It has been a crazy busy winter and spring of 2023.  Between schoolwork and school softball, I was really burnt out.  Adding to that, I lost one of my dogs and a dear friend all with in the same week.  I do not mention those losses to make light of the situation, more to illustrate the fact that I was really looking forward to spring/Easter break to rest and recharge both mentally and physically.

My family owns a condo on the sun-coast of Florida that was devastated by Hurricane Ian.  As part of my break, we were traveling to Boca Grande, Florida to do a little work, but also enjoy a place we truly love.  One thing we love about Florida and Boca Grande in particular is that it is a town largely untouched by time and largely committed to one thing-fishing.  Boca Grande is a town on Gasparilla Island, a small barrier island off the southwest coast of Florida.   It is some of the best fishing in the world and considered the tarpon (type of fish) fishing capital of the world.  As a matter of fact, Gasparilla Island’s first inhabitants were the Calusa Indians who were a fishing and hunting people.  I will expand more on the Calusa history in future posts. 

After several days of work and not great weather, we headed out Thursday morning (my parents and I) to spend an entire day tarpon fishing.  The day starts very early and tarpon seem to be more plentiful early in the day.  We went out to catch bait fish and then started fishing for the tarpon near the pylons of a huge bridge that connects Gasparilla Island to the mainland.  I hooked a tarpon in the first ten minutes (I have been tarpon fishing many times, and this is rare.).  Almost right away the fish jumped.  Tarpon breach above the water and are nick-named the silver kings for this reason.  I saw this was a BIG fish, like in excess of 150lbs.  I fought the fish for over forty minutes.  This was exhausting, but exhilarating.  Every time I got the tarpon close the boat, the reel would ZING and the fish would take out more line.  Finally he tired, and he tired in shallow water close to some mangroves.  This meant a once in a lifetime opportunity, I got to take a picture with the tarpon in the water.  Tarpon are protected, so they are only fished for sport and released.  They can’t be removed from the water for any reason, so the only way to get a really great picture is to jump in (when you can) and I did.  My dad hopped in with me, since the tarpon was so large and the hook was pretty unsteady.  My mom quickly snapped the picture, we removed the hook and revived the silver king.  He swam speedily away and I happily climbed back into the boat.  I was soaking wet, a little muddy, covered in fish slime, but beyond thrilled!  I was a great day and a moment I will never forget!