I've fished Boca Grande pass several times for tarpon. A friend and I floated amognst the big cruisers a couple of times, throwing crab patterns on a fly rod. A 80-140 pound tarpon in that traffic is a clusterfk, fun, but hectic. And the cruiser captains call you all sorts of ugly names too

The mullet run in Oct off Stuart/Palm Beach is absolutely amazing. Poons, big sharks, and huge jacks blasting mullet all up and down the beach. Constant hookups.

One fish on my bucket list

ha, caught my first tarpon with him, Cal was a damn good guide.

When I arrived at the dock I got my fly rod out and told him I wanted to catch a tarpon on a fly. He said it was very unlikely I would do it with THAT outfit. It was an eight foot dry fly action seven/eight weight rod. LOL Late in the day we motored around a point and he cut the motor and told me to get up front with THAT rod. He told me to cast up under some limbs with my tarpon streamer. I made maybe one strip and a 30 pound tarpon ate the fly and exploded up INTO the overhanging limbs. I thought he was gone, but it ran out into open water and we finally landed it. I'm looking at it on the wall now these 49 YEARS later.

It takes a great guide to put a newbie 17 year old on a tarpon on a halfbaked fly outfit.