Tag Archives: technique

Spring Tarpon

Got a little time on the rocks this afternoon and managed to land 2 tarpon back to back. It was quite the luck of the draw and it felt great to get my hands on these silver kings even if they were only 3-ft in size. A lot of variables have to come together and the forthcoming days over the course of this next week should really produce some fun action on the fly! Paying attention to each individual variable in the environment leads to educated decisions. One must ask themselves questions like what type of bait is present, which bait is most prolific at the moment and other things like where is the strike zone and how long can I keep my fly in it before I loose it to the rocks, or a better question is can I even get my fly into what “i think” is the strike zone?

While your standard daytime fly colors are great, such as red/white, chartreuse, yellow, pink, and white… today seemed to be a little different in the way the sunlight was playing with color of objects in the water. So after throwing a chartreuse fly and a white fly (breaking off a 30lb jack in the crushing surf off the tip of the jetty) I decided to change it up and go with black since the raging tide has the water color off a bit although there were good clean pockets of water to be found.

So I moved back in a bit, took a better reading on the tides and setup in a good spot for that particular tides to make some short casts with long sink rates. Counting down my fly into the strike zone slowly I begin my retrieve, varying my technique I feel a rock hit my line and it moved! Sure enough I am hooked up and landing my first tarpon of the 2015 season, in the month of MAY!!! YEAH!

flies, fly, fishing, tarpon, texas, coast, gulf, mexico, guide, charter

Black is a daytime color too

And then, after collecting a few scale samples, I step back in the hole, and cast again, and tap tap, I set the hook into the upper lip of a second tarpon. Unsure of the hooked species initially, I notice that it doesn’t jump but heads deep for the rocks and I feel the line against a rock. The fish shakes his head left and right saying, “No No No!” and then I would shake the rod back saying, “Come on, YESSSS! Get off that rock!” Keeping steady pressure and teasing the fish by shaking the rod and a minute or two later tarpon #2 decided to change its direction of travel and freed my line from the rock that had snared our connection. I quickly release the fish without removing it from the water and as soon as I set it loose the brilliant fish dipped its head and pointed its gaping lower jaw downward and slipped off into the murkiness that obscures our two worlds.

And then it all seems to stop… and I’ll just call this one a quickie! Confidence in fishing comes from constantly changing technique and method until a pattern can be established. Sometimes that involves a few fly changes, other times more tweaking of the variables is necessary. And sometimes after hours of changing everything we are doing, we are surprised when a fish hits our hook and in all the excitement instantly forget exactly what we were doing to entice that fish! And that is the thrill, the numerous challenges of our mental and physical capacity, stretching our limitations beyond the common knowledge.

tarpon-1So next time you get out there, dont just cast and retrieve… Make every cast and every retrieve different until you find the cadence where the fish are dancing and then jump right on in!

Keep your hooks sharp, Capt Kenjo

Jack be nimble

… Jack be fish. Jack jumped over the fisher man.

Jackfish. Yellow bellies. Jack Crevalle. Give’em any badass name you want!

It is undeniably only a primal act of natural instinct to wait patiently perched on the tallest of rocks scanning the water while wolf packs of marauding crevelle cruise just outside of casting range on the crowded tip of a mega shrine made of red stone. Here fisherman from all sorts of watery trails convene in one place for a holy experience with a ravenous Jack.

Many are sighted and hundreds of casts thrown as offerings with a mighty heart and sometimes in faint confidence.

jack crevalle, fly, fishing, texas, coast, jetty, guide

Down in the S…

Then the brave soul encounters another soul of even greater brevity. It belongs to the fisherman. The best are patient. Keenly aware of their surroundings and quick to execute a precise cast and know when to retreat. That feeling, the twitch, the shake, the jitters and even the creeps, can make your hair stand on its end as if in anticipation of being jolted back to reality when the massive donkey jackfish crushes your fly out of nowhere and screams for the border. “HERE WE GO” he yells aloud!

A power and strength unrivaled in the saltwater world. Even the tightest drags and strongest of lines cannot seem to hinder the initial runs of these fish. Then, they get down and dirty and that is where you are most likely to loose. In the rocks, deep down on their flanking sides, the jack begins a process of swimming sideways and even in circles trying desperately to separate you from him. Talk about rocks being in hard places. It can end in an instant, faster than you can imagine or even react.

But with luck, a skilled angler can put maximum pressure on the fish from the instant you are hooked up together, to exerting maximum amount of turning angles on the fish when he is running from one side to the other, the techniques described below will certainly increase your odds at winning the jackfish lottery!

Fly Tech Section:

Since most saltwater fish are stronger and bigger, the butt section of the average saltwater rod is designed to do all the work. That is where your lifting power and turning capability stems from. For some people this is why they prefer fishing in saltwater over freshwater although many giants exist in sweeter waters.

Lets think about angles here for a minute, as it applies to the angle of the rod in relation to the angle of the water (horizontal) and in relation to the angle of the fish.

The most effective fish fighting method is to keep the butt section of the rod at a low angle to the water. That angle, in relation to the fish means that if the fish is moving left, your rod angle should be to your right, effectively putting pressure against the fish (from behind the fish) yet still off to its side (the fish’s left or right).

low left, angler, fly, fishing, texas, coast, gulf, jack, crevalle, saltweater, guide

Hard low and left angle on fish running right and tight to the rocks

If the fish is running straight away out in front of you and you’re loosing line fast, angle the rod slightly to the left of right, but keep the butt section quite low to the water, yet keeping the vertical rod angle no higher than 45 degrees to the water. If the rod is lifted higher than 45degrees above the water (horizontal plane) when fighting a fish, the mid section of the rod has to do all the work then, and that section is not as strong as the butt section (bottom ~3ft of the rod). This prevents you from putting maximum pressure on the fish and increases the possibility of breaking the rods Gink & Gasoline wrote an article on that.

Hope you find this explanation helpful and with little effort and patience the mighty Jack will pay you a certain visit you cannot forget.

Until next time, sharpen your hooks and I will work to put together a video on preferred knots to connect the fly, and to connect leaders with bite tippets.

-Captain Kenjo, Port Aransas, Texas