Holding the twin-lens camera at waist level, I peered downward into the viewfinder and noted that the shot was beginning to frame up nicely. I had brought a 40-pound tarpon to boatside less than a minute before, and now, following my instructions, the Everglades guide was standing atop the wide covering board of his inboard boat, dangling the four-foot fish in front of him on the end of a long-handled gaff.

Keeping my gaze glued to the finder, I announced in a directorial tone: "Your hands are in front of your face. Lift him just a little bit higher."

I saw the guide's feet shift slightly and the muscles in his bare forearms tighten. Just as his face emerged from behind his elbows, I pressed the button, but in less than the 125th of a second it took for the shutter to open and close, my carefully composed photo vanished from the screen, leaving me with nothing more (as I was to discover upon developing the film) than a peaceful Everglades still-life of brown water, green mangrove and blue sky.

But that peace was fleetingly deceptive. A split second later, the puzzle of the vanishing image was phonetically solved by a loud splash outside the boat and a simultaneous noisy thump on the inside, all of which I took as an indication that the tarpon had suddenly flounced itself free of the gaff hook in its lower lip.

I looked up from the camera, expecting to see the guide sprawled on deck, nursing a bruise or two. Instead, I discovered to my great shock, that the elemental laws of nature had been dreadfully reversed. The creature that belonged in the sea had--temporarily, at least--taken command of the boat. The erstwhile land mammal, by contrast, was presently up to his nose in swamp water, spitting and sputtering at the surface like a balky outboard motor.

Figuring that I had better see first to the well-being of the guide--lest I face the task of picking my own way home through a maze of an estimated 10,000 islands--I stretched over the side and grabbed his hand, ignoring as best I could the sounds of destruction playing in the background.

To make a sad memory mercifully shorter, the guide did reclaim his boat and we did eventually return the tarpon to its natural habitat--but not before it had crushed my tackle box, scattering its considerable contents to every nook and cranny. Worse, the vengeful fish had also caved in my favorite plug rod--the selfsame rod with which it had been "caught." I preferred to believe that it was coincidence, not revenge, which earmarked that particular rod for destruction.

Happily, not all tarpon releases come at such a price, but nearly every one, and their number is legion in Florida, is wrapped up to some degree in suspense and drama--and perhaps even a bit of danger for the careless or unprepared. Not just with big tarpon, either. Despite countless tense moments, the only real injury I ever suffered at the hands (fins?) of a tarpon was administered by a 10-inch specimen that threw a mini-plug back at me from a roadside ditch at a distance of less than 10 feet, burying two hooks in my cheek just below the eye.

But that's part of the romance of fishing for tarpon. This great fish is not only a first-rate gamester, but a back-alley brawler that will sometimes test your survival skills as much as your angling ability. And "you" can mean every one of you out there. If you're reading this anywhere in Florida, you probably are no more than an hour's ride from a place where tarpon cavort at one season or another.

An angler who lives in New Jersey during the brief periods each year that he devotes to his business, recently confided to me that for the amount of cash he plunks down annually in order to chase tarpon in Florida, he would be able to fish anywhere in the world, for any species. Knowing that he habitually devoted at least three months to the pursuit of the silver king, I did not doubt his assertion. Nor is his a lonely quest. A great many other folks pay dearly for the privilege of slugging it out with big tarpon--hiring guides for days or even weeks at a clip, and piling up frequent flyer miles in great gobs as they routinely flit back and forth between their chosen Florida tarpon grounds and their northern homesteads.

Such is the appeal of the tarpon that he can lure staggering bundles of cash away from larger and more storied gamesters, such as marlin.

At the same time, however, a resident Florida angler can easily go after big tarpon--fish that commonly weigh up to 50 or 60 pounds and almost as commonly surpass 100--at little more trouble or expense than he devotes to, say, trout or redfish. For tarpon are the only true big-game fish that are steadily available to the low-budget fishermen--even to those who stick strictly to shore, or do their fishing with nondescript tackle and baits from a variety of unglamorous little boats in protected waters.

Tarpon are not just occasional odd catches but pretty staple fare below many bridges all around Florida, especially in the southern half of the state, and they provide much excitement at virtually every fishing pier, both Atlantic and Gulf. When baitfish are running in the surf of Southeast Florida, tarpon are often there to chomp on them--and on a surf fisherman's baits and lures as well. Along beaches of Florida's Gulf and upper Atlantic coasts, the silver kings may not come within a surfcast quite so often, but they still tend to lurk fairly close to the beach, fishable on calm days by every sort of craft from a charterboat to a canoe.