The Spotter & The Caster2

OUR GUIDES-MAN

My Name is Colton Green, and I’m a photographer and Fly fisherman from Dade City, Florida
The purpose of this blog is to share my journey as I fish with Captain Al Dopirak and his client Dr. Brian Tang from the month of June. Brian is here to try and break the current world record for a tarpon in the 8lb fly category. Brian has been doing this for almost 30 years and has come very close in the past, hopefully we get it done this year. My purpose for being on the boat is pretty simple, I’m there to drive the boat once brian hooks up to faish, that way Captain Al can focus on brain the fish and doesn’thave to worry about controlling the boat. Most of the time I’m just sitting around looking for fish, so that’s when i get to break out the camera and snag some shots of the day.

Day 1: May 31

The day started early with a 4:45 wake up call in order to get everything ready and to be at the boat ramp by 5:45. Al says 6, but I like to be there early. This Week Brian’s wife Helen is fishing with us, she’s also trying to break a world record on for Tarpon on the fly, but hers is the women’s record on 12lb.

They arrive to the ramp a little after 6, we dump boat in the water and head off. What we are doing is what’s known as “Dawn Patrol”, this when you get to the taron flat just before the sunrise, andas the sunrises so do the tarpon. The early bird gets the worm, being up early my be a pain but it can pay off big time when it comes to Tarpon. The tarpon are just waking up and are rising to the surface, this when you can have a good chance of hooking a fish because they haven’t been thrown at by everyone and their mother yet. Unfortunately, today there just weren’t that many fish around. We fished well into the afternoon, about three or so, but only saw a few fish early this morning and just two schools out on the flats. Ever since Alberto came through and messed up the weather the fishing hasn’t been the same. Give it a fews days and a couple tides to freshen everything up and the fishing will be back to normal in no time.