David Siskind | Sunday, 17 May 2026
It’s not by accident that tarpon fishing, like horseshoes, has several flavors of “close.” I learned a few new terms this past week. “Bitey,” or “getting bit,” and ‘jumping a fish” were already in my pocket, but now I have “chewy” and “chewed,” and “putting fish in the air.” Add all these to “looks,” “nods,” “leans,” and “follows” and you’ve pretty much got much of my migrating tarpon fishing experiences. I’ve had some connected successes, but not this week. I specialized in “looks.” I also got one “crouch” and another “swing and a miss.” In my defense, the weather was often rough, the viz poor and even the few bait guys “weren’t putting fish in the air.”
Of course it was grand! Love to fish with Brian (Quiet Waters - FL inshore and tarpon, and LA Bulls). Always good, never bad.
I had a lot of shots at fish and was casting pretty well. I would say that I could’ve done better when the wind showed up. Brian convinced me that I needed more line speed so I adapted the 170 to and found I could punch with a little more power. Down wind casts at some angles proved most problematic. My backcasts sometimes tried to die. I fished the first two days with the SA Amplitude Infinity WF 9F (1/2 size heavy, under lining the HT10) and switched to the slightly heavier SA GrandSlam WF 9F (3/4 size heavy) to good effect. Wednesday, Brian loved four of my feeds - he thought they were perfect and I deserved at least one chew on those. I had several other reasonable presentations to catchable fish (less than 75 lbs) who looked at my offerings - some turned them down others turned away. We changed flies often. I don’t think it’s all me. The fish had a vote and they were just not moving on the fly. Tant pis.
I worked on my retrieves. Head shots require catching up with advancing fish and adding life. Daisy chains and fish passing broadside require moving slowly as possible and adding life. The fish don’t want to move far. I found that a little bit of rod tip action proved very helpful. Small pulls of the rod tip downward and back improved my connection to the fly and made Brian’s rabbit strips quiver nicely. Of course this echoes Paul’s advice given to me just a week ago - in the context of adding pop to a to a popper.
In addition to effectively tuning my casts and retrieves I added a further refinement to my wide-angle-soft gaze fish sighting practice. I stopped trying to look through the water, reasoning that all of the reflected light collected is projected on my retina in two dimensions. Filters for color, movement and size can be applied to a vision field without interpretation, regardless of glare of water clarity So I just let it happen and looked for disturbances and pattern disruptions and then homed in on these when alerted. Interpreted only then. Trying to look through the water only encouraged attraction to clear-spots and areas where bottom features could be discerned, lingering and hoping for fish to swim through these silos. Not effective. I saw fish well all week.
So, hoping to bring these refinements and enhancements of my game, developed over three days, into play on Thursday we motored out through the pass into a shit show of 2 foot rollers and 20 mph winds. We couldn’t safely stay on the best tarpon highways and had to settle for less productive edges. It was nearly impossible to stand on the tossing bow and cast. I got one shot all day - into a headwind to an oversized tarpon that I could never have held onto under these conditions. Thank goodness I’m going back for another bite at the apple in June.
Also, Trump went to China this week. Unlike Nixon’s visit, no one will be composing an opera about this one.
Cheers,
David Siskind