Hell rarely breaks loose so quickly and so close, only to smash cut, as in a film, so abruptly to the peace and quiet that is the special province of a Caribbean island beach mid-morning before the sun and heat have properly gathered steam. Copi Vojta and I were standing on Puerto Rico’s west coast—a stretch of palm-lined shore, jungle and beach towns about 50 miles top to bottom as the crow flies—when Copi said, “There’s a tarpon right there,” incredulous. Sure enough, not two feet from dry sand swam a 30- or 40-pounder. Copi cast at it once, then again, and the fish took a shot and missed. It circled a sandy cut in the turtle grass along shore—a narrow band of vegetation that stretched almost uninterrupted for miles along the coast—and rushed the fly after Copi’s third attempt. 

This time it ate, then threw itself seaward with a spray and crash, spit the fly and disappeared into the glare in the course of a few seconds. Copi and I figured we were in for one hell of a day of tarpon fishing from a beach we’d discovered and measured the merits of based on satellite images and some tips from a former client of mine from my days guiding steelhead… 

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