Tarpon Are a Favorite of Anglers, in Part for the Fight They Put Up

Jim Klug/Yellow Dog Flyfishing Adventures

A group of anglers fishing for tarpon in Jardines de la Reina, a 75-mile-long archipelago of mangroves and coral islands 60 miles off the southern coast of Cuba.

JUCARO, Cuba — I stood on the bow of a Dolphin skiff anchored at the edge of a large channel in Jardines de la Reina. The incoming tide flooded through the strait with the Caribbean, a patchwork of shifting blues and greens, stretching to the south.

"They're coming," my guide, Leonardo Arche, cried out. A dozen silhouettes appeared 75 yards in front of the boat, their shape unmistakable against the white sand bottom as they moved toward us: tarpon.

"Cast now," he barked. After two false casts, I dropped the fly, a chartreuse Toad with a menacing 3/0 hook, a few yards in front of the fish, 25 yards away.

"Strip," Arche instructed. One strip of the fly, and a fish peeled away from the school. A second strip, and the tarpon's basketball-size mouth closed over the fly.

"Set," Arche yelled, and I pulled back hard on the line. The fish — 75 to 85 pounds, we estimated — catapulted into the air, sunlight sparkling upon its large silver scales and the droplets of water its flight had displaced.

Jardines de la Reina is a 75-mile-long archipelago of mangroves and coral islands 60 miles off the southern coast of Cuba. Designated a national park in 1996 by the Cuban government, Los Jardines is closed to commercial fishing, inhabitation and almost any other visitation. Since the park was established, limited sport fishing and diving have been available through a joint venture between the government and an Italian outfitter, Avalon, which operates several mother ships along the archipelago. Guests dine and sleep on the ships, and take skiffs to the fishing and diving grounds.

"There are very few places left in the Caribbean that are undiscovered and pristine," said Jim Klug, the director of operations for Yellow Dog Fly-fishing Adventures, a travel company based in Bozeman, Mont. "I visit saltwater fishing destinations all over the world, and when you arrive in Jardines, you pretty much feel as if you're the first person to set foot there.

"On a given week, you have a maximum of 24 anglers fishing an area the size of the Florida Keys. The lack of anglers make the fish susceptible to flies — especially the tarpon. In many places, tarpon can be spooky. In Cuba, they'll eat the fly 95 out of 100 times. Oftentimes, you're casting at fish that have never been fished to before."

Tarpon, nicknamed silver kings by aficionados, are found on both sides of the Atlantic. In the Western Hemisphere, they mostly inhabit warmer coastal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Florida and the West Indies, with fish found as far south as Argentina and north to Chesapeake Bay.

Tarpon are readily distinguishable by their silvery sides, monumental mouth (the fish's lower mandible extends well beyond its gape) and significant size; Atlantic tarpon longer than 8 feet and weighing more than 300 pounds have been caught, though anglers are more likely to encounter fish between 60 and 150 pounds.

In the western Caribbean and Gulf Coast, tarpon season reaches its apex in late spring when migratory fish join resident schools as they gather to spawn. Surprisingly, little is known about the life cycle of the fish.

"Research suggests that tarpon spawn offshore, though we don't know where," said Aaron Adams, the director of operations for Bonefish and Tarpon Trust, a conservation organization. "We're also not sure where the fish go in the winter."

One thing is clear about tarpon: their appeal to anglers.

"It's as if you're sight-fishing to dinosaurs," Adams said. "They've been around in their present form for tens of millions of years. You're trying to fool a fish that can be older than you — some live to 80 years — into eating a fly; and once they eat, there are the jumps. Tarpon have been the ruin of many an angler."

The first fish that I hooked spit the fly after its first elegant, arcing leap above the crystalline waters of Los Jardines. Other encounters followed, all equally ephemeral. For many species I've fished for, making the proper presentation of the fly and setting the hook is 90 percent of the game. In the pursuit of adult tarpon, this is only the beginning.

Once the tarpon has taken the fly, time seems to accelerate exponentially. Line that you have stripped in around your feet speeds back through the guides of the rod. En route, there are ample opportunities to tangle around your shirt button, your reel or your toes; I parted ways with three fish this way. Fail to put enough pressure on the line, generally by pressing it against the rod handle with your index finger, and the hook will not set securely in the tarpon's tough jaw. Put too much pressure on, and you can pop the leader or cause the rod sections to come apart. I lost two fish like that.

When the tarpon jumps, you must be sure to lower or bow the rod to provide slack line so the pressure of the fish's fall to the water does not pull the fly loose. Of all the aspects of tarpon fishing, this may be the hardest to master. When a fish as long as you leaps clear of the water 30 feet away and seems to look you in the eye, your instinct is to raise the rod in defense — an almost sure way for the fish to become disengaged.

By week's end, I hooked and lost nine tarpon at Jardines de le Reina.

"You only land one out of every 10 fish that you hook," an angling friend offered as solace.

Perhaps the next one will be mine.

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