Where Prehistoric Silver Kings Reign Supreme

AS SEEN IN THE SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2007 ISSUE

My brother, Drew, ducked under my fly rod as we passed each other down the side of the painted gunwale. We were both drenched by the spray from his 100 pound tarpon as it somersaulted beside the boat for the fourth time. While Drew expertly manhandled his fish on a conventional rig- I on the other hand was armed with nothing more than a 12-weight and still had at least 250 yards of backing between me and my triple-digit trophy.

It’s always the right idea to attempt to land the most doable fish first when dealing with a double-header, and we’d had lots of practice doing so during our most recent visit to Costa Rica. We were at the Rio Colorado Lodge where we played out this very same scenario many times before. In fact, if this particular dual duel didn’t work out as planned, we knew we would have plenty of opportunity to do it all again.

There we were, barely a hundred yards off the beach just outside of the Rio Colorado River. It was a slick-calm day in the Caribbean. As I tightly grasped my fly rod I scanned the serene surface around me. There were monstrous kings rolling everywhere- gulping air and picking off the flickering shrimp that had wandered too close to shore in the peaceful conditions. For the time being, we had our hands full working our double.