Tarpon on the 3rd day of Aidil Fitri

Its the third day of Aidil Fitri and finally after 1 month of fasting I get to go for fishing at my In-law's nearby river canal. I woke up at 630am this morning and it was a very quiet morning due to everybody that is still busy celebrating the festive season. It was quite cloudy and tide is low with the fish is rising everywhere. This time, I managed to get my brother in-law to be my photographer which is very uncommon since he is not fond with fishing. Anyway, Thanks to him, I have somebody that could take my pictures nicely instead of me taking of my pictures myself.

The road is mostly dried out due to the drought season, this means that the salt level in the canal is slightly high which is good for fishing Tarpons and other estuary fishes.

Oooh ,country road~

And the first fish on the first cast. Using Crazy Charlie pattern. Its small but on a 3wt rod, its REALLY fun.

Too small to be called Atlantic Tarpon

And the 2nd cast, with the 2nd fish. Could this day get any better?

The mini Silver King

The Second Tarpon on Fly

Then, the fishing starting to get a little bit slow. I cast my line and leave it there for awhile. I started to chat with my brother in-law and he was really amazed with the fishing today. As I was chatting, I could feel nibbles on my fly, and I quickly jerk the rod but it was too late. So I recast and let the fly sink to the bottom. As I begin to strip, there was a tension in the line and I quickly give a hookup resulted with this.

3rd Tarpon : slightly bigger and can feel the muscular within the fish

After that I pack my gear and slowly I started to make a move. As a conclusion, during this trip I learned to overcome the situation where most of the time when anglers fish for tarpon they have the trouble to land the fish because it normally will throw the hook during the fight. This is due to its mouth design with a shell-like lips that gives difficulties to set the hook properly. To overcome this, I use branded hooks (well in this case, I'm using Gamakatsu hooks designed for bonefish size 8) which is sharper, stronger, and hard to bend so that when I hook the fish it maintains its angle.

Tarpon in action