Big silver kings are ready to test your metal. 5-19-05 It’s great to be busy catching fish. Our weather is finally co-operating and we have some good fishing. We’ve had some extra wind but not the bad weather that plagued us so much thru spring. Business is great but things start to open up soon and this could be your chance to tackle a big tarpon, or two. With snook closed we are concentrating on tarpon most of the time. We did get some nice pompano several days last week. Speckled trout are available if you want some fresh fish for dinner. We have some reds but many are too big, some problem. Let’s get back to the subject of tarpon. They are thick in Boca Grande Pass and that’s great news. The beach fish are still inconsistent but picking up daily. We’ve done well in Pine Island Sound and Charlotte Harbor several days this week. Patsy and Ken Rudat came all the way from Oregon to catch a tarpon. Ken dreamed of a big game fish. He watched TV and called to set up a fishing trip on their anniversary. Now this is a dream wife; she wants him to catch the big one. We start out early and our first bait gets gulped while soaking one line locking in on the scattered fish. He was blown away by the awesome strength of our silver kings. Our trip was successful and we were just starting. We swapped fishing and hunting stories as we eased around working schools of tarpon. We saw some large schools of big fish several times. We had more bites and tangled we a couple for a while. Day two started out with a big school of happy silver kings playing in calm water at sunrise. We eased in with the electric and were quickly surrounded by feeding fish. Ken hooked up again and the fish exploded in the calm shallow water. On the forth jump it gray hounded away from us and broke the 50 pound line. Ken was bowing but could not cover the long away broad jump. Later Patsy hooked and brought to leader a huge 160+ pound silver king. We al were awed buy the size of this fish. We shot several pictures but the brand new waterproof camera failed to deliver. We do have perfect memories to treasure forever. Ken helped her bring the trophy boat side for a close inspection. They will never forget this trip to Florida. Oh yea, Ken got one more and some other bites before we headed back to Stump Pass Marina for a chilly one to celebrate our new friendship. I hope to get out to the Wild West and take em up on their offer to visit. This is such a special time to be fishing. The waters are crystal clear. The fish are here and more coming. The weather is good most of the time and I get to share the best fishing with friends, old and new. We saw 7 manatees and dolphin galore between tarpon today. Catching could have been better but my office is a great place to work on your tan and get lucky. Let’s Go Fishin’ soon. Captain Van Hubbard