I'm totally kidding on the title. I don't know the water, yet. I don't know how to feed tarpon flies, yet. And I don't even know what they look like in the water, yet. In fact the only tarpon I ever caught was down in Puerto Rico with the late and great Captain Omar Orraca. So even if I was down in South Carolina and entered the tournament I would be a zero threat to the other Captain's and fish. But there's always next year.
The South Carolina state record tarpon is 154 pounds 10 ounces and was caught in 1987. That fish was caught in Hilton Head. Another tarpon, which was reportedly larger but released,
above, was caught in the Port Royal Sound. The record was caught on an August 1st, the other August 27th. So I do know that you can catch large tarpon down in South Carolina in August. I'll start my knowledge base there and build on it over the next year. If I had any doubt if there's good tarpon down here check out the below post I found on Facebook.
Both of these fish were caught on bait and I looked to see what the state record for a fly caught tarpon is but they don't separate the two. It's not the IGFA. Southern Drawl, a mixed gear and fly shop located in Hilton head, runs the Low Country Tarpon Open and last year they recorded 23 releases but I couldn't find out how they did on the fly. It's $500 per boat and an extra $250 to enter the fly division.
I've never been a tarpon guy and most of the talk I've heard about it is listening to Andy Mill (above) over at the Mill House podcast. I know things used to be different as far as handling fish, with lots of kill tournaments, and you'd never see Andy with a fish out of the water these days.) The Mill House is a show done by Andy and his son Nicky. You can check it out HERE. What brought me there were his interviews with guys and girls I'm familiar with, like Popovics, Clouser, Finn, Gardner, Ciccone, and Dixon. But most of the show is about tarpon, bonefish, and permit and the guys that pole skiffs for them. Each show is about 1-/12 hours long and they used to keep me company on my commute home from Newark, now they'll help pass the time heading down to South Carolina.
So last night was the Captain's meeting heading into this weekends Open. As I pen this post they already have lines in the water and are hopefully on fish. As I said most tarpon are caught on bait, and outside of the fall mullet run, Atlantic menhaden, or bunker, or pogies as they call them here, are a forage fish down here just like they are for so many species back home. So, as I have said before, my new fishery down here just won't be around crab and buggy flies, but larger baitfish imitations which I'm used to tying and fishing. Bull reds, cobia, jacks, and sharks, along with the tarpon, all look to those larger snacks to make up their diet.
We've been busy trying to set up home down in Cape May these past few days. yesterday we hit Habitat for Humanity's Restore just to look, and came home with a sideboard, a kitchen table and chairs, and a desk for the office. But that's okay, we got rid of stuff to add stuff, so we haven't added anything, yet, heading into a big yard sale weekend down here around the Cape.