Tarpon Report From South America

[Bushy]

When Steve Jennings told me about his solo reconnaissance trip to Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast in search of giant tarpon on the fly it didn’t take long to convince him it was time for a return adventure. His tale would have turned most sane people right off any such idea. At that time his biggest hurdle was finding a guide. All he could dig up were wannabe guides desperate for cash, who had little or no knowledge of tarpon and crummy boats. In spite of wasted time and money he managed to land a tarpon of about 45lbs, which he told me was TRULY a baby compared to fish he saw! His reconnaissance trip was enough to hook me. Our plans were less sketchy, we had the name of a gringo ex-pat who might be in Bluefield’s, who could maybe get us into some fishing and was said to be starting to guide out of there. We had no way of contacting him as he had no phone or e-mail and the information we had was a year old. It was good enough for the likes of us. We were off in search of Randy P.

 

Outside the Bluefield’s airport, taxi drivers are on us like a pack of hungry dogs. I hang onto our baggage while Steve takes command of the situation.

“Ok,” he says, “do any of you know a gringo named Randy P?”

“Si, si,” they all bark.

“Good,” says Steve, “so, where does he live?”

He does not disclose the name of the barrio where Randy is supposed to be and takes the taxi drivers aside one by one and interrogates them. The tenth one got it right. We negotiate a fair price for the ride and hop in.

 

We arrive at a nice looking white house on a bumpy dirt road close to Bluefield’s Lagoon. We pay the taxi driver what we later find out to be three times the regular fare! Outside the house is a 14ft center console aluminum bass boat with a brand new 25 hp four stroke Yamaha on it. Steve and I look at one another - things are looking up! A young man named Orlando invites us into the house and says Randy will return in an hour. He offers us water and a banana. We manage to tell Orlando in our bad Spanish we are looking to go fishing for tarpon or Sabalo in Spanish. He plugs a video into a video player and we watch Randy jump a nice sized tarpon out of a jungle river and catch a very large snook on spinning gear. Things keep looking better! We find out from Orlando that Randy is from Tennessee. He married Orlando’s older sister Rosa eight years ago when he was operating a shrimp processing plant in Bluefield’s. The shrimp plant went bust, but Randy liked Nicaragua and loves fishing so he built a house there where he spends two or three months each winter.

 

An hour and a half later Randy and his wife Rosa are surprised to find two scruffy Canadians in their living room. Randy shows us real southern hospitality, invites us to stay at his place and says he will take us fishing! That evening over Nicaraguan rum and cigars we make plans. Randy tells us we should have been there two weeks ago, the rivers and creeks feeding into Bluefield’s lagoon were full of big tarpon but recent rains were driving them away. Steve and I look at one another and reach for more rum - it’s always the same old story.

 

The next morning at daybreak we slide the bass boat off the trailer into Bluefield’s lagoon. The only sound as we cross the dark water is the purr of the motor and a light drizzle dancing on the water. The surrounding jungle is low and heavy. Egrets begin to stir as Randy turns the boat up a large river when suddenly a loud roar shatters the dawn! It sounds like we are in Jurassic Park as we pass through the territory of a male howler monkey. Further on we rig up our rods, I’m using an 11wt and Steve a hefty 12wt. We cruise the river and side creeks hunting for rolling tarpon. By midday Randy has taken us to all of his local hot spots and we haven’t sighted a single fish! Like he said we should have been there two weeks ago. The first day sees us skunked.

 

Randy is determined to get us into fish, and that evening hires a local guide who will take us up the Mosquito Coast to Pearl Lagoon. He guarantees we will catch “big ass tarpon” up there. Steve cringes at Randy’s words knowing there are no guarantees and if something can go wrong tarpon fishing it probably will. I wonder if I should be watching my thoughts, thinking a bad one could really screw things up.

