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Tapam: The Monsters of the Miskito Coast
Tapam:
The Monsters of the Miskito Coast
The Miskito Coast stretches from the Costa Rican border all the way up the entire Atlantic seaboard of Nicaragua. The region is named not for the insects, as is often assumed, but for the Miskito Amerindians that are indigenous to this remote part of the Central American isthmus. The area north of Bluefields is an extremely wild, half-forgotten corner of the world, but don’t overlook it; it offers surely one of the most exciting fly-fisheries in the world.
By MATT HARRIS
Tapam is the Miskito word for megalops atlanticus – the tarpon - and the name has become synonymous with the remarkable fishery that was discovered only a few short years ago by a pair of intrepid young European anglers, Daniel Goz and Jan Bach Kristensen. The region features a maze of interconnecting rivers, lagoons and one intriguing man-made canal. These diverse watercourses are packed to the rafters with shrimps, sardines, mullet – and mobs of absurdly large tarpon.
The fishing is tough. Don’t come here if you want numbers. The fish are often in deep water, and for long hours, they skulk out of sight in the dark, tannin-stained waters, forcing anglers to dredge with sinking lines, using only the fish-finder to guide them to the big pods of fish lying deep.
However, for short periods, the monster tarpon of Tapam come to the surface and go hard on the feed. The tarpon of the lagoons and rivers can provide astonishingly exciting fishing, but the fish that frequent the canal are surely the most exhilarating of all. While their siblings in the lagoons and rivers favour shrimp and small sardines as their regular ‘plat du jour’, the fish in the canal feed on big mullet, fish that often stretch to two or three pounds in weight.
Fish of two hundred pounds and more are a very realistic proposition
To watch these leviathans erupting out of the glossy, golden waters of the dawn, tossing the mullet skywards and bursting through the placid, gleaming surface of the cut to catch them in mid-air is a rare and utterly unforgettable experience. Fattened by an almost inexhaustible food supply and few if any natural predators, the fish here are simply vast. Fish of two hundred pounds and more are a very realistic proposition, and I think that there is every chance that a new fly-caught record could come from this remote little corner of the jungle.
Bring your A-game
To catch these magnificent fish, you need to bring your ‘A’ game: the fish are old and wise and can prove extremely difficult to catch. However, when they go into one of their spectacular feeding sprees, clambering up into the steamy mists of the dawn, they are revved up, excited – and vulnerable.
If you want to subdue one of these monstrous brutes, make sure you have sturdy, bulletproof gear and all the right patterns, as these fish are stubborn and almost unbelievably picky.
When fishing in the lagoons and rivers, small, flashy blue and silver sardine patterns and, later in the season, black and purple shrimp imitations are the ‘go’, but in the canals, you need something that mimics the mullet.
Forget trying to imitate the bigger baitfish : the larger the pattern, the more there is for the tarpon to find fault, and big flies are much harder to throw in accurately and quickly. There are mullet of all sizes here, and the best way to go is to present a fast-to-cast pattern representing the smaller fish. My great friends Tomasz, Tomek and Rafal at Pike Terror Flies, based in Poland, tied me a pattern developed by Jaap Kalkman, an experienced Dutch angler, and a veteran of the fishery.
The fly is a perfect copy of the natural. Even when retrieved at ultra-high speed, it swims straight and true, and it is exactly the pattern you want when targeting the mullet-feeders of the “cut”. Crucially, it is tied on a 4/0 Tiemco 600SP short-shank hook that will not lever its way out of the tarpon’s mouth. The pattern is a snap to cast and sinks down in front of the fish fast. This is important as the fishing is all about speed. Get that fly in front of the fish and move it fast. Faster! I find that a fast sinking line of around 400 grains is perfect, as it loads the rod fast and gets the fly down a foot or so in very short order.
Imitate the terrified mullet that streak across the surface by putting your rod under your arm and stripping the fly back as fast as you can, hand over hand. You CANNOT fish the fly too fast, and the Leviathan line helps in this regard as it keeps the fly tracking just subsurface no matter how fast you strip.
Mayhem is about to ensue
If you feel resistance, just keep the fly coming until everything goes solid, and then hit the fish HARD. These fish are BIG, and their mouths are correspondingly thick and hard. Get yourself together very quickly because mayhem is about to ensue. Forget the old adage that big tarpon don’t jump – these brutes almost always light up the jungle with astonishing, flashing silver cartwheels that will leave you speechless.
