While on a recent spring trip to Queensland's Sunshine Coast I had the good fortune to meet up with a friend of mine by the name of Anthony Bellantoni, or Madkeen as he is called on Sportsfish. Poor guy, I had been at him to take me to his tarpon spot, so the first day he was available was to be the much awaited go at some quality tarpon.

This was not the first time I had fished for tarpon, I had fished for them with Rio of Rio's Lures a couple of times with not even any fish showing up on the surface and also had a go in a small unnamed Noosa creek at them. I had never hooked, let alone landed one before, but I did come close on a trip to the upper Noosa river only days earlier, when a small pack of them homed in on my bass fly just before a big tourist packed boat zoomed past, right over the tarpon and almost sinking my canoe. Never mind, back to the story.

A Medium Bass taken on my prototype Super Tarpon Candy.

I arrived at Anthony's house in the early afternoon, where we spent a couple of hours killing time with lunch and fly tying- to replace at least some of the flies I lost along with my fly box the day before in the pounding surf while hauling out swallowtail dart.

I whipped up a few candy type flies with a style of hook I thought might be better than any of the others I had for tarpon. They were soon finished and a couple of Anthony's mates arrived before we set off for the spot.

Upon arriving, the afternoon sun was still bright and the air was balmy- with a high barometer- apparently perfect for our chrome missile-like friends.

Anthony and I waded into the mud and reeds, while the other two raced off further up to fish with the wind at their sides. Anthony had tied on a white slider and was cranking it in with no action whatsoever, while getting constant hits- a couple from tarpon and lots from small bass and spangled perch. I did manage to see some tarpon hit his lure right at the waters edge, as I feverishly readied my fly gear. My setup was simple- 7/8wt rod, sinking Striper line and a 10ft long mono leader with a 3kilo tippet. On the end I tied one of my Super Tarpon Candies and cast it out, stripping the fly in with short sharp 5cm strips, as Rio had recommended.

While waiting for the next pack of tarpon to come past, Anthony got stuck into a heap of spangled perch, one fat monster at around 25cm! I had a go at the slider for a few minutes, while Anthony had a go at fishing with my flyrod. I pulled out a small bass and Anthony got more Spangled perch!

The Authors Tarpon

I continued to catch many small-medium bass as the sun sank lower. Anthony commented on how the tarpon should fire soon. No sooner than that was said, my line pulled tight like a guitar string and the unseen fish made a burrowing run for the bottom.

I commented on how this fish felt like a nice bass, when it suddenly came up to the surface and made an extremely powerful and very fast run. Anthony said it was no bass, as it leapt feet into the air, head shaking so fast it was no more than a blur. I was yelling "GET THE NET" as Anthony was running around finding it.

He was frantically yelling to keep the rod low, as the fish kept leaping time and time again, with plenty of blistering runs thrown in between. All I could see was swirls on the surface and extremely high jumps as this bright silver fish seemed to totally loose control. A few times it came in close to the bank, but it could not be netted as it was still jumping like nothing I had ever seen before.

It stopped once Anthony got it well and truly in the net. We both emerged from the mud and reeds with ear-to-ear grins, as photos were taken and handshakes were exchanged. The fish was revived and released as I let all the surrounding area know that I had finally caught a tarpon, 37 cm worth of pure speed. The interesting thing was that the fish was hooked in the tongue.

Before releasing the fish I inspected its mouth. The mouth of a tarpon is pure bone, except for the tongue and roof of the mouth. Those places are the only places inside a tarpons mouth a hookup will at least have a good chance of holding. A quick inspection of my line showed it to be chafed to the point of breaking. A few more seconds of leaping and headshaking would have busted the fish off for sure.

Continued...

After that bit of pure excitement we went to another spot that Anthony had caught tarpon before. The water there was much deeper and far more open, with plenty of room for a backcast, despite the annoying side-on wind.

This is a 37cm Tarpon released

Anthony had rigged up a Rio's Slug and cast it out before spinning it back in as fast as he could. There was a swirl on the water and his line pulled taut as his rod took on a serious bend, before straightening up again.

As often happens, a tarpon hit his lure and because of the bony mouth did not hook up, leaving Anthony cursing the fish! Seconds later, there was a huge splash- like four bricks being thrown into the water from a great height at once.

All that could have been was a monster tarpon, Giant Herring or a depth charge. Whatever it was, I wanted to hook it! (Maybe not a depth charge though!)

As it got darker Ken, also known as Ravin drove up with his dad, to see how we were going. The mozzies also came up to see how we were going. Luckily Ken had some repellent, the nice bloke he is he decided to let us use some. Seconds later my line once more made the guitar string type TWANG as another tarpon swallowed my tiny fly. It made some blistering runs, leaping all over the place, far more jumping than the other one (as hard as that is to believe!) but was only slightly smaller.

I lifted the fish out of the net once it was landed, the line snapped like cotton. Another lucky landing. The sandpaper-like inside of the fishes' mouth had worn the tippet down to the dangerous point. Lucky we had the net!

A few more casts and it was too dark to see, so we packed up and left for the night. A couple of days later, I arranged to meet Anthony at the spot, and as a bonus my dad had come up to visit, so I took him too. That day was terrible for tarpon- with a cold wind and an air pressure so low it could have snapped the barometer's needle!

2nd Tarpon photographed and released.

Nevertheless there were some nice tarpon and massive mullet swimming past, but not really feeding. I managed one spangled perch on fly but no tarpon. I tried lures too, but no luck. Anthony and Dad were using lead slugs, but no hookups, only a couple of high speed follows.

We cast right into schools of tarpon with no result at all, but just on dark I did see one tarpon feeding- zooming in on a baitfish at an unbelievable speed. That fish was far too fast to cast to.

The mozzies came out again- making the air sing like thousands of tiny violins, as a result we were soon totally covered in them. Anthony screamed and rolled around on the ground as they drove him insane.

He then locked himself in the car.

The chrome missiles were just not hungry, so we had to pack up and leave, before Anthony went totally crazy!