 

The next day at dawn four of us pile into the bass boat, Randy, Steve, me, and our guide, a stocky Miskitu Indian named Jimmy M. We are all excited at the prospect of big fish in territory that has seen few anglers. Jimmy appears confident and looks like he could handle himself equally well surviving in the jungle or in any end of the road Latin American bar with nothing more than a bowie knife. He takes the helm and says, “ Mon, this is going to be right cozy. ” He fires up the Yamaha and off we go.

 

The name Pearl Lagoon conjures up images of dusky maidens diving for pearls, but an hour later the jungle river opens up into what is instead a vast and gray silt laden inland sea. Before crossing the lagoon we stop for gas at the small fishing village of Pearl Lagoon. The waterfront is a grimy collection of ramshackle wharfs, pangas and a few run down commercial fishing boats. In spite of appearances the atmosphere is friendly. A young black man fills our fuel tanks by siphoning gas out of a 45-gallon drum using his mouth and a length of hose. He spits gas into the lagoon and gives us a big toothless grin. Randy pays him for the fuel and we are off on our way across the lagoon.

 

It is blowing hard and chop pounds the flat-bottomed bass boat mercilessly. Suddenly the bass boat seems ridiculously small in the vastness of the lagoon and I begin to wonder if this is a good idea. It is impossible to sit up front without being catapulted out of the boat or suffering a crushed spine. Randy and I mitigate the situation with two lengths of rope tied to the bow for hand lines. Side-by-side we lean back, bend our knees, hold on for dear life and ride the bass boat like jockeys - Central American style! We take a real bucking crossing the lagoon but thoughts of giant tarpon launching out of the water spurs us on. After an hour Jimmy gets us safely to the far shore without damaging the prop on oyster beds in water you can’t tell to be ten inches or ten feet deep. We come to a place along the shoreline where the water has changed color. Here Jimmy noses the boat through a narrow cut in the jungle and I think of the infamous Henry Morgan and all the other pirates who used the Lagoon as a hideaway. Now days it’s drug smugglers and the DEA playing cat and mouse games.

 

We have entered the mouth of a spring creek, the tannin water the color of orange pekoe tea. It widens to fifty or sixty feet with mangrove and jungle hanging exuberantly into the water along both sides. “Here,” says Jimmy, “tarpon come to play.” In no time we find Jimmy to be right. Steve casts a red and white Bunny Bunker at some nervous water close to the bank and gives his clear full sink line a few strips. The line goes tight and a baby tarpon of about 10 lbs. comes cartwheeling out of the water. The fish is soon released. We find more fish working surface bait up ahead. Steve jumps another fish but this time it throws his fly. It looked to be about 30 lbs. There are two soft spots in a tarpons mouth, the scissors or corner of the jaw - the sweet spot - and the tongue, the less desirable location for a hook set. Anywhere else a hook has to penetrate cartilage as hard as cinder block. We manage a couple of more hook ups before our presence puts the rest of the fish in the creek down. When tarpon lay up its time to move on.

 

Jimmy wastes no time and we motor back down stream and out into the lagoon. By now the wind is blowing harder and the chop is two and a half feet high. Jimmy takes stock of the situation like a sea captain. “Where are we going now?” I ask cowardly, hoping it is down wind. Jimmy points up wind and says with an evil smile, “dat way mon, to Top Lock.” I groan and get the feeling the spring creek was just a warm up and Jimmy is playing with us.

 

The very top end of Pearl Lagoon is referred to as Top Lock, a remote area closed to commercial fishing and fabled for its giant tarpon. Being the good sports we are - or just plain stupid - Steve and I resume our positions in the bass boat. Steve crams his life jacket securely under his battered butt and I take my place next to Randy on the bow and get ready for another hour of brutal wave bucking.

 

About the time my knees are about to buckle and Steve’s back to fold like an accordion and the blisters on the bottom of Randy’s feet to burst Jimmy swings the boat in a wide arc and we exit the lagoon and enter a narrow channel of smooth flowing water. After 70 kick ass miles in the little green bass boat this place feels like Nirvana. Jimmy is the only one no worse for wear and tear. Randy packs chewing tobacco into his mouth and looks Steve and I over sizing us up; “damn!” he says in his thick southern drawl, “you Canadians are All RIGHT!”