If the hook stays in after the initial mayhem, you have a chance, but be warned: the canal has a powerful, tidal flow and it is fully thirty feet deep. Combine that with the formidable strength of these protein-packed monsters, and you have a real battle on your hands. This is where the techniques that my great friend and tarpon-fishing legend Andy Mill employs have kept me in good stead: use your whole body to fight the fish, and work it HARD, trusting your tackle and knots, and employing the butt end of the rod to exert maximum power. Stay on top of the fish and go at it very hard: never, ever allow the fish to think that it is in control.
If the hook stays in after the initial mayhem, you have a chance
Many battles are lost with these huge behemoths – even if you survive the first, spectacular aerial blitz, the game isn’t won. Hook-holds can give out at any stage of the fight with these big, bony-mouthed brutes, and even the stoutest leaders are often fatally abraded.
For that reason, I use only 125-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon as my shock tippet, which I am convinced is the most abrasion-resistant material available. Be assured, the rewards are worth every last ounce of your effort.
If you do get lucky, and everything holds together, you may eventually find yourself getting up close and personal with a big – possibly very big – and even potentially a world-record - megalops.
Dialing in the conditions
Good weather is crucial. Wind and rain will almost certainly to put the fish down, but some mornings, when the wind lays down, and the water turns to glass, be on your mettle. Just such a morning greeted our small group of anglers in March 2017.
A little after 5am, as we paddled silently across the glimmering, mirror-bright waters of the canal, I knew we would have a shot at a big fish. The water was untroubled by even a breath of wind, and the air was already heavy with the warmth of the oncoming day. As we reached the spot where the tarpon had been active for the last couple of days, I took up my rod, carefully laid out the coils of line on the deck, and stood ready on the bow.
A monstrous tarpon climbed high into the air
For long minutes, nothing showed itself, and then, abruptly, a big ‘boil’ materialized off to the left. My excellent young guide Bismark quietly paddled the boat around, and suddenly, a mullet shot high into the morning mists. An instant later, a monstrous tarpon climbed high into the air, gleaming in the first rosy hues of the dawn. For an instant, at the apex of its jump, it seemed to balance the wretched mullet on its nose, and then both fish crashed back into the water.
Everything comes impossibly tight and heavy
It was a long cast, but I got a good shot off, just to the left of the commotion.
Tucking the rod under my arm and retrieving the fly as fast as I could, I felt a subtle tremor of electricity come down the line, but I kept the fly coming. Suddenly, in a magical moment, everything came up impossibly tight and heavy. Fumbling the rod out from under my arm, I jabbed back hard, and watched as the line knifed up through the surface and a vast, chrome-plated colossus shot high into the air in a spectacular silver cartwheel that I will remember until the day I die.
That huge fish gave me three impossible, skyrocketing jumps before towing us almost a mile upcurrent. Finally, a long time later, after two torrential downpours and with the sun now high in the sky, I finally jumped overboard in the shallows of the canal to embrace my adversary. Bismark and I briefly cradled her just out of the water for a couple of very quick pictures, and then we watched in awe as this vast fish went gliding back into the deep dark waters and was gone, hopefully none the worse for wear.
That fish was no record-breaker. We estimated her – perhaps a little conservatively – at around 160 pounds, but she was, by a distance, my biggest tarpon to date – even from this remarkable fishery - and a fish I will cherish forever.
There are fish here that would dwarf that tarpon – I’ve seen them. One, a fish that took my fly just three feet from the boat, would surely have obliterated the current IGFA fly-caught record, currently held by Jim Holland’s 202lb fish.
Heartbreakingly, that fish spat out my fly after a few brief seconds. No problem: I’ll be back. And I know that my chance will come again.
Contacts Be warned: the fishing at Tapam is potentially very rewarding, but it can be tough. The accommodation is very basic, but the food is excellent and there is plenty of icy beer and sticky-sweet Nicaraguan rum to keep the party going in the evening. And there are fish here that will make your hair stand on end. If you want to discuss whether you think this trip is for you, feel free to contact Matt at mattharris@mattharris.com
Tapam is represented by the excellent Danish agency Getaway Tours.
See: http://tapamthelodge.com/
You can source the perfect flies for Tapam from Tomek and Tomasz at:
