March 17th, 2007 – San Felipe, Mexico – Day One.
I woke this morning to winds gusting over 15mph. To make conditions worse, the front was coming from the south. Winds from the north, or the west are not a big deal. When the winds are from the south, they blow straight into the flats we want to fish. My guide commented on the wind, finishing forecast with “today will be difficult”. As we left hotel San Felipe, a.k.a. Tarpon Cay Lodge, I couldn’t help but feel less optimistic about my chances at casting to tarpon than the night before while listening to Marco, my guide, tell me stories of casting to rolling tarpon at 9, 11, 12, and 2’o’clock. “You have to see,” he kept saying.
When the motor on the panga stopped a quick 20 minutes from the hotel I stood on the bow of the boat and stretched out some fly line. We poled slowly toward a “boca” with out any words between us. I was anxious, “come on tarpon, roll”, I thought to myself. After a few dozen casts without success we poled to next boca.
Once we turned the corner around the mangrove into the next bay, I saw them. “Sabalito” Marco said. As we got closer my adrenalin surged. For a moment my cast feel apart, due to the excess energy in my veins. Marco chuckled and instructed me to relax, “its just tarpon”. Just Tarpon? No. There are many tarpon. A fish broke the surface with in range of my cast. Two false casts and my fly was in the center of the disappearing ring. Strip, strip, strip and the line tighten in a familiar ferociousness. I drove the hook in deep with more strips on the line. On the third strip the sliver prince was airborne, violently shacking his head, trying to free the hook in his jaw. The fish tried again and again to free itself, jumping and racing to the security of the mangroves. It took every inch of my 8 weight BIIX to bring the kinglet of the mangroves to the boat. When Marco placed the shining fish in my hands and my anxiety blew away with the wind.
The rest of the day was like a dream. Marco showed me more fish than I could have ever imagined. At every boca, and deep within the mangroves I cast to pods of 20 or more fish, jumping way more than I would land. By 10 am, I had already lost count of how many tarpon I had seen, jumped, and landed.
I never want to leave this place.
Damien Nurre
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