During the middle of all of this adrenaline
running through my body and mind (and part of
me not believing that this was actually finally
happening) I had my team rooting me on. They
were grabbing their cameras, urging me to hold
on, hooting and hollering all the way.
Even Sue had her camera shooting live on
Facebook. Little by little, with every ounce of
strength I could muster, I brought that leader to
the top of the pole. The captain was right there
waiting. He grabbed the tip of the rod as the fish
came to the surface to give us one big jump right
beside the boat, then he shook the silver king
loose. The judge boat called it a good release and
it was official.
I had caught my very first tarpon! I was a
tarpon virgin no more! High-fives all around. We
were all screaming and smiling.
The total time it took to reel in was
approximately three minutes from start to finish
... not too bad for a first timer ... but there was
still about 20 minutes left in the tournament. The
only prize up for grabs at this point was third
place, for last fish caught. Obviously the first fish
had been caught at that point, and also another
boat had caught more than one fish during the
tournament, so that would put both of those
prizes out of reach.
Our girls sat down right away and got the
poles back in the water, but in a few minutes we
heard over the radio the tournament was officially
over. As the end was called, two boats still
had fish on the hook, so in my head I realized we
weren’t going to have the chance to get that third
place prize for last fish. If there was only one fish left
on in the Pass as we left, I might have thought there
was a chance. But with two fish on the odds were
very, very low.
As we headed back through the Pass to the docks,
I was sitting next to Lynn talking about how exciting
it was to catch “my tarpon,” and we talked about how
exciting it could have been if we had also gotten third
place.
As we made it back to the dock and were
discussing whether or not we would go to the “after
party,” most of us decided we would just head home.
I loaded the car and was on my way when my phone
rang. It was Lynn.
“Don’t leave the island!” she shouted. “We may
have gotten third place!”
“No way!”
I screamed in my car as I made it down the street
to the Chamber of Commerce.
Little by little the other girls of our team arrived at
the Chamber of Commerce, along with other
tournament participants and the chamber members.
It was there that through the masses and chatter we
got confirmation that the two fish that had still been
hooked as we left the Pass turned out to be a shark,
and a tarpon that never made it to the boat.
We had won third place and I had gotten my first
tarpon. Who knew! I was in complete shock. I
honestly couldn’t believe what had just happened. Just
hours before I had wanted to bail out and not join
the tournament, and here I was feeling like a little kid
who just caught the very first fish of their entire life!
Each of the ladies on the third place winning team received a plaque as shown above, as well as an Osprey Spinning reel.