Kalyn Hoggard | Monday, 8 September 2025
I’m not sure if it works this way with everyone, but as I spend time on a skill or a hobby, I tend to keep moving the goal posts to make things harder. I used to really enjoy hunting deer, but I only get the intense exhilaration when hunting them with a bow. There is just something about honing your ability to accurately shoot, putting yourself in a situation where you may see your quarry, and being so close to them in the heat of the act that you can smell their breathe. Unfortunately, that time of year has been taken over by fly fishing, and I don’t expect there to be many changes to that anytime soon.
Fly fishing has its fair share of different skills to hone and deploy as you get better. It starts out with catching a fish, and quickly moves to catch a fish with a fly I tied, catch a fish using a specific technique, catch that exact fish, catch fish people said you couldn’t catch, fight fish with the lightest gear you can and win, explore new areas and catch new types of fish, and on and on it goes. I think I have made it to the final evolution… telepathically fly fish. Use my mind to get a beginner to make the cast, set the hook, and catch a fish. I find this to be the ultimate handicap, and I think it is why I love to make it happen so much. To be honest, watching other people catch fish really pumps me up a lot more than catching fish myself. Now don’t get me wrong, there are situations and there are fish that will sure send the adrenaline shakes down to my fingertips, but those times are much fewer and further between now than they ever have been before.
Slowly developing someone into a fly fisher and getting to watch them stumble around in awe of a giant tarpon smashing their fly, might be my final evolution. I have spoken of my nephews from time to time, and I am blessed to get to share this lifestyle with them. It at least seems like they are having fun when we fish together. So, I shall journey on trying to make them the best fishers they can be. This summer my nephew and I went out with, Evan Noponen of Southwest Florida Guide Service to chase some of those big silvery fly eaters. My nephew is for now and forever to be referred to as “the Catfish King,” because he has consistently proven his unreal ability to catch a Gafftopsail Catfish. He catches them in places that he shouldn’t, at times that you wouldn’t expect him to, and he isn’t exactly excited about having this ability. If we are ever fishing together, be it a pond in the Midwest, or a trout stream out west, and Colt hooks a fish, then my first response is, “Is it a catfish?” I don’t know how long I can keep up this ribbing, but I will give it as long as it takes.
I chose to sit and watch for this adventure. We had gone to a famous place to catch tarpon, and I could not think of anything more entertaining than watching my nephew get a lesson from a 150-pounder. Heat of the summer and very little rain made our timing not quite as awesome as it could have been, but Evan kept us in the fish. I’m pretty sure the first, “Oh My God,” that came out of Colt’s mouth when he saw his first big air breather was worth the whole trip. We went hard. We were fishing murky water. You can’t just pole up and take shots at fish as they swim by. You must pole around in areas where you are seeing fish roll on the surface and hope you can get a fly in front of them. Colt made more than enough casts to feel good about his effort, and Evan could have poled against the current much less than he did during the trip, and I appreciate that from both.
We just could not catch the right break at the right time to make it happen, but there was an incident that made me feel good. We had been chasing rollers on one edge for a lot of the morning and went ahead and looked in some bays at reds and sheepshead just trying to get on the board. Of course, we had some awesome fly chase downs to a missed eat or a last second denial. It seemed like the sheepshead liked how Colt wiggled his fly but would find some way or another to spook no matter what.
Side Note: I wasn’t planning on fishing at all, but I did bring rods, leaders, lines, and boxes and boxes of flies.
So, we start out toward a new stretch and lo and behold there were tarpon rolling everywhere. I guess Evan had a certain amount of faith in what I had rigged up and told the Catfish King he could go ahead and throw my rig if he wanted to. I am nerdy when it comes to game changers and baitfish patterns. I just love making my fly look as close as I can make it look to the most eaten bait fish around. I may enjoy it too much. Well, my rig had like a 6-inch game changer on it, 2/0 hook, rounded profile, silver on top white belly no eyes. We are poling along, and Colt is taking some blind shots here, there, and everywhere, when Evan spots a laid-up fish. The only one we had seen all day that was giving us an easy shot. The boys have a talk, we reposition the boat, Colt takes a good shot, and OH MY!
All day long Evan would hear a certain kind of explosion in the water, and would announce, “DEAD.” What he meant was that the specific sound we just heard was a tarpon eating something. When a tarpon commits to eating something usually dies.
The tarpon that had just seen my beautiful fly for the first time decided to make it, “DEAD.” The tarpon charged at the fly and just gulped it down faster than you really have time to react, but Colt tried, and strip set hard. My sparkly beautifully crafted tarpon treat came right out of his mouth, because the fish was coming right at us. But like I said, this tarpon chose “DEAD” for this fly and came right back to it and gulped it again. This happens from time to time, but it's pretty rare to get a fish to eat the same fly twice. Colt goes for that strip set, and you can see the fly come from the tarpons stomach out of its mouth. The come back eat still had the fish pointed right at us. Ole TARPOON did not care!!! It swam up hard a third time, and right at the boat crashed, possibly the best fly ever tied, again. At this point Colt just had no hope. You can stick it with a trout set, but the odds of catching a large tarpon that way are low. Man, were we pumped. A lot of yelling. A lot of panic. Three Huge grins, and a “DID YOU SEE THAT! THREE TIMES! NO WAAAY!” What an awesome experience.
Although we didn’t get one on, we had chases and eats that you just don’t forget. We got to hunt together, and the crazy uncle got to see if his teachings make their way to the next generation. We got to see pink tarpon, angry catfish eating sharks, and reds on the flat. We did the research necessary to prove big ole silver kings will eat big ole silver flies. I suppose the best part is we established a goal. Now we have to go back and try it again. Maybe next time I’ll get a shot at one, but I’d rather watch.