I was quickest to rig up, my rod being pretty much rigged except for the leader that I replaced with a 6ft section of 100lb mono. Tarpon don't have teeth but have a mouth as hard as a cinder block and they can chafe through a leader in no time. This I attached directly to my mainline, 30lb Power Pro braid, which being the same thickness as 8lb mono greatly increases your capacity and with the lack of stretch vastly improves your hook setting power as well, both of which I was soon to be making good use of! I tied on a red and white Top Dog, a surface walking Zara Spook type lure that had proven very effective on smaller tarpon on the beaches. Nothing beats surface strikes from big fish and we were pumped to see one of those fatties hit a surface plug. I ran down back onto the boat and started searching for the pod of fish. Nothing. I thought that I'd been skunked again by the big guns. We sat watching the water for about another 10 minutes staring so hard at the water my eyes started to go fuzzy and trying to will the shoal to come back. Just as we figured they had swum out back into the Sound there they were. Six fish, the lead fish a good 6ft long and as solid as a bull terrier. They were swimming parallel to us out the canal towards open water about 60 feet away. I got my cast in first, lucky for me and despite nerves and a thumping heart in my chest, it was on the money. Only 20ft ahead of the fish and about 10ft otherside of them. Dylan just laughed as he said:

" Nice cast mate but those fish are gonna kick your ass " I just grinned and started working the Top Dog back towards me. When the lead fish got to within about 15ft of the lure she veered slightly towards the plug and my heart jumped into my throat.

" Just keep it moving" I kept saying to myself as I had learned that as soon as you stop a lure most tarpon lose interest.

Then it happened. That lead fish went from a lazy cruise to mach speed in a split second and just charged my plug. There was a huge explosion of white-water as my plug disappeared into a maw the size of a 5 gallon bucket. I just stopped! I was in shock. And I think that brief moments hesitation was my saving grace as it gave the fish time to turn and get a good hold of the plug. I've learned not to set hooks too early, especially on Tarpon as their hard mouths and slow closing jaws require a good wait till you feel the fish before setting back on the hook. After what seemed like forever but was probably about a second or two, as the spray from the strike was settling I heard Dylan shout " Hit her!!! " and I unloaded a heavy sweeping side strike to drive the 6/0 singles we fit on our plugs home. And all hell broke loose.