Angler on Capt. Patrick McCafferty’s boat gets closer look at a tarpon in Boca Grande Pass. Live crab on a “Hill Tide” flush was the ticket. (Charlie Shalley photo)
May 21, 2025
By Frank Sargeant
The tarpon fishery of Southwest Florida is known around the world among anglers these days, but it wasn’t always that way. Reportedly, the first tarpon caught on rod and reel was captured in 1885, shortly after the Fort Myers area was developed as a source of phosphate for fertilizers. That 93-pound fish was caught by a young New York architect named William Halsey Wood in what is now known as Tarpon Bay, on the south end of Sanibel Island, on a live mullet.
His line was reportedly “27 thread”—if this was the typical Cuttyhunk linen used at the time, it would have tested somewhere around 81 pounds.
Catching a tarpon that size on a 5-foot bamboo rod and a reel with no drag but a leather thumb stall—and a direct drive handle that rotated like an electric mixer when a fish ran—must have been an experience, but Wood somehow managed it. (New York tackle maker Edward Vom Hofe invented the star drag in 1902, reportedly after getting beat up by a tarpon in Florida.)
Drift fishing Boca Grande Pass, a spring specialty. (Capt. Waylon Mills photo) Tarpon Fishing with Rod and Reel It was apparently the first big-game fish of any species caught on rod and reel. Some tarpon had been harpooned while rolling earlier, but none had been reported on conventional tackle.
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Wood knew an opportunity when he saw one. He put the fish on ice and took it by steamboat and train to New York City, where he displayed the fish and told his story to anybody who would listen, including lots of eager newspaper reporters as well as to Forest and Stream Magazine, the first nationally distributed outdoors magazine.
Wood then went back to Fort Myers to open a fish camp in converted army barracks, where he welcomed tarpon anglers from around the world—smart guy.
Florida became the Africa of fishing, where a safari for the rich became a thing for sportsmen and women. Camps popped up at multiple locations between Fort Myers and what is now Marco Island.
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Thomas Edison visited in March of 1885, caught a tarpon in the Caloosahatchee River—and almost immediately bought 13 acres on the riverfront for his winter home there. It still stands today as a tourist attraction on McGregor Boulevard.
The Caloosahatchee at the time was a free-flowing river, delivering clean fresh water direct from Lake Okeechobee, and not surprisingly, fish were everywhere. Edison proclaimed the shore in front of his house “the best tarpon fishing in the world.” (He had not yet seen Boca Grande Pass, apparently.)
Naples was the next hotspot, drawing anglers from around the world. By the early 1900’s forays were going all the way to commercial fishing villages at Marco Island and Everglades City.
The San Carlos Lodge was a floating hotel anchored just south of Boca Grande Pass. The historic lighthouse at Boca Grande Pass, built in 1890, actually took in boarders for a time, apparently in a moonlighting scheme by one of the light keepers.
Tarpon Fishing Special Articles Mary Laser of the Fort Myers Beach Tarpon Hunters watches as a big tarpon takes to the air. Jacket tells a story: Some years the fish arrive early. By 1902, the Useppa Inn was in operation. A steamer towed a string of rowboats out to the pass daily throughout tarpon season. What became the Tarpon Lodge was built on Pine Island in 1926.
Most guides were commercial fishermen when it was not tarpon season. Many were African Americans, per the historical society. There were no outboards—Ole Evinrude invented the first practical model in 1907 and began production in 1909. Fishing was from small wooden rowboats.
The first train arrived at Boca Grande in 1912. The Gasparilla Inn in Boca Grande opened in 1913 and the Rod and Gun Club in Everglades City shortly after. They were developed by Barron Collier, based almost entirely on tarpon fishers.
Meantime, anglers were beginning to take note of the Florida Keys as another tarpon fishing destination after author Zane Grey visited and wrote about it in the 1920s and 30s. But tarpon fishing was still not widely known until Stu Apte and celebrity guests popularized it in multiple shows on The American Sportsman TV show beginning in the mid-1960s. (I watched one of the shows featuring Stu while I was in college in Ohio, and that pretty made up my mind I wanted to spend my life in Florida.)
Tarpon fishing traditions date way back. Schultz Heitman with 185-pound tarpon, circa 1900. (State archives of Florida) Tarpon tournaments as well as local custom at Boca Grande resulted in lots of killed fish through the early 1980s. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute estimated the take at 5,000 to 8,000 adult fish per year. In 1989 the tarpon tag was put in place, and the $50 fee almost immediately put an end to all harvest, saving tens of thousands of fish since then. Now, 200-pounders are no longer rare. Fiberglass models take the place of skin mounts.
Aaron Adams, Science Director of Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, says economic studies indicate that tarpon today bring around $120 million per year into the Charlotte Harbor area alone. The fish are a continuing success story.
After some 30 years of protection, fishing is very good, but the reduced quality of the habitat, drainage of nursery ponds, extended red tide and a massive increase in boat traffic everywhere means tarpon fishing will never again be what it was.
That said, it’s still very, very good in the right places and at the right times, and with continued protection of the adults and preservation of the remaining coastal nursery areas, there’s no reason it shouldn’t remain that way for the foreseeable future.
To see a very good video on tarpon fishing history, click here .
This article was featured in the April 2025 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe
