Yesterday was the most exciting and disappointing nights of my entire life.  I don't care if you don’t believe me but this isn’t really something you can make up.
I, my friend Tyler, and my friend William dropped my 14 foot mini flats boat into the water yesterday at around 3:30.  We fished a couple flats spots and a bridge with no luck other than one dink trout, and finally made our way over to our best flats spot where we thought we were guaranteed a few trout.  So we started fishing our spot around 6ish and fished it until about 7:05 when we saw a small group of huge tarpon chasing some mullet and figured we would try to give them a cast, so we trolled on over.  We all were thinking in the back of our minds that there’s no way a tarpon is going to hit our little 3 inch rapala skitter walk top waters.  We were joking about what we would do if we hooked one.  As I was undoing a wind knot in my line, I looked up and saw my friend Tyler's top water get absolutely murdered by a tarpon about 6 feet in length and at least a 150 lbs.  (7:14) 

I quickly forgot about my wind knot and reeled in my line as fast as I could, as did my friend will. At this point I’m trying so hard to start my motor but my hand is shaking so bad it made it difficult.  The tarpon now had about 100 yards of line out on Tyler and I finally got the boat started.  We chased the monster down and just stopped him from getting to a dock that was about 110 yards away from where we hooked the fish.  I called my dad and he brought out the camera and watched us fight the fish from a near by dock.  As we were fighting our fish there was another fish following our hooked one and mimicking his moves. It was absolutely awesome.  We danced with this fish running around in circles watching it jump and toss and roll and turn and chasing it all over Boca Ciega Bay. We had a crowd of people coming out from there houses to see what all the commotion was about and gasping at the size of our tarpon.  Tyler was on the Bow fighting the fish, Will was busy giving Tyler water and cooling down his reel, and I was driving.  We were fighting the fish for about an hour when the sun finally went down and the fish had home field advantage.  (8:20)

He brought us about 200 yards from where we hooked him in a corner and then zoomed back to where we hooked him and repeated this about 4 times.  Then he took us under 3 bridges that included the First small Corey Causeway Bridge.  Keep in mind that Tyler is fighting a 150 lb tarpon on a 6 1/2 foot St. Croix Rod, and a Shimano Stradic equipped with 15 lb braid and 30 lb leader.  We were putting as much muscle on the fish as we possible could without breaking the line.  He ran us out by the Island Across from the Starlight Princess Bridge where we met up with a few more docks. (9: 15)
There was a single piling that stood out from the docks that the fish was trying to wrap us off on.  As the boat was coming up to the fish and the piling, the fish went to the left around the piling so I slowly idled to the Left of it following the fish. Then he made a drastic turn around at the last second and went back around the piling to the right and made a huge run at that point it was way to late for me throw the boat in reverse and get back around it when the line just barely touched the piling it snapped the line and away the fish went never to be seen by us again, carrying in its mouth a rapala skitter walk and about 10 feet of braid.  It was 9:23 when we lost the fish and it was dead quiet. I shut off the motor and we all were silent, sitting on the boat.  We had nothing to say.  We did just about everything we could do to land that fish.  We just brought it on back to the boat ramp where we met up with my dad, filled him in on what had happened.  He had followed us all the way on shore driving everywhere to try and see the fight and he saw the fish jump and roll.

What an awesome night. We might not have landed the fish but we had a lot of fun doing what we do best.  It was the most adrenaline pumping fishing fight I’d ever experienced and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Total Fight Time: 2 hours and 9 minutes

Total Distance From Hooked point to Lost Point: 1 Mile

Total Distance Followed Fish: I dont know we used like a half tank of gas.  It seemed like forever.

What a great report, too bad you didn't land him but I can't imagine that it could have been any more fun. I've never tried for tarpon but your report makes me want to give it a shot.

You guys have to be good to have chased him as long as you did with that tackle around that structure.

Thanks for the great report, Scott.