The King and I

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The King & I

The King & I
By Capt. Dave Sutton

The Silver King and I have had our battles, some long, some short. The months of May and June are
considered the season for those battles here in South Florida. Just try to find a good guide with an open
date and you will see the stage is set for the joust. But beware; the tables are not in your favor. You can
equip yourself with the very best guide with his multi-thousand dollar high-tec flats boat, the very best
flyrod and reel made, and the well seasoned, time proven fly, and still come up short. For upon the hook-
set you will see the champion strut his stuff.

This is why you will hear the anglers and guides speaking of their day with two sets of numbers. The
first set is how many fish were actually caught & released, and the second set is how many fish were
jumped. The first set of numbers is almost always much smaller than the second set due to Megalops
Atlanticus.

Just the sound of his name suggests royalty. Jumping a tarpon is, in itself, worth the price of admission.
The violence that occurs after you set a hook on one of these brave knights is a sight to behold. It is the
stuff that keeps anglers coming back for more since the very beginning. This sport in the early nineteen-
forties was waged with fly reels without drag systems and fly rods made of solid fiberglass and bamboo

Guides like Stu Apte & Jimmy Albright fished anglers like Ted Williams and Kurt Gouty back in the hay
days, and the best part of it all, it is still going on today. The gear has changed and the boats are now
more expensive than the houses were, but the game still remains the same. The following story is one of
such a battle. Gladiator versus lion in the saltwater arena we call Biscayne Bay.

Jon Hass of Beaverton Oregon arrives at my home in anticipation of facing giant schools of tarpon as
they migrate south toward the keys the second week of May. This is his second trip of the quest, while
only landing several permit on crabs during our last adventure. Jon is an accomplished fly caster in the
northwest waters. He has numerous very large steelhead, trout and salmon under his belt, but know he
has set his sights on the King.

As we make the crossing of Biscayne Bay a hint of light in the eastern sky is seen. Winding our way
through Caesar’s Creek then turning north the hint of light turns to color as the sun is close to revealing
itself on the horizon. The water is quiet except where my skiff slices through as we look for our first
sighting. We shut down and prepare our gear and ourselves. A proven fly is chosen and carefully tied on
the sixty-pound shock tippet. The twelve weight fly line is cleaned and stretched and carefully coiled in
the stripping bucket just as I see, “There, off Christmas Point, is that a school pushing south?” Jon
answers, “Oh yea, big fish”.

A school of forty or more tarpon show themselves by pushing up a head wake as they travel in three
feet of water. An incoming tide is the factor in moving the schools of fish up to the shallow water as they
head south. I begin to pole the skiff into a position to intercept the giants, for a head on shot is the key.
The lead fish is only a hundred feet away as I stop the boat and create an angle for casting, while on the
bow Jon awaits the command. “Ok Jon, give me a nice, easy sixty foot cast at eleven o’clock bud.” I
watch the rod begin to bend as the line is mended, then presented right in the path of the oncoming fish.
“Drop your rod tip” I say, “wait, wait, ok, strip ….. strip……strip ……the line comes tight and Jon
strip-strikes the fish, once, twice then a third time.

The water suddenly changes off the bow
from a mirror reflecting the now full
sunrise to a violent thrashing of
whitewater as the King starts his dance.
The rest of the school erupts in the
panic as the hooked fish tail walks
toward the deeper water. Five, six,
seven leaps, and all the wile I bark out
“BOW, BOW, Bow again ” as the
great fish jumps and shakes
his head rattling
his gill plates like they are made of steel.

Now comes the run, powerful and fast as he screams off a hundred more yards of line, then another
jump out on the horizon as the reel begins to slowly quiet down. “Ok Jon now comes the tug-of-war,
down and dirty bud.” Teaching the lessons taught to me by the master Stu Apte I bark out “reel-up on
him, pull down and to the side brother, nice fish …. Nice fish.”

Just then a smile comes to Jon’s face where there was only conviction before, pausing for a moment to
take a breath and absorb the moment, he say’s “First cast Captain, first cast man,” as the line is slowly
put back on the reel. “Watch your angles,” I say as the fish is now close to the boat and the sun reflects
a golden glow of a six-foot long tarpon rolling and gasping for a breath himself. “Down and dirty bud,
more pressure, he’s almost done.”

Grabbing the leader and gently sliding my hands into this warrior’s mouth, we remove the fly and
immediately start the engine and begin to idle back into shore as we revive the great fish. When done
well, the fight should last only twenty to thirty minutes, thus not totally rendering the fish helpless.
Moments go by and the fish is kicking hard enough to release but we need to record this victory. Into the
water we go as the sun creates the richest colors of morning for our camera’s eye. Click, and then a
great release of a strong fish as out on the edge yet another school passes us by.

5/19/2003