And, of course, the great majority of rivers, river mouths, inlets and passes all around the state--from the Georgia border to the Florida Panhandle--harbor seasonal stocks of tarpon, as do inside waterways of every description, from mosquito ditches and hidden ponds to sprawling bays, and even a few freshwater lakes.

During warm months, the biggest concentrations pile up in harbors and deep passes of both coasts, especially on the Gulf side. Boca Grande Pass at the entrance to Charlotte Harbor is certainly the most productive tarpon spot in Florida, and perhaps in all the world, but other Gulf passes both north and south of Boca Grande manage to siphon off a considerable share.

Nearly all pass tarpon are big tarpon--by the standards of wide-eyed newcomers to the sport, if not of veterans who think only in terms of record and near-record fish. But if wrestling sea giants doesn't happen to stir the cockles of your angling heart, you might still become a devoted tarpon fisherman, because tarpon are available in every size class, down to less than a pound, and, when pitted against appropriate tackle, they qualify as ranking gamefish in every weight category.

Fortunately, they do not qualify as ranking table fare in any weight category--a fact that helps maintain a healthy population of them. In addition, even though nobody kills a tarpon with the idea of filleting and frying it, Florida still requires the advance purchase of a $50 tag in order to keep one.

As for doing things yourself, it is admittedly much easier to place your fate in the hands of the many skilled guides that work tarpon throughout the state, using every sort of equipment from big cabin boats and boat rods to open skiffs and fly rods. Experienced private anglers, however, do very well at getting tarpon action on their own, thank you.

If you are among the less experienced--or even the eagerly inexperienced--success can still be just a few casts away, provided you devote a modest amount of time to gathering information on the productive areas in your region, and on the most suitable tackle, baits and techniques for whichever approach to the challenge you wish to take.

Happily, you won't have to scratch very hard for that vital information. By lucky coincidence, several other articles in this very issue are brimming with it!

The mystique of the tarpon is greatly enhanced by the fact that no fish is more frustrating. True, they will greedily gobble any bait from a mullet head to an artificial fly--but they insist on doing so at their own convenience, not yours. Moreover, they delight in letting you know when they are deliberately refusing your offerings.

When you make hundreds of fruitless casts in pursuit of snook or bass or most any other of our pet species, one thing that keeps you going is doubt. You think that maybe none of those casts came to the attention of a fish, and that perhaps the very next one will.

Tarpon, however, have this nasty habit of breaking the surface (it's called "rolling") right under your very nose. There they are, in plain view and often in great number. As their heads clear the water they seem to gaze mockingly at you with saucer-size eyeballs, as if letting you know, beyond any room for rebuttal, you are being deliberately snubbed.

That sort of behavior has led many anglers over the years to throw up their arms in distress and stoutly proclaim that "rolling tarpon don't strike." But pay no attention to such alarmists. Rolling tarpon do strike--one in a while, anyway. The grain of truth in the above quotation, is that they don't strike while they are in the act of rolling. Just keep presenting your baits or lures in the vicinity of rolling fish and you may get a hit between rolls.

You'll see tarpon surfacing in the deep water of passes and rivers, as well as in the shallows. It's their nature, after all; they have to gulp some air every now and then to stay healthy and happy.

A common pattern is for the fish to roll in packs, because they tend to "honor" the rolls of others in the school, and then bee-line straight back to the bottom. In deep water, you might throw into rolling schools all day without getting a hit--as many a novice does--yet if you just let the rollers tip you off to where the fish are located, then go after them down deep, using proven baits and lures, your chance of getting action is good. The one thing for which a newcomer to tarpon fishing can never be truly prepared is the nerve-shattering rampage that typically results the instant a fish is hooked.

A full-grown tarpon that suddenly explodes close at hand seems to be a living monument to madness. There is nothing posed and graceful about him, as there often is with a sailfish or marlin, but only an insane mass of soaring, thrashing, unguided energy that can be quite literally terrifying to someone who hasn't seen the spectacle before.

Guides don't always think to prepare their new clients for that sort of trauma. A good case in point is that of a skiff guide in the Keys who--luckily, he thought--got booked one July weekend by a skilled woman flyfisher from out of state. He soon observed that she could cast rings around most of his men clients, so after briefing her on the basic procedures of presentation, retrieve and fighting techniques, he confidently aimed his skiff toward a backcountry bank that tarpon were known to be transiting.

Coached by the guide and true to her reputation, the lady proceeded to direct accurate casts toward various gray shadows that kept cruising intermittently past the staked-out skiff. In due time, one of the illusory shapes turned on the fly, followed it, and finally sucked it in less than 20 feet from the boat.

Although startled, the angler struck back reflexively and was "rewarded" by the instantaneous transformation of the submarine shadow into an airborne monster that seemed to tower directly above her, twisting like some deranged contortionist and clattering as loudly as a skeleton in armor. Horrified, she stood frozen and gaping, her rod held high in defiance of the guide's earlier lecture on the all-important tactic of "bowing"--that is, quickly lowering the rodtip and thrusting it toward a jumping tarpon in order to minimize the chance of pulling the hook or breaking off.

"Drop your rod!" the guide frantically yelled.

No order was ever complied with so promptly or gratefully. She turned loose of the rod as if it were an angry snake. The expensive outfit splashed beside the boat and then followed the fleeing tarpon toward the middle of Florida Bay.

The ending was a happy one for all parties. The tarpon escaped when the tippet broke, the guide was able to track down his lost tackle, and the angler was taken immediately back to shore, where she ordered a bloody mary to sip while she pondered the question of whether to face tarpon again or beat a hasty retreat back north to resume the pursuit of more genteel types of fish, such as rainbow trout.

No doubt about it. A big tarpon on the end of your line can be a frightening sight, and a tarpon of any size bouncing around inside your boat is even more fearsome. It brings to mind an old admonition directed at would-be lion hunters, paraphrased here to suit the topic at hand:

Before you go fishing for a tarpon, be very sure you want to hook one.