Facebook / Ronnie Green
It’s tarpon season here in Southwest Florida. The ‘Silver Kings’ have shown in up schools from Boca Grande pass on up to Tampa Bay, and that also means that the hammerheads have arrived.
Like clockwork, each year as the tarpon show up in my little corner of Florida so too do the hammerhead sharks. To a hammerhead, tarpon are the equivalent of a bone-in ribeye steak. The hammherheads go absolutely insane for these fish, and this primal battles often unfold right in front of fishermen. It’s a whole lot easier for a hammerhead to catch a tarpon when it’s been tired out from fighting a fisherman, and this often makes for an easy meal.
Case in point, angler Ronnie Green who was fighting a tarpon in Boca Grande Pass when a hammerhead shark estimated to be 13-to-15 feet long showed up:
If you’ve never been tarpon fishing you should know that in this situation it’s often suggested to open the bail to your reel and let the fish swim freely. It’s really the only shot that tarpon has at living, and there’s no sense in letting the shark swoop in and get a free meal.
In this instance, it appears as if the tarpon got away. Or it at least didn’t get eaten directly next to the boat. Which is kind of a miracle because that was one massive hammerhead.