Suburban Tarpon
Dave Little
I guess you can see by the opening pic that it wasn't a hugely successful outing for my first trip of 2012, mainly due to the lack of Christmas rains this year compared with the last couple. The little creek was almost choked with water lillies, but the few gaps in them certainly held fish.
The going was quiet, maybe because I chose mid-day for the trip, and the tilapia were very spooky... It may have had something to do with the 6ft long eel I watched cruising through the shallows, or maybe it was just that I was as stealthy as a rhino in a china shop....
There were a few tarpon about too, and they were certainly of a good size for the little waterway. They were less cautious than the tilapia, atleast for a little while, with sporadic rolls and even a few jumps as they looked for air and / or a feed. I threw out a little popper, and while there weren't the hook-ups I would have expected it was kind've cool to watch the 30 to 40cm plus fish eye-balling it before pushing it out of the way. But I was here to catch fish on a couple of bugger variations that I've been trying (the summer edition of FlyLife magazine did a write up on Pete's Pulsar) with marabou and zonker... The fish liked it, and I'm going to need to tie a few more up because I haven't got many left....
In the end I managed to land 3 or 4 nice tarpon mid 30's to mid 40's in size, and I also got owned big time by either a monster tilapia or a large eel. My heart was in my mouth until the 8lb tippet gave way before the 2wt rod did.
Hope you all had a merry christmas and a happy new year. See you at the meetings!
The going was quiet, maybe because I chose mid-day for the trip, and the tilapia were very spooky... It may have had something to do with the 6ft long eel I watched cruising through the shallows, or maybe it was just that I was as stealthy as a rhino in a china shop....
There were a few tarpon about too, and they were certainly of a good size for the little waterway. They were less cautious than the tilapia, atleast for a little while, with sporadic rolls and even a few jumps as they looked for air and / or a feed. I threw out a little popper, and while there weren't the hook-ups I would have expected it was kind've cool to watch the 30 to 40cm plus fish eye-balling it before pushing it out of the way. But I was here to catch fish on a couple of bugger variations that I've been trying (the summer edition of FlyLife magazine did a write up on Pete's Pulsar) with marabou and zonker... The fish liked it, and I'm going to need to tie a few more up because I haven't got many left....
In the end I managed to land 3 or 4 nice tarpon mid 30's to mid 40's in size, and I also got owned big time by either a monster tilapia or a large eel. My heart was in my mouth until the 8lb tippet gave way before the 2wt rod did.
Hope you all had a merry christmas and a happy new year. See you at the meetings!
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