Veteran
Posts: 262
 
Location: Tampa Bay | Here's to you, Mr. Olson, and your 29 tarpon
By NICK WALTER
Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Atlanta Journal article from Wednesday, June 24, 1925, is black and white and stained with a shade of yellow. Its edges have slight, random tears.
In the large, centerpiece photo on the front of the rotogravure section, a man is clad in a white suit with a matching fisherman's hat, and from the center of his grim face, a cigarette shoots to the side. Wind sweeps his tie.
The proud angler with a smug Han Solo look stands between 11 hanging tarpon, many of which appear to be bigger than Walter P. Olson himself.
The caption below reads: "FISHERMAN'S DREAM. 29 tarpon, the largest weighing 180 pounds, were caught in one day in St. Petersburg, Fla., by Walter P. Olson."
My, how things have changed since 1925.
It would be nice to speak to Mr. Olson. If he were 20 years old when he caught the fish - and indeed he looks young and vital in the picture (after all, you'd have to be to catch 29 tarpon in one day) - Olson would be about 103 years old.
On www.whitepages.com, 181 results come up for a Walter Olson in the U.S., and three with the name Walter P. Olson. The only Walter P. Olson who answered the phone lives in South Dakota.
"I like to fish," Olson said, "and I'm 87, but I don't think that's me."
Point is, he's probably not around, so one has to wonder how a man would pull off the feat. If an angler caught one tarpon every 20 minutes, it would take just under 10 hours to catch 29. However, many tarpon battles go less than 30 minutes, and one with a 180-pounder can take at least a couple hours. (Tackle back then must have been incredible.)
Ed Dick of Bradenton sent me the article (thanks, Ed), and the 11 tarpon shown in the picture is proof enough that it was a legendary day during a time when there was little fishing pressure.
What's sickening is that caught tarpon were usually just strung up for a photo and then cast into the bay.
"I have a book with pictures going back to the '20s, '30s and '40s," said Capt. Zach Zacharias, "of guys standing there with just a slew of tarpon hanging dead. It was common in the summer to see dead tarpon floating all around."
Capt. Rick Gross remembers in the 1970s (and this goes back further) when there were no limits on fish. Just a size limit, and that was basically a 12-inch minimum for a number of species.
Since a $50 kill-tag regulation on tarpon was put in place in 1989, the average size of tarpon on Florida's west coast has gradually increased.
"I had fished tarpon all my life," Zacharias said, "and in 2001, which was 10 years after the tag thing went in, I caught the biggest tarpon of my entire life in Longboat Pass."
He said that tarpon was just more than 200 pounds based on length and girth measurements.
Gross added that tarpon that had averaged 60 to 90 pounds before 1989 are now averaging 90 to 120 pounds.
But it's nothing like 1925, when Walter P. Olson must have left the water with some ruptured tendons and a pair of swollen biceps.
Even more impressive is his idea to change into that all-white suit afterward.
So here's to you, Walter P. Olson. You could string up the silver kings, and you absolutely oozed style.
http://www.bradenton.com/nick_walter/story/755359.html
-----
Tampa Bay Fishing Media RSS Feeds: Recent Articles | Upcoming Events | Recent Threads |
Here's To Mr. Olson - Nick Walter | BH