 

The channel widened into a short deep river about the width and color of the south Thompson at freshet and twenty to thirty feet deep. “Here it be, The Runn’in River,” says Jimmy. He points to a confluence in the distance and a great disturbance upon the water. At first Steve and I think of diving Pelicans. I look at Jimmy as his face broadens into a wide smile. “They jump’ in high,” he says “Silver Kings!” It was unbelievable. Five or six giant tarpon were crashing baitfish like there was no tomorrow. Tarpon, baitfish and water were all flying in the air. Fish were bouncing off the bank back into the river stunned from the impact of powerful tails. Several smaller tarpon and by small I mean 70 or 80 lbs, were a short distance down stream scooping up the chum. At that moment I realized I had not fully lived the angling experience. My hands were shaking so hard I fumbled trying to set my rod up. Randy was sporting a wry smile knowing this was going to be real good. Whether for the fish or for us I wasn’t sure. When Steve and I are finally ready to cast our flies into the commotion it all stopped – dead. Not a fish in sight. No bait, no tarpon, nada! We looked at Jimmy in disbelief...? He lets the silence hang in the air long enough to really mess us up and then cracks a smile and says confidently, “ No worries mon, that bait run done pass, now we wait the next one”.

 

It was becoming clear that Jimmy knew these fish, their habits and movements intimately. He positioned the boat against the current holding us steady. We stayed there for about ten minutes before a large tarpon rolled near the riverbank. Steve threw his fly well in front of the fish but failed to get a strike. I cast upstream of where Steve’s fly landed and let my fly drift in the current before stripping it in. Suddenly my line goes tight; a great weight pulls it through my hand. “Holy sh!t here we go!” I yell. Coils of fly line fly off the deck. The last coil catches on the heel of my left bootie and I jump up lifting my foot impossibly high into the air. The line comes free and springs tight to the reel. Phew! I’ve made it this far and realize how much of this game is about line management. The fish runs peeling line and I start setting the hook by sweeping the rod tip hard to one side. A tarpon of about 120 lbs launches out of the water like an angry locomotive, gills flaring and tail wacking across the water. “ Bow to the king!” yells Jimmy. I thrust my rod tip towards the fish. The tarpon makes another run and I hang on. Jimmy re-positions the boat at about a 45-degree angle to the fish and we begin drifting down the river. I gain line as the fish sounds. “What now?” I ask looking over to consult Jimmy. Randy and Steve are rolling on the deck busting their guts laughing. Jimmy looks at me and says, “mon, look at you, you got the jelly legs!” I look down at my left leg, which is going uncontrollably up and down like a sewing machine. I swallow my pride and tell the guys it happened all the time in school during spelling B’s. I dreaded the thought of a new nickname. The tarpon kept on sounding and I kept the heat on, down and dirty, slowly gaining line one turn of the reel at a time. After twenty minutes I’ve retrieved half of my fly line and I figure things are looking good when suddenly I feel a series of small intermittent jerks and my line goes slack… I strip it in madly, hoping the fish is bolting towards me but come up empty handed. I’ll be honest, I was a little disappointed, but heck, it was my first “big ass tarpon” and we got the best of the show. We inspect my leader and the consensus is, a gill plate likely cut it. Mental note to self: lengthen bite tippet, these fish are big. It becomes evident to me, not only do you have to eat your Wheaties to catch these big fish, your lucky stars have to be lined up to. From here on in I keep my thoughts absolutely pure and clean. While I re-rig, Jimmy motors back up the river to the confluence.

