When I was asked to write about my first tarpon experience, I immediately got anxious. "What if I don't catch one?" "What if I catch one so small it'd be embarrassing to talk about it?" "What if I catch one, get pulled overboard, eaten by sharks and am never heard from again?"

What I didn't think to ask was, "What if my arms are so sore the next day I can't bring them up to the keyboard to write and I have to type the story with my nose?"

At the start of my trip, our guide Capt. Steve Futch told me he once had a 115-pound woman reel in a 240-pound tarpon. Great, I thought, I'm 115 pounds; maybe I will catch a tarpon that large as well.

Thank God the sea chose not to bless me with that punishment ... er, I mean gift, I don't think I'd have arms at all today.

But I am getting ahead of myself. From the beginning, here's how a little "tarpon virgin," as they called me, grew into a full-blown fanatic of the sport in the time span of three hours.

I've always fished. My family would fish on vacations when I was a child, I fished with friends off docks during high school and I've gone bass fishing a number of times. But these were all casual experiences, laid back with the pole splayed loosely in one's hands. These experiences also always involved small fish, sometimes the size of my hand. I don't think I'd ever caught anything over 10 pounds before Tuesday night.

So when we climbed aboard the Lil Priss and our captain began explaining green on the reel this and red on the tip that, I wondered. Don't we just put a worm on, throw it out and sit back?

No.

Then he started discussing the price of that fishing rod I was holding and I got a wee bit more nervous.

Luckily, I didn't have long to weigh in all this new information before I got my first bite. And boy was it a bite. Capt. Futch had said to yell "fish on" when we got a hit, but in all the excitement I screamed something a little more direct and a lot less ladylike. He got the point and gunned the boat forward.

Unfortunately, I lost that fish. But by then I was determined.

My turn came again soon. I sat down, poll laid across my lap, and stared at the little crab-bait circling round and round in its bucket by my feet.

"Herman," I said (I had named the crab Herman) "please go out there and get eaten by a huge tarpon." Herman danced around on his little feet, either saying "yes" or "please get this hook out of my back." Either way, when our captain said green on the rod, I threw Herman over the boat and imagined him floating down like a sizzling entree to a table filled with enormous napkin-clad tarpon at the bottom of the pass.

Then I began a staring contest with my line. This was hard, because in fresh water fishing, whenever your line moves or tugs in the slightest you're getting a bite. I soon learned that while tarpon fishing, little tugs and pulls occur all the time; it's the big yanks you've got to be ready for.

So I stared and stared and stared and Capt. Futch would say, "OK, reel 'em up ladies," and I'd feel a sinking sense of disappointment. Then we'd throw the lines out again and once more I'd stare down my fishing line, willing it to tug.

This went on for about an hour before it happened. And by "it" I mean the great and mighty yank I'd been hoping for.

We'd just found a new spot, one filled with tarpon according to our captain. My line was down and I was half hoping for a bite, half preparing myself for disappointment.

And then, I got it. At first the line tugged and I was just shocked. I knew I was supposed to say something but I couldn't remember what.

"Go! Go! GO!" was all I could muster. And we went.

Capt. Futch gunned Lil Priss forward and I proceeded to maneuver the whole pull-and-reel technique he'd instructed me in earlier. Unfortunately, I was way too overcome with excitement and adrenaline to get the movement down just right.

"Pull Up!" "Reel in, not up! Down!" "Put your hands on the rod!" "Keep steady!" shouts were coming at me from all directions and not a one of them made any sense.

Luckily, Capt. Futch stepped in to show rather than shout out his instructions. He demonstrated pulling up with two hands on the rod, then reeling as it went down. I finally got it.

But that didn't mean my troubles were over. I pulled and reeled and pulled and reeled till I'd sweated through my shirt and gone blue in the face. Somewhere along the way I think I swallowed a sailor as well, or at least a sailors' mouth. I was spitting out words a nice little girl from Missouri is just not supposed to know.

The most frustrating thing was that my fish refused to jump; it just wouldn't appear. So as I pulled and tugged and reeled and tried to remember having arms that didn't feel like rubber, I kept thinking, "What if there is no fish at the end of this line, what if this is all some sick joke?"

What I kept shouting was, "Where is IT? Where? WHERE? *#@**&^$%!!!"

They assured me it was there, that it'd surface and I should be patient. But patience had left me long ago and I was having none of it that night.

Meanwhile, the whole other Boca Beacon group, in another boat with Capt. Sandy Melvin, had pulled up alongside us. They were taking pictures and hollering encouraging and teasing words as I grunted and pulled. I felt a bit like a freak show exhibit.

Finally, my glorious fish jumped. And with that jump all efforts seemed worth it. It was big, or at least it looked that way to little ol' me, whose only experience with fish over 20 pounds are the ones mounted on the walls of bars.

I pulled and reeled for another 10 minutes until it finally surfaced. When I saw it laying passively upon the ocean waves I thought I might faint. It was so huge, and so real, and so still. "Oh God, did I kill it?" I thought.

But Capt. Futch pulled up on the line and it flipped free of the hook and swam off. One hundred and twenty pounds, he said.

I am not much of a hugger but all that changed on that night. I hugged everyone on the boat. I even hugged myself and then I just stood there panting with relief and a new sense of accomplishment.

It was Dusty who pointed out that I was poised a bit like an orangutan, with shoulders hunched and arms drooped lifelessly by my side. The soreness has since spread to my back and down to my fingers. I don't care. I've already taken the dusty weights out of the closet and will start using them again today.

Cause I've got the tarpon fever. And I am determined, next time a tarpon and I face off, to meet him with arms of steel and an endurance to match. Like I said earlier, I am determined. The fish out there have not seen the last of me yet.

Read Past Articles By Captain Steve
"TARPON, A TRAGETY IN TEXAS"
"TARPON UPDATE"
"Help, He's Got Me"

E-mail Captain Steve Futch

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PHONE 941-697-2249.
P.O. Box 1166 Boca Grande, FL 33921

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