by Eric Henson
This particular day I had been pre-fishing for an inshore slam (snook, redfish, trout) tournament. The tide was pretty high and still coming in so, I started out working the mangroves for snook. It didn’t take long before I had both snook and redfish blowing up on my top-water lure. As the tide rolled in, it became harder and harder to reach the fish because they had pushed so far deep into the mangroves.
Since I had already caught 2 out of the three species I was looking for, I decided to make my way out to a deeper flat to try and catch some trout. As I paddled up to the flat, I saw an enormous school of white bait that went on for nearly a hundred yards! While I was jigging for trout, out of the corner of my eye I saw a large tarpon roll. I reeled up as fast as I could and bombed a cast in that direction. Soon as the soft-plastic was getting ready to hit the water another tarpon rolled. Mid roll the tarpon saw my bait hit the water and bent like a pretzel to inhale my bait. All of the sudden I went from jigging for trout on light weight tackle to having a 70-90 lb. tarpon jumping like crazy on the end of my line! It was probably a good thing it came unbuttoned soon after because my set-up was no match for that large of fish.
After finding all three species and miscellaneous tarpon, I decide to make my way to the shore line to head back towards the launch. On my way back, I saw a group of dolphins cruising down the shoreline tearing through bait and mullet. I ended up stopping on the shore line to take a couple of casts and to let the dolphins go around me. After they passed me, I see fin a pop up and charge the shore line coming directly at me. The water was pretty tannic from all the rain the previous day, so I watched this large grey fin swim right up to me and stop. I thought to myself, I better give this dolphin a little poke to let it know I was here. Well, first off it wasn’t a dolphin, it was a 10 ft. BULL SHARK! Soon as I poked it, JAWS came out the water snapping at me and then it was like an explosion in the water as it flipped out to get away.
Moral of this story is to be careful while on the water. Always be aware of your surroundings. You never know what you are going to run into (literally)! Hahaha! Tight lines and Tight knots to all!