 

Luck has us arrive on top of another bait run. I let Steve make the first cast. Unbelievably, he hooks and jumps a tarpon that looks to be a 140 or 150 lbs! This is a broad, chunky fish; a female Jimmy reckons. Female or not, this baby is a freight train and the wake and bombast and noise of water flying everywhere is awesome. Steve manages his line well and gets a few good strip strikes in before he is into his backing. The big fish bolts down stream descending into the depths and sounding. We close in as Steve gains backing and puts several turns of fly line on the reel. Satisfied with the hook up, he looks like he’s just won a million bucks. Then the unthinkable happens! A screw pops and his reel comes loose from the foot in the reel seat. He curses trying to jam a finger against the frame to hold it in place. Steve is royally screwed. Of course the tarpon now bolts for a fallen tree hung up against the riverbank and takes refuge right under a tangled mess of branches and cut bank. Steve looks rather dainty trying to keep the reel secure in the reel seat with one finger and winds in backing as we approach the shoreline. Jimmy pulls the boat up to the down stream edge of the snag and Randy grabs a branch, holding us steady in the current – tarpon fishing is teamwork. The fish remains motionless in the murky depths underneath the snag. Jimmy has his shirt off in two seconds flat and informs us he is going in the drink to attempt freeing Steve’s backing from the tangle of branches. I can’t believe this guy. I look at Steve and he looks at Randy who looks at Jimmy silently slipping into the river with Steve’s backing gliding through his fingers. This does not look good. Jimmy swallows a huge gulp of air and goes under. Randy shakes his head and spits a wad of tobacco in the water looking like nothing about a Miskitu Indian would ever surprise him again. Steve meanwhile regains some composure and sees that his backing is wrapped around the tip of his rod. I’m too late lunging to the front of the boat to deal with it. There is a commotion in the water, either Jimmy or the fish is thrashing and pulling line. Steve aims the tip down, as backing begins racing off the reel followed by a loud snap! The rod breaks a foot and a half from the tip. Just as Jimmy resurfaces the backing is cut on the broken edge of graphite. Bye, bye tarpon fly line and all. That old girl whooped us! We all have a good laugh as Steve poses with his busted gear for a photo op, his words from earlier about tarpon and things going wrong echo loudly in my mind forever.

 

It is late in the afternoon and nightfall comes quickly in the tropics. Jimmy does not want to get caught out on the lagoon in the dark and neither do I - we are all stinky and sweaty, the beer is all gone and the mosquitoes would eat us alive. Jimmy swings the bass boat out into the current and we bolt for the lagoon. The wind has all but died down and my trashed knees, Steve’s aching back and Randy’s oozing blisters praise the good lord. Jimmy I think is painlessly happy. In spite of it all we have had a hell of a good day - one of the best ever. An hour later in total darkness we arrive in Tasbapauni, a small Miskitu village where we can bunk down for the night. Under Jimmy’s direction several strong young men unload the gear from the bass boat and lock it in a large covered wire cage used by the local fishermen for their fishing gear. Randy hires the biggest meanest looking one to sit shotgun during the night to make sure no one makes off with any of our gear or the boat. In Nicaragua everything is up for grabs.

 

In the village an obnoxious one-cylinder gasoline generator with no muffler and billowing blue smoke dominates the atmosphere supplying the village with a meager amount of electricity for lights. We follow Jimmy down a broken concrete walk to a small house built from a variety of building materials, boards, tin, cinder block, plastic, many of the items you would see discarded in any landfill where we come from. He has brought us to his parents place. Our accommodation is in several rooms sitting on stilts above the noisy generator. Jimmy points to an outhouse sized building where we can bathe using a bucket and water from a small concrete tank. In spite of exhaust fumes from the generator it is one of the best bucket showers I have ever had. This is five star accommodation at it’s best!

