Dick Brown has some incredibly interesting
stories to share. Some sound like tales, but they
actually stem from true experiences over the
past 93 years.
Living life to the fullest, he’s been a U.S. Navy dive
bomber, a pilot, a teacher, a coach, a bus driver, a fi shing
charter captain and a local business owner.
When Dick moved to the area in the early 1950s, he
would come to Boca Grande to fi sh for trout, redfi sh
and snook in Gasparilla Sound, but he’d never done
any tarpon fi shing until he met some folks on the island
who helped him learn about the process.
“It was an entirely different way of fi shing,” he said. “I
had to learn how and also how to interpret the tides.”
He had a 21-foot boat and eventually learned in
Boca Grande Pass.
“But there were so many fi sh that we could keep
and eat, I didn’t understand why we were fi shing for
tarpon,” he said.
He felt that way as a young man until 1960, when
his thoughts on tarpon fi shing changed. That’s when he
became aware of the Sarasota Angler’s Club Tarpon
Tournament, an international event held every summer
since 1930.
In 1961, just as a horrifi c storm was approaching, he
caught a tarpon in Little Gasparilla Pass that helped
him win an area tarpon tournament. It was a six-week
fi shing tournament that was divided into three sections.
“You could fi sh anywhere you wanted, you just had to
By Sue Erwin
Photos by Caroline Clabaugh & provided
Dick said he caught so many tarpon in his day, he
did not know exactly what year this was but it was
probably in Englewood at Redfi sh Pass.
be able to get to one of the weigh stations
quickly,” he said.
The three-part tournament had three winners:
50 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE November/December 2019
one from the fi rst week, one from the
second and one from the third. The winners
then faced a “fi sh-off” against each other.