I have a tarpon trip coming up soon and I’m doing my best to get in shape, physically and in skillset. Tarpon show up in the hot months and so I’m trying to get better acclimated for the heat by getting out in it, climbing the steps at work and walking the neighborhood in the evening. My first tarpon hook-up was in July three years ago and we were in the doldrums of heat and no wind. I had to have my son help me fight that fish. I’ve since lost a few pounds, that will help, plus better heat preparation with electrolytes, cold towels etc.
Crazy as it may seem, I’m also getting my bare feet in shape by going barefoot on the hot pavement. Shoes are clumsy on boats and most guides want their boat clean of sand, dirt and grit. So they are happy to see bare feet anyway, and like many fly casters, I prefer to cast barefooted so that I can feel the fly line underneath. Going barefoot toughens my feet up for when the deck gets hot. The concrete gets so hot now mid-day it is barely tolerable and I feel sure it is hotter than most boat decks. My feet have calloused quite a bit and can take just about anything (except maybe stepping on a Leggo, or a sweetgum ball).
I’m also doing a lot of casting in the heat, during mid-day, to help get acclimated. To get my back in shape, my casting sessions include making a cast and then bending over with the rod under my armpit and double stripping the line back while bent over. That’s the way we tease the tarpon with the fly and the leaning can really get me down in the back, so this time I intend to at least have gotten those back muscles used to it ahead of time.
I have practiced with the big 12 weights so much that I now have a callous on my right middle finger where I hold the fly line against the handle. I usually have a callous there but I’ve never noticed it being so prominent, so that’s a good thing. It will help keep my finger from getting sore from all the casting I will be doing. Yes, I will be sight casting but if a long string of fish show up then a lot of casting and stripping in front of the fish will be required.
To practice casting, I’m using a propped up dish pan at around 70-80 feet for my target. I like using the dish pan as a target at that distance to help determine when I hit the target. With just a hula hoop or cone, it’s hard to see how close a fly laying in the grass is to the target or to notice when a fly bounces off a target, but I can definitely hear the “ping” of the practice fly making contact with the pan.
As I’ve practiced I have actually made some more modifications to my casting. When casting to targets 70 to 80 feet it’s pretty difficult to become really consistent with hitting the target but I had an epiphany the other day. I was casting with a heavy wind blowing from my left to my right and so I was trying to find the best way to deal with the wind. In response, I lowered the rod a good bit from the normal angle and with the heavy wind I was also putting a little extra length in the haul. I was almost letting go of the handle after the drift and letting the haul do all the work. I have been using that light grip quite a bit often using my ring finger to add force but the ring finger doesn’t work so well with the big rods. In this case I found that if I just let the rod jump forward from the long, hard, haul, I was smacking the dish pan more consistently. I’m not sure of the difference but I think it has to do with the fact that you can’t be perfect using arm translation. You can’t move the rod perfectly in plane, but using the haul to launch the rod, the rod moves forward in a straight line. The fact that the rod is leaning over more, almost 45 degrees, means the hauling is more naturally in line with the rod and the plane the rod is in. The loose grip just allows the rod to follow the plane and rotate much faster than with arm/rod translation.
Anyway, it appears to be a real thing. I still have to be careful and think about a back cast target and I still must stop and drift on the back cast but I’ve made some real progress. I’m going to give it the acid test on the “poons” in a few weeks. 🙂
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