by Capt. Matt Mitchell
Good days and bad days are all part of tarpon fishing. No matter how hard you work at it, some days it just does not happen . After a 5-day streak of hooking tarpon and feeling like a rock star, things dried up on me, and I’m in all that can be described as a drought. Just like any kind of big game hunting or fishing, these fish are just very hard to catch. Luckily, the good days are the days you remember, and the bad days have to be put behind you. For several days this past week, these fish simply vanished, moving offshore until conditions in the sound improved. When they did show back up, I found them on the beaches of Cayo Costa and Gasparilla. Windy conditions on the beaches made it hard to stay on these fish as they moved quickly and just would not slow down.
What’s more frustrating as a tarpon guide, finding lots of fish and not being able to get a bite, or simply not finding any fish. Both of these scenarios will play out many times during our tarpon season. All I can do as a guide is have the correct equipment and the right baits. These parts of tarpon fishing are under my control. Getting the tarpon to eat once I locate them is basically out of my control; all I can do is present the baits to these finicky fish over and over. Unfortunately, there is no magic tarpon dance that makes them eat it; it just comes with time served.
All it takes on a tarpon charter is that one bite to make a trip. Sure, I have trips with multiple bites and several fish caught, but many days are just not like that. There are no guarantees when tarpon fishing, and if there were, it wouldn’t be the challenge of tarpon fishing. On the trips, I get my client that magical fish, all the hours of work and sometimes days of boredom are quickly forgotten.
Being a tarpon guide requires wide shoulders and a short memory. Sure, many clients understand it, and seeing hundreds of rolling tarpon is always exciting, though hooking into one of these fish is what it takes to make that trip. The frustration level of this fishing can be through the roof. Some days, when you do get that bite, you can do battle with a fish for almost an hour and then lose it. Those days, though, when it all goes right, and you get your client that bucket list fish, are amazing.
