The tarpon rolled so slowly you could have counted the scales on their backs. The first hint of morning sun lit up each of the 40 to 50 fish and they sparkled like liquid morning stars in the black water. If there's a prettier picture to be painted I've yet to see it. These are the tarpon you dream about.

Each breath of oxygen they sucked from the humid salt air was audible, even from 75 yards away. Time stood nearly as still as the tarpon and their lingering clockwise, southern motion that pushed them ant-speed toward us. With no wind and a slight tide, we waited, seconds passing like minutes as we drifted toward the school.

This is the moment we fish for. When all is right in the world. When the ultimate is the inevitable.

We approached quietly from the south, basking in the reality that a well-placed cast was a done deal. Soon, there would be tarpon breaking the mirror-like calm of the Manasota morning and we knew it.

Just finding a school of beach-side tarpon can be an accomplishment some days. The fish don't take well to thoughtless boat pressure and especially the ever-present jetski. So when the perfect school presents itself, you know you have done something right in life. This is your reward. Seize the moment. We were ready, each one of us holding 8 1/2-foot spinners stuffed with 30-pound mono and a frisky threadfin herring on the business end. "Confidence baits" you could call them. In hindsight, a fly or plug would have been just as deadly.

Just not today.

My friends from Indian Rocks Beach call these fish "Joe Millers." Joe Miller was some old guy who fished for tarpon off the old pier there some 20 years ago. "Joe Miller" is that slow-moving school-"Millers" so tightly wound that a collection of 50 fish would fit in your bathroom, all 5,000 pounds of them. These are "happy" fish, nose-to-tail, wrapped up in a mating ritual that draws them within a hundred yards of the Gulf beach here.

In early June here on the West Central Gulf Coast, this is the prelude to the spawn. "Daisy chaining" or "milling" the scientists call it, unable to explain exactly why they do it, only that it eventually leads to the propagation of the species.

The waiting is indeed the hardest part. You don't want to cast too soon. Or too close for that matter. More casts mean more chances to spook the school. Too close and the nut explodes, sending a string of harried fish down the beach. When the perfect school presents itself, you, too, should aspire to perfection.

After nearly five minutes of silence, save for the sound of breathing tarpon, it was time. We took turns casting, each one of us laying our corks just in front of the school, 10 to 15 feet apart. A wall of threadfins waited for the school, who took their time inching southward toward our baited hooks.

Only twice have I seen a tarpon break formation and eat a bait at first sight. Order is the rule. Our greenies struggled just 20 feet from the fish, yet not a single tarpon moved from their ranks. The fish all remained in line, slowly approaching our baits. I wondered aloud if threadfins have heart attacks.

These fish will eat only because their predestined path takes them in contact with a meal. They're on a breeding mission here. This is one reason why small crabs work so well-they're easy for the tarpon to catch. All a fish has to do is open its mouth and the crab disappears.

And while the palm-size blue crab has secured its place in beach bait history, we started our day with an hour-long sabiki session a couple miles offshore. Schools of threadfin herring are easy to find during the summer and loading the well with a day's worth of bait can be done in an hour, for a fraction of the crab cost. Just remember that in the warm water, a greenie won't last more than two or three casts before you should replace it with a freshie. A jumbo scaled sardine would be a solid third choice with a big, frisky pinfish coming in fourth.

As soon as you knew it was about to happen, a flash of silver deep under the water started the madness. My bud Tommy Markham was hooked up first. Then it was T.K.'s (Tom Kane's) turn, his cork disappearing under a giant boil that could've swallowed a VW bug. They both reacted to the subtle thumps by quickly coming tight on their fish and getting a good bend in the rod. While some anglers revel in the big hookset, I've found that you have much better luck getting hooks to stick by simply reeling until the line comes tight. I owe this to high-quality, extra-sharp livebait hooks and the relatively short distance between you and the fish. I've experimented a bit with circle hooks but have a much better hookup ratio with an offset J-hook. The need to come tight quickly after you feel the bite makes gut-hooking virtually impossible and also lessens the effectiveness of the circle hook.