Days 16 -20, June 5 - 9, Marathon, Florida

As good as this is . . .

Those were the words that Bill Nelson, Captain Rich Keating and I exchanged countless times this week as we searched for tarpon near Marathon in the Florida Keys.  “As good as this is,” one of us would say facetiously, “let’s move to another spot.”  The fact was that the tarpon fishing this week was the quietest BIll and I have experienced in more than ten years of fishing in early June.  Due to a hot dry winter and spring, the tarpon migration peaked early, and we simply didn’t see the numbers of fish we normally see.  To make matters worse, the winds were fierce and always in our face, and the skies were often cloudy, making it hard to see or cast to the few fish we did encounter.

Se la vie.  We’ve had a great run with Captain Keating and caught a lot of tarpon over our years together.  We were due for bad luck.  But we counted our blessings.  Although the fishing didn’t match what we’ve grown accustomed to, it wasn’t a total bust, as evidenced by this video that (Emmy-nominated) videographer Bill helped me assemble.  I think you’ll enjoy this - click on the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2v86BsRyE4

Although jumps and catches were few and far between, we had some fun and crazy moments, like the time when I hooked a big tarpon and discovered that my fly line was wrapped over the butt section of my Sage Xi2 rod and crossed behind my Tibor Gulfstream reel.  I made quite a nice little cat’s cradle with the fly line, as the following picture attests, but it was absolutely not what I wanted to see when there were 80 pounds of raging megalops about to haul ass and bring that line tight.

I frantically tried to unravel the mess and almost did it, but the fish was a split second faster than me.  For the first time in my life I saw a fly line break.  The tarpon sailed away with forty feet of blue line trailing behind him, never to be seen again.  I tried not to be a drama queen, but it was tough in a week when there were few chances.  The language on our boat was salty, to say the least.

One of the things I’ve learned on my trip thus far, not surprisingly, is that fishing is not getting any easier as the years roll by.  Rapid growth of the human population and its demands on the rivers and oceans is clearly having an impact, and climate change is making things worse.  In the last few years we’ve witnessed substantial fish kills due to weather – the populations of bonefish, snook and barracuda in south Florida have obviously declined.  The tarpon population is holding up, apparently, but is probably not what it was in the days when Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey prowled the waves around the Keys.  Our guide told us about Stu Apte, a saltwater fly fishing pioneer, who remembers when schools of a thousand tarpon cruised the beaches before the days of heavy boat traffic and overfishing.  The schools we saw were packs of 25 or less.  I try to remind myself that our biggest problem this year was just bad timing, and hope that’s all it was.  I also remind myself to keep supporting organizations like Trout Unlimited, American Rivers, the Nature Conservancy and The Bonefish and Tarpon Trust – organizations that strive to protect what remains of the natural world so that our children and grandchildren will have a chance to enjoy the earth and its waters as we do.

Bill and I come to the Keys every year and we love it.  We usually stay at a modest but sharp little place called The Ranch House in Marathon where other tarpon fisherman join us at the patio tables in the evenings to share stories.  We made new friends this year, including Randy from Santa Rosa, California, and a father and son from Kentucky.  John (the son) told me I was “living the dream,” and all I could think of was that he was right, and I’m so grateful.  We also met Randy’s friend Jim from California, who has a rare disease that has given him a short life expectancy.  He was funny and smart and engaging, a guy who is making the most of every remaining moment of his life.  When it gets right down to it, we all have a short life expectancy, don’t we?  Are we making the most of every moment?

One last story – two stories really.  After dinner one evening at Lazy Days, Bill and I stopped at a local park to watch a little league game.  One of the teams was coached by our friend, fly-fishing guide Albert Ponzoa.  At one point in the game a player hit a foul ball over the fence where we were standing with our friend Bob from Ohio, who fishes with Albert every June at the same time we’re with Rich.  Bill, who pitched for BYU on an athletic scholarship, scrambled for the ball.  Seeing the first baseman holding up his glove, Bill tried to fire the ball to him.  Much to the amusement of the crowd, the ball hit Bob right in the butt.  “And he’s my friend,” Bob said dryly.  The audience roared.

A few minutes after Bill and Bob’s comedy act, Albert’s team was up by two runs in the bottom of the last inning and the opposing team was at the plate with a man on second and no outs.  The outcome of the game was dicey.  Albert had told us a couple of days earlier about having put in a pinch-runner for a slow, heavy kid and how he was worried that he may have made the kid feel bad.  On this occasion that same kid was playing center field when a batter smacked a hard line drive in his direction.  The crowd held its collective breath while the kid calmly held up his glove, sucked in the ball and fired a flamer to the second baseman, who tagged the base runner for a double play.  The place went crazy.  Albert’s team won the game, the heavy kid was awarded the game ball, and the world’s balance was restored.  It was more thrilling than watching the Phillies.

What’s the lesson here?  The tarpon don’t flow at the same time every year and the weather isn’t always good, but you can meet some great people, and underdogs sometimes come out ahead.  That lesson may be a mite obscure but it’s a lesson nevertheless.

As good as this is, here in the Keys, I have to end this post and get ready to start north and west tomorrow.  This is the end of the first leg of my trip.  The next leg ends in California.