Fishing with John O’Hearn last week

Finally, here’s an account of last week’s four-day trip with John O’Hearn. For the first three days, we were joined by Frankie Marion, who was shooting some video footage of our escapades (in preparation of next year’s planned video venture). He was kind enough to send us some stills of the fishing for this report.

Day One:

We began in the backcountry, looking for rolling fish. The fish were being rather annoying: one would roll, then another, and each would pull us away from the one that next rolled where we just were. Depsite this, we did manage to get a few shots at fish that we felt should have given us the tight–sadly, none of them did. Next we went to the ocean, where we remained for the balance of the day. I had more than a few casts, and managed to feed four and jump one. One of the four was caught, and we called it a day.

Day Two:

We began again in the back, and this time we had a number of fish that were acting properly. I had a shot at a large laid up fish that worked like it was supposed to, and caught a large creature. After this we remained for perhaps longer than we should have, and missed an opportunity to get in early to the ocean line up as a result. This meant that John had to work double time to get us on some fish in out-of-the-way places. We manged to find a few groups of balled-up tarpon, and we found a daisy-chain of fish that let me throw at them for longer than I (or they) should have before we left them and looked elsewhere. Here’s what we were looking at:

Next we went to another area and I caught one on two bites from a string:

Day three:
We began in the back early, and while we didn’t find much we left in short order for our next spot, which proved to be more fruitful. I caught a fish relatively quickly that didn’t jump and that we broke off before we got in Bear’s way. After this, the fish stopped swimming towards us and we relocated. John found us plenty of laid-up targets in the growing wind, and while they were interested I was unable to get a bite. John relocated to a new area, and it didn’t take long before he gave me a good shot at a pair of sliders that gave up the grab: we ended the day with a capture of a large tarpon, perfect for a finish.

Day four:
Today I fished again with John, though I was a guest of Ted Margo. We had some decent shots early, though the fish had obviously been messed with and it was apparent that hooking one would be near impossible so we looked elsewhere. John had an out-of-the-box spot in his bag of trickery, and when we arrived there was a pile of tarpon. Literally, they were everywhere. I was up first, then Ted, and we switched after a few shots. The fish were catchable, but something was missing: it didn’t take Ted and I long before we asked John to get on the bow and show us how it should be done. He took two casts and fed two fish, and while he wasn’t able to keep the hook in their mouths it energized our efforts (not to mention John’s ego) and my next shot hooked and landed the boat a large tarpon in fine fashion. Ted was up after this, and while a slack tide made the fish less likely to play ball he was still able to turn some heads. I had another bite, Ted had one, and that was it–the sun was low and we were on the way to the dock.

Here are some more photos from Frankie:

Next week I’m fishing with Aaron Snell on Tuesday and Thursday.

ncl