 

Famished, we all meet next door in Jimmy’s parents place for dinner. The sound from the generator is almost deafening. Jimmy’s mother is gracious and visibly happy to see her son. She has grilled snook and jack, incidental by-catch we caught that day and serves it with fried plantain and coconut-fried rice. The food is delicious. Jimmy’s father is sitting quietly in a corner of the room taking in all the activity. Jimmy sets us up with a good supply of beer. Randy is quite animated, happy that we tied into a couple of “big ass tarpon”. Steve and I are happy as proverbial pigs in poop. We tell Randy and Jimmy, had the fish not been there, we would have been convinced they were out only to kill us and grab our money. We laugh and drink to sore butts, the Silver King and to Jimmy our fearless guide and vow to return to Top Lock in the future. Jimmy’s father comes over to the table and takes a seat; he is working on a bottle of Nicaraguan rum. It is impossible to tell his age - sixty, seventy, eighty…? Like many of the men in the lagoon he is a fisherman operating mostly at an artisanal scale. He has been intently listening to our tales of the day - our fish are already starting to get bigger. Jimmy’s father makes another toast to the Silver King and from a small wooden cigar box he ceremoniously removes a large fish scale for all to see. It catches light from the bare light bulb hanging over the table. “One hundred ninety pounds,” he declares proudly, “with only da line an me bare hands!” Clearly it is Jimmy’s father who is king and we make another toast.

 

Adrenaline from the day finally wears off and we go to our rooms and saggy cots exhausted. Images from the day pass through my mind like a kaleidoscope. I wonder how my wife back home is doing, but the image of her shapely figure in leotards doing sun salutations, is blurred by giant tarpon busting out of the water, a crazy Miskitu Indian, a tobacco chewing Cajun and Steve from here on in a fishing pal forever. A kind soul shuts off the generator and as I drift off to sleep I am overcome by tarpon fever.

 

Like all good things our adventure ends too soon. By morning Top Lock and the giant tarpon seem like a dream. I know from now on fishing will never be the same. We pack away the fishing gear and leave for Bluefield’s as Steve has business to take care of in Managua and clients coming to fish on Little Corn. The wind is not blowing hard as we head for Bluefield’s and it is possible to take in some of the sights around the lagoon. Fisherman travel up and down and across the water using small dug out canoes outfitted with triangular black plastic sails, they set gill nets, fish with hand lines or toss small nets into the water for shrimp. We pass several rusty, commercial fishing boats wrecked and marooned by hurricane Joan. I wonder how long Jimmy’s father and the relatively pristine surroundings of the lagoon will be able to survive the influx of transnational corporations moving into the area to exploit the fisheries and forest resources, and the agricultural frontier, which is moving from the west and has reached the headwaters of the rivers that feed the lagoon basin. I wonder about the future of the giant tarpon.

 

In Bluefield’s there is no time to wash up or change out of our rancid clothes before catching the last flight to Managua. On the way to the airport we settle up with Randy in the truck and slip Jimmy a generous tip and a pair of sunglasses. I ask Randy if he has a name in mind for the guiding operation he intends to establish and he commences to tell us a little story of serendipity. “ We were in Managua on a business trip, me and Rosa,” he says, “It was about the time we were deciding whether or not to commit to the guiding business. Rosa has a friend who works at the Camino Real, that’s where we like to stay. One night we were in the lounge talking about it, having a few drinks. I was uncertain. I’d never done anything like that. Rosa, she believed in me. Then the bartender puts a videotape on for a bunch of drunk gringo’s yukking it up at the bar. And son of a whine, if it ain’t ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ the big fight between Foreman and Ali and Guns and Roses sing ’in their version of it. Man, that’s when the lights came on.”

 

With heavy hearts we say good-bye to Randy and Jimmy. Randy tells us to be sure and come back for another rumble next year - it would be impossible not to

[mepps]

Now THATs a story!

I'd love to see photos from that trip

[setomonkey]

Great story! Where did you find it?

 

Mike

[Carp]

A fabulous fishing story.

What a great read.

 

I've always wanted to do some tarpon fishing

after seeing the silver kings in action on T.V.

 

One of these days.........

[Bushy]

Where did you find it?

 

Mike

 

 

Fishbc Mike

 

Most excellent report, thought I would share it over here

[Greencoachdog]

I think I'm going to wait for the movie.

[Mike Pike]

And I would cast Tom Cruise in the roll of "Randy."

[pikeie]

wow that was a great report! definatly would like to see some pics!!!!