

My angler, the incomparable tequila-meister, Mr. Jos Arets of Holland, and I were poling on the east end of the Marquesas when we saw a huge commotion about fifty yard off our bow. The tall, yellow fin was slashing back and forth so quickly that I could have water skied behind it. Big hammerheads on the flats are rare for most of the year but tarpon season is a different story. This one had slammed into a school of migrating fish and singled out the weakest one. The tarpon gave it his best for over a minute but the big shark kept pushing him shallower and shallower until it finally snagged his tail.

The final moments were an amazing few seconds of froth, mud, and then a plume of blood, which happened no less than ten yards from my bow. Jos even captured the entire attack on video. The shark tore the tarpon in half and left his front end floating at our feet. I pulled it onboard for a few quick shots, its gills were still moving, and dropped in back in the water so it could feed the rest of the food chain.

That was one of my best memories from my ten tarpon seasons in Key West. I’ve been away from it for the last four years and I’m looking forward to spending a few week back in the fray this coming Spring. If this is something you’d like to try feel free to contact me at a gmckee1@hotmail.com.