At the end of the month we fish two days with Captain Court Douthit somewhere near Tampa. Captain Douthit inherited us, so I hope his Zen or at least his sense of humor is on. He’ll probably need it. Three or four months ago I tried to book with the Orvis-endorsed guide in Tampa. I’ve had luck with Orvis guides, but no luck here: he was booked. I found another guide with a boat I liked, booked the dates, and sent in the deposit.
Turns out I tried to pick a guide by his boat and instead picked a movie star. In May he canceled our trip because of his schedule with Animal Planet. Who knew? It’s probably for the best, since on fishing videos you have to yell at your fish like Vikings taking scalps. We’re not much good at that.
Anyway when he canceled he was nice enough not to just drop me: I guess I’m not quite that prom date. He passed us on to Captain Court, and it looks ok. Captain Court has a cool boat, a 1994 Hewes, with a relatively new engine, and I like his website. I like that he took off a summer to hang out with his kiddo, which seems a long way from taking scalps, and he doesn’t seem to require that the clients in the photos on his website yell at their fish.
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As it happens I’ve tied a lot of tarpon flies, all tied on 1/0 hooks for the smallish resident tarpon of Belize. That may be small for Tampa, or maybe not. I have no idea what fish want in Tampa, or what we may fish for. To be honest I’d be perfectly happy puttering around mangroves looking for snook in the roots or redfish in the grass. Are there mangroves? Is there grass? I don’t know. As to flies though I gather that if you put a fly into a tarpon’s zone, the tarpon’s not real selective about the fly. Maybe even a McGinty would work.
Of course there’s that whole casting-into-the-zone thing which is a problem, and so far even when I’ve had lucky casts the tarpon haven’t taken my fly. Maybe the casts weren’t lucky enough.
Dimock, Anthony Weston, The Book of the Tarpon, 1911, at 108.
Like the tarpon, tarpon folk don’t seem overly concerned with fly selection. Bill Bishop in High Rollers says he only carries three patterns in shades of dark and light, dark for clear water and light for cloudy. Or was it the other way around? On a quick internet survey everybody seems to push at most four or five flies. Even by bass and redfish standards that’s sparse. For bass I’ve got more than three different kinds of poppers, not to mention various streamers, woolly buggers, frogs, and McGinties. You probably can fish for tarpon with a McGinty, but nobody knows it yet.
I tied a lot of tarpon flies during Hurricane Harvey. I like tying tarpon flies because they’re big, and even in these late days I can still see them, and we were going back to Belize in November after Harvey. Our house didn’t flood, and we never lost power, but for three days our street was a storm drain. There was nothing to do but watch the weather, watch the water rising, tie flies, and joke on Facebook that I was waiting for the tarpon to show up in our yard. They never did. After a day or so even I stopped joking on Facebook.
What tarpon people are concerned with are leaders. On the internet you can find a dozen ways to tie a tarpon leader, and each leader’s proponents seem certain as to their efficacy. I didn’t know there was so much righteousness in the cause of leaders.
First off there’s the whole IGFA leader standard. Everyone agrees a 12-inch bite tippet is too short. I’m sure that somewhere deep in the heart of the IGFA tower in downtown Nantucket there are sincere discussions among high-level executives of how, if the bite tippet were lengthened, it would treat all those prior 12-inch tippet record holders unfairly. Get over it. Remember Roger Maris.
Meanwhile in Belize guides recommend a straight 6-foot 60-pound leader. It’s not a good idea. Tarpon are the prey of bull sharks and hammerheads, and sometimes you want to break the fish off. That’s not going to happen with a 60-pound straight leader. You also want the leader to break if the line is wrapped around your leg, your neck, or your guide. Getting pulled into the water with the bull sharks and hammerheads seems a particularly bad idea.
Plus fly lines have a breakage strength of less than 40 pounds. I’d rather break my leader than a fly line, or a fly rod. So I’ve settled on a 20-pound class tippet. I’ve considered 16 pounds, but that seems pretentious. Anything less than 16 is just cruel.
