Many a great writer has tried to describe the first 30 seconds of a fight with a big Tarpon and some have even come close to getting it right. I could never come close but I'll try. A second after I struck 150 pounds of armour plated glistening silver muscle came rocketing out of the water, 8ft into the air spinning and spiralling with her gills flared and head shaking like a Staffie with an old takkie. From 70ft away you could hear the gill rakers rattling like giant set of maracas, trying to shake loose the plug that miraculously found perfect purchase in the left hand corner of that concrete mouth. And again she rocketed out the water. And again. And again. 5 times she launched herself skyward in the first 20 seconds , each time crashing into the water with a huge splash and pulling off a couple of yards of line and jumping again. I just stood there hanging on and bowing the rod every time she broke the surface to try and keep her from throwing the hook. All the while I was just laughing and laughing and laughing. We had done it. We had finally hooked one of these beasts on an artificial lure. We were all smiles. But that was not the end of it.

After the fifth jump she stayed down and made a beeline down the channel at mach pace. After she had pulled a good 150 yards of line and showed no sign of slowing down I got worried. The entire canal is lined with boats from 25ft up to 90ft, all with heavy running gear underneath them and barnacles and all manner of other line cutting devices. All that fish needed to do was swim along under a boat and it would all be over. But for some reason she kept making straight for the open ocean and I thought we would be hunky dory for a while.

Then she turned up a side canal. My heart sank. I thought that's it. Once she's around that corner that's it. The corner of the wharf around which she was swimming was encrusted with barnacles and I knew, that short of jumping into the water and swimming after her, this was the end.