This hefty jack battled Steve Kantner to his knees. Or is he simply praying that the fast action never stops?

A huge whirlpool appeared along the shore of Little Gasparilla Island. I turned the boat with the electric trolling motor and headed toward it. A number of big fish were swimming in a nose-to-tail circle--a classic daisy chain. "Tarpon!" I exclaimed. "It's a daisy chain of tarpon."

Atop the poling platform behind me came a voice of midwestern origin. "Nope, looks like jacks to me," said Capt. Denny Blue matter-of-factly.

Jacks? No, couldn't be. As we drew closer, the flicker of silver-sided, platter-shaped fish came into view. I knew permit were known to daisy chain and these fish were big--bigger than most jacks I had caught.

"Permit," I said, admittedly a bit meeker this time.

Blue shook his head. "Definitely jacks," he drawled.

Sure enough, the yellow tails and black spots behind the gill plates were now clearly visible. The captain was right as rain--they were jacks--but their sizes were amazing. These were 25- to 30-pound fish, and there were about 40 of them swimming in a tight circle as they balled a school of glass minnows.

We were within casting range and I took my foot off the trolling motor pedal. I laid out the cast as if presenting a fly to a school of daisy chaining tarpon: the fly landed at the side of the chain and I stripped it. The fly moved in the same direction the fish were moving.

Nothing. My fly was completely ignored. Another cast using the same tactic failed to even get a glance. By now, the boat was in danger of drifting over the school and I feared I would spook them. In a desperate and final attempt, I slapped the fly into the middle of the chain and stripped. A large fish broke rank and turned to track it, and the rest of the school followed.

It was not an extraordinary take, but it was a take. The jack sipped the fly with little fanfare. The next strip indicated tension and I struck hard and applied maximum pressure. With the speed and the power of a fast-attack submarine, he disappeared into the distance.

If my fly reel had a click drag it would have been screaming, but no one would have heard it over my hooting and hollering. The backing quickly peeled off the reel and ripped through the guides, and then it abruptly went slack. I reeled in the slack with a frown, but saw a large jack swim under the boat with a fly line in tow. My eyes bugged out at the realization that I was still hooked up. I took up line furiously until the slack was gone--I was back in the fight.

Forty minutes later we had the fish boatside, but as anyone who has tussled with a large jack crevalle knows, they never give up easily. Add to that the fact that an 8-weight rod is a tough match against 25 pounds of a determined fish with perpetual forward motion, and you have a standoff of considerable magnitude. Every time Capt. Blue reached for the base of the tail, the fish found the extra energy to pull several yards out of reach. The final 10 minutes was spent in vain attempts to land the tireless jack, but finally Blue's gloved hand firmly grasped his tail. A few quick photos later, the fish was released.

Big jack crevalles along Florida's southwest coast are the most underrated light tackle sight casting fish out there. Tarpon and snook get top billing, of course, but a tail-to-tail struggle between a 20-pound snook or tarpon versus a likesize jack would be most interesting.