Latest

This is the fourth article in a four-part series that explains how to catch Florida tarpon without hiring guides or staying in expensive lodges. In case you missed them, here are part one, part two and part three of the series.
Tarpon were everywhere but they wouldn’t touch live crabs. Strings of 10 to 20 fish rolled into the tide, slow and lazy. All along a shallow grass flat, singles and doubles laid up beneath the surface—sleeping silver...

We’re on our first drift of the evening, my father and I, when I feel a distinct tap at the end of my line. Just as I register what’s about to happen, my line tightens and my float disappears. It’s as though I’ve snagged a bridge piling and we’re drifting slowly away—that’s what it feels like as the tarpon sucks in my crab and turns to continue swimming.
I set the hook with a hard sweep, low and to my left.
“There we go!” Dad shouts.
A huge boil...

This is the second article in a three-part series that explains how to catch Florida tarpon without hiring guides or staying in expensive lodges. In case you missed it, read part one of the series first.
The first tarpon I ever hooked nearly knocked me into Florida Bay. My father and I were drifting live crabs beneath floats on an incoming tide when the tarpon ate my crab and leapt over our outboard like a pole vaulter, two feet from my head...

Warning: once you hook a giant tarpon, you’ll never be the same. If you’ve done it, you know what I mean—the world looks differently afterwards. If you haven’t, you’ve probably heard tarpon-addicted fishing buddies rant about it after a couple beers. Who can blame them? It’s been said that jumping a tarpon is like mainlining a powerful drug. Tarpon addiction has led to divorce, fist fights and mysteriously sunken skiffs. Writers have described...