Baby Tarpon on Dry Flies

Last August in the midst of recovering from shoulder surgery on my casting arm I was headed to Isla Holbox with some friends to catch up with Sandflea and the boys. The trip was planned, the shoulder surgery was a surprise, but I figured I would just make the best of it (or have fun watching!!)

Baby Tarpon eating a dry fly

I arrived a day ahead of the group and was talking with Sandflea about how my left handed casting with a 12wt was going to be a little different than the 5wt I had just left at home. Sandflea said he knew of a place very close where tons of baby tarpon had congregated, I said let’s go………..

I had brought down a bunch of smaller foam poppers that would pop on the first strip and the wiggle back to the surface, the takes were amazing!!

Some of the takes were down right explosive

When the rest of the group arrived I talked Nick the “C” Cozmo into spending a day fishing for the babies, it was a tough question because I could tell he wanted to fish for the big boys and it was a short trip. Once he heard that we were getting them on dries, he was ready to go……..

Eat into jump

Explosive take and jump

Cozmo with a baby gone vertical

Like the Old Man used to say “opportunity in every situation”, had I not had shoulder surgery I would have never experienced these fish eating dry flies