From Key West to Belize to Venezuela, the author has passionately and unceasingly pursued this big-eyed behemoth of the Atlantic. As the young owner of a fledgling sporting travel business, Tosh had the good fortune of visiting some of the most productive tarpon waters of the world and fishing with some of the best guides in the business. This is his insightful and often humorous account of chasing the Silver King with a fly rod, along with some discussion of the storied history of the tarpon fishery along his native Texas coast, particularly the legendary tarpon destination, Port Aransas.

This new Meadow Run Press book is illustrated with a full-color section of the author's stunning photographs along with some never before seen photographs of some spectacular early tarpon fishing. Mixed throughout are some interesting observations on the difficulty in casting to and hooking and releasing tarpon - often as large as the angler - from a small outboard skiff. This book is a pure delight and a jewel in any saltwater fisherman's library.

REVIEWS
"It's a rare fishing book these days that leaves you wanting more, but Tosh Brown's Megalops fits the bill nicely...a lively and thoughtful homage to tarpon." - Christopher Camuto, Gray's Sporting Journal, July 2001

"Brown pours out the details of his passion for tarpon in this charming little book ... a book that's not only pleasing to read, but also pleasing to own."
- Steve Raymond - Fly Fishing in Salt Waters

EXCERPT
My first encounter with Megalops atlanticus came on a family vacation in Cozumel, Mexico, when I was fourteen years old. We were eating dinner at a local sunset cocina that was built on pilings out over the water. There was a floodlight mounted under the thatched roof gable that illuminated a large semicircle of water right next to our table. And there were tarpon--little guys--rolling, splashing, slurping and flashing like tarpon do.

At some unexplained interval, however, the entire pod of little poons would launch into a feeding frenzy, smacking the surface in unison for a brief moment, and then settling down again when that course was finished.

After watching a couple of these tarpon comidas, we asked our waiter what it was that they were eating. “They are eating the chit señor.” He matter of factly replied. And unfortunately he was right. After watching the comings and goings of our fellow diners for a few minutes, we confirmed that each of the tarpon feeding frenzies occurred within a few seconds of each patron’s return from the baño.

I don’t recall even thinking about tarpon again for several years after that. My stomach would rumble every time I thought about that restaurant’s plumbing grid, those opportunistic little tarpon, and the possibility that the shrimp I ate for dinner that night could have been netted right there under those same lights.

I’m not sure if it was a Saturday morning ESPN show that caught my attention later on, or if it was one of those Billy Pate videos. But at some point it dawned on me that there is a reason why the tarpon is so popular. I had already ruled him out as table fare. In fact, I don’t think I could eat a tarpon today if he was hand raised on strawberries and shortbread and swam in a porcelain pond. But the magazines and catalogs were full of mango-colored shirts, shiny gold fly reels, and sleek specialized skiffs named after that nasty fish. So in 1988 I finally decided that if he ain’t fit to fry, then he must be damn fun to catch.

As luck would have it, my decision to start chasing tarpon came at a time when I was making frequent trips to many of the most productive tarpon grounds in the world. Those were the early years of my travel agency career. I was hitting all the right spots, hosting client groups to Belize, Florida, Costa Rica, Venezuela and the Mexican Yucatan. But my first few attempts to catch a tarpon were a lot less than successful.

I first tried to connect with a plug and a casting rod, but I abandoned that idea quickly after I hooked a six-footer that launched himself out of the water and threw a Magnum Rapala at my guide’s head. At that point I reasoned that one small fly hook would be easier to remove from an agitated Latin American than three big trebles. So, I quickly switched to the fly rod and trudged through many days of really bad casting, grumbling boat mates, a few eats, a few jumps, and no tarpon to the boat.

There was a glassy overcast day at Mooney Harbor in the Marquesas where guide David Kesar and I spent over an hour trying to pole delicately within casting range of a big rolling fish.

It was so calm that day that we had actually spotted the flash of his roll from way outside the atoll where we had been staked out waiting for a tide change. Thinking it might be an entire school playing around on the inside, we cranked up the big outboard, circled until we located an entry channel, and then poled the rest of the way in. It wasn't a pod of happy rollers, however. It was just one very large fish that would rise up and breach every five or six minutes like a big trout slurping caddis flies. When we could finally make out his hulking form against the dark bottom, we were only thirty feet away, and somehow we had managed not to spook him.

“O.K. now get ready,” whispered Dave. “Since it’s so calm and quiet we’re probably only gonna get one shot at this big guy.” I made a beautifully pathetic cast, dragged the fly across his tail, and blew him out in a giant disappointing boil of sand and turtle grass.

And how could I forget the monster that Gil Drake delivered one day at the Seven Sisters out past Key West. It had been a slow morning with very little tarpon activity, but Gil was excited about the tidal change that we were supposed to get around lunchtime. The current started moving just when Gil said it would, and the first fish arrived while I was rummaging around in the cooler. I was, however, able to grab my rod and make a wild chuck-n-duck lob in his general direction. Gil had told me to leave my line stripped out and ready while I ate my lunch. But unfortunately I had about seventy feet of line coiled up on the deck, and the tarpon was only thirty feet away when he snarfed my fly. By some miracle the jumping coils bypassed the Dr. Pepper can, my hat, and my sandwich which were all laid out on the gunwale. But when the fish broke water I looked up for a brief moment to admire my giant tarpon in mid air, and failed to clear that last coil. The line found my rod butt one second later, and the tarpon found his freedom one second after that.

Maybe it was a systematic process of eliminating ridiculous mistakes, or perhaps it was divine intervention, but a year later, back in Belize, the planets finally lined up in my favor and I kicked the skunk off the boat.

Charles Westby was my guide during that trip, and the late Kenneth Houtz was my skiff partner. It had been blowing and cloudy for three days, but the weather finally broke on the last morning, and Charlie pulled the final card out of his deck.

Charlie’s “Big Flat” had a muddy bottom which meant that we had to have a calm clear day for spotting fish. As the tide welled up and roared over the flat, the tarpon lined up like pigs at a trough, and when the current finally fell slack around 2 p.m., Ken and I had patted four big tarpon on the head and released them all to fight again.

At the end of that day I remember boasting to Charlie that I finally felt like I had that tarpon deal down pat. He just smiled and nodded. And then he laughed out loud. I was puzzled by his reaction at the time, but several years and many shots at tarpon have passed since that day, and I know now exactly where that laugh was coming from.