One thing about a catfish tail is it can be cast a nautical mile, which Wrenn does in a circular pattern around the boat. He and Kyle fish eight or nine rods at a time, giving them a spread of more than 200 feet, with almost no way a tarpon can pass without getting a snootful of irresistable eau de hardhead.

Local anglers utilize two basic cutbait strategies for tarpon. The Wrenns favor putting their reels on click and laying the rods athwart the beam, waiting for a telltale tick before picking up the rod. Some anglers prefer to lock down their reels with the rods in a holder, on the theory that the tarpon will do the best job of setting the hook when it swims tight against the rod. That method especially is favored by those who use circle hooks, although it also works with J-hooks. The Wrenns simply prefer to put the onus on themselves.

The first click of the morning came before sunup, and ended with a small sailcat ruing the day it tried to sneak off with half of an unfortunate cousin. With tarpon rolling here and there, all around the boat, the second run ended with a slimed leader, the sure sign of another sailcat. Were it possible to tell the difference between the bite of a catfish and a tarpon, little anxiety would have resulted from such inevitable false alarms. But the fact is that some tarpon bite and run as lackadaisically as their lowly prey, and a full scale reaction is the only safe way to play it. So if Kyle wasn’t happy about starting the day with two anticlimaxes, his temperament was only magnified when a tarpon cleaned a third rod with a screaming run that ended as quickly as it started, with a pulled hook.

None of which boded well for the fourth poon that went for a catfish breakfast. Kyle picked up the clicking rod, pointed it at the fish while locking down and reeling tight, and slammed home the hook. Because the Wrenns often fish at the river’s very mouth, along the Sanibel Causeway, they load all of their reels with 60-pound mono for extra stopping power around the bridges. Thus, when Kyle slams home a hook, the outraged reaction on the other end often is reciprocally violent.

A tarpon every bit the equal of the sturdily built 5th grader erupted from the river in a golden shower, scattering the sun’s first rays in an explosion of crystal droplets before crashing back again and again. Five jumps later the tarpon was so close to boatside that Mike was able to grab the leader at the swivel, purposefully holding with no give as the fish jumped a final time for a technical catch and self-release.

Were tarpon something targeted for meat, such heavy-handed play would not constitute a perfect catch. But because there is no finer encounter than to wring the aerobatics from a tarpon before bidding it a fond farewell—with neither fish nor angler much the worse for wear—Wrenn is quick to take advantage of the club’s leader-touch requirement for releases.

One reason for that is to make the most of a good bite. Tarpon in river holes are loose schoolers that don’t dwell long in one place. So it really pays to strike while the fish are hot and close. To that end Wrenn is quick to redeploy the rods, every one of which is reeled in and temporarily laid upon the T-top whenever a fish is hooked up. Other boats might not employ the same strategy, since leaving baits out frequently results in multiple hookups during the course of an average 25-minute fight. But Mike focuses entirely on maximizing Kyle’s chances for releases, one at a time.

Kyle is well schooled in fighting tarpon. When they jump close enough to the boat to throw the hook on a tight line, he bows to give them slack. When they bore away he lets a firm drag do its dirty work. And when they try to rope-a-dope a breather out of him he bears down, pumping and reeling every inch of line he can take—frequently goading them into bone-wearying leaps.

His second fish of the day ends in a relatively fast victory—another leader-touch release that is number 26 of the spring, and number 100 of a lifetime. There is something to say for 8-foot leaders, which most tarpon hunters prefer in breaking tests of 100- to 130-pound mono. Few tarpon anglers find fluorocarbon is worth the considerable extra money in such strengths, largely because tarpon are not shy biters of big cutbaits.

Kyle’s third fish is a horse of another color—a bigun that heads across the river for Fort Myers, finally jumping so far away that a golf ball held at arm’s length would blot out the splash. The fight is long, with Mike coaching Kyle all the while for the team’s third leader touch and jump-off release.

Even so, it is only a little after 8 a.m. when another tarpon frees itself on its first jump. That’s tarpon fishing, but Kyle is not happy until his fourth fish of the day is solidly hooked and jumping so close to the boat it splashes the occupants. That fish is unluckiest of the four releases, requiring hands-on procedures that ultimately lead to a snipped leader, leaving the fish to deal with the deeply imbedded hook. Held at boatside for a few minutes, it recovers quickly and swims downward with strong strokes.

And so the morning ended, as do

many tarpon bites on the Caloosahatchee. They frequently bite early in the

morning, throughout the night, and during the day at times that often coincide with solunar peaks. And they just as frequently can be maddeningly tight-lipped. That’s just about the only consistent thing about tarpon fishing. That, and the Caloosahatchee River.

FS