I used a 60-pound nylon butt section because that’s what the guys at Bayou City Anglers wanted me to buy. I went to Bayou City in the first place to buy hard 30, but I follow instructions. The whole leader’s about nine feet, +/- 12 inches. The six-foot 60-pound nylon butt is attached to the fly line with a perfection loop, and to the 20-pound fluorocarbon class tippet with an improved blood knot. The twenty-four inch 60-pound fluorocarbon bite tippet is attached to the fly with a Kreh loop knot and to the class tippet with an improved blood knot. All those knots seem impossibly small. I’m sure it’s a total failure, but not because I didn’t think about it.
Who wouldn’t be fascinated by such stuff? Who says fly fishing is arcane?
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Monday we went to Minute Maid Park at Union Station, pronounced MUM-puss, to watch the team formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays play the Astros. I wanted to see the Rays before we went to Tampa. In 2008 the Devil Rays banished the devil, changed their name to the Tampa Bay Just Rays, and got rid of the fish logo and replaced it with a little patch of sunshine.
See that glimmer in the eye of the R? On Monday the Astros played the Tampa Bay Glimmers in the Eye.
I liked the old Devil Ray mascot, but hated their uniforms, now I like their uniforms but I’m dubious as to the little patch of sunshine. I also liked the way Tampa Bay Devil Rays fell off the tongue, though many people thought it clumsy. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is clumsy. Dallas Rangers of Arlington is clumsy. Tampa Bay Devil Rays has some Latin rhythm.
Turner-Turner, J., The Giant Fish of Florida, 1902.
As a team, the Tampa Bay Rays née Devil Rays are perennially a hard-luck lot. since their first season in 1998, they’ve won 1,500 games and lost 1,738, for a .462 winning percentage. The Astros have played since 1962 and have won 4,391 and lost 4,552 for a .493 percentage. The ‘Stros were in striking distance of breaking .500 a few years back, but then went into their three 100-loss-season tailspin. Did I mention that the Astros won the World Series last year?
The Astros at .491 are now about the median, with only nine teams at .500 or higher. The Rays lead only the San Diego Padres for the very bottom. Of course they’re stuck in a division that includes the Red Sox and the Yankees, so life isn’t fair. They’re also in Tropicana Stadium, which is in St. Pete and apparently inconvenient to get to from Tampa. Along with the Oakland Coliseum, Wrigley Field, and Fenway Park it’s judged one of the worst dumps in Major League Baseball. The Rays consequently don’t outdraw the Tampa Bay Lightning of the NHL. They don’t even play baseball in the NHL.
The Rays did have some great seasons ten years ago, when Andrew Friedman, now with the Dodgers, was their VP of baseball operations. I don’t know Andrew, but he’s a Houston boy, and I know his dad, Kenny. The Rays even made it to the World Serious, and Andrew got a lot of the credit. The Dodgers pay Andrew a lot of money for the lot of credit, but who don’t the Dodgers pay a lot of money? And if he’s anything like his dad he’s a bargain.
As is more common than not, this season is not going well for the Rays. Through Juneteenth they’re 33-39 for fourth in the AL East. They’re also doing some weird rotation maneuvers, starting relievers for two or three innings, because part of their rotation is weak. Monday’s game they had a great start, getting four runs early on Gerrit Cole. Cole came into the game 8-1 with a .240 ERA, and has pitched this season like a Cy Young winner. Those four runs to the Rays may have been his worst three innings as a Stro.
Cole kept the ‘Stros in it though, finishing seven innings with no more runs. The Rays lost in the bottom of the 9th when their closer, Sergio Romo (with a 5.0 ERA but a pretty good June) gave up a two run walk-off double to Alex Bregman. Heartbreaking for Rays’ fans, great stuff for Astros’ fans. If you don’t know baseball know this: a team with a closer with a 5.0 ERA in a one-run game’s got a problem.
Of course the next night the Ray’s fine young pitcher, Blake Snell, pitched a gem against the Astros fine old pitcher, Justin Verlander, to take a one-run game and snap the Astros’ 12-game win streak. The previous evening’s goat, Sergio Romo, now with a 5.46 ERA, got the final two outs. That’s the other thing, if you don’t know baseball know this. The Baseball Gods are cruel, vicious, and capricious, and what goes around comes around.
