On Mon, 3 Apr 2017 17:56:57 -0000 (UTC), Bill
wrote:

I saw a guy catch one (about 5' long) in the Estero River, right
around the corner from the house on light tackle. He managed to get it
right up to the boat before he cut it loose. He really did not have a
good way of picking it up without hurting it (too big for a net, the
leader was not going to hold it and gaffing is pretty destructive) A
half dozen of us saw it. There are a few pictures out there but I
didn't get any.



Amazing the guy still had an arm or meat on the arm. The edge of the mouth
is razor sharp. Most fun fish to catch I think. Is edible, but my guide
in Costa Rica says few eat them, lots of bones, better eating fish. They
have one die occasionally and they give them to the really poor people.

He never reached down to try to gill it or even grab it by the tail.
He just held it next to the boat for everyone to look at. One of his
buddies had a phone out taking pictures, then he cut the leader as
close to the fish as he could and the tarpon took off. It was pretty
cool watching him fight it tho. We had a number of spectacular jumps
and several runs. If the tarpon was smart enough to dive into the
mangroves he would have been long gone but it stayed right in the
middle of the river, running back and forth in as deep of water as it
could find. He had (what looked like) a 15 pound class spinning rod,
thinking he might get a sheep head or a trout, maybe a red.
I had seen him fishing on the way out with a dead shrimp on a bobber
and thinking he wasn't going to get anything but a catfish or two.