I comforted Leigh by using his own words: Out of ten hooked tarpons, at least nine will be lost.

Henk Peeters, (Vliegvissen).


Saturday March 5th 2001 HNLMS de Ruyter, accompanied by HNLMS Witte de With and HNLMS Willem van der Zaan, entered the port of Willemstad, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, for a short port visit. Late in the afternoon my friend Ron List picked me up. It was good to see each other again, the last time was already two years ago, also on Curacao. In the evening Ron and his wife took me out for a delicious grilled steak at a local restaurant. Next day we got up at 5 in the morning.
Ron had to be on duty, so he was unable to go fishing, but he dropped me off at Wicher Akkerman, a friend of him.

Wicher took me flyishing for snook and tarpon. While at sea on a sunday I had tied a few flies by a description of Wicher. Little streamers on hook 1/0 with a tail of spectraflash and marabou, a body of white wool and covered with a white or yellow body hackle. I thought they looked good. At the waterside Wicher gave me one of his own streamers and I started with that one. Within 15 minutes I got a take and could land the first snook. Not big, but surely nice to catch.

A bit later a second snook could be released. The weather was nice, a bit cloudy which is good for fishing. It is always warm at Curacao, it was about 30 degrees centigrade (90 F). A few different species of birds could be seen, like white herons, green herons, an osprey and some kinds of pidgeons or doves. After having fished this place thoroughly, we went to a second spot. Straight after arrival we saw several big tarpons swirling in the surface. Real big fish of over 4 or 5 feet, we estimated. Sometimes fish came within casting distance. Very exiting to fish in this way.

Suddenly my line went tight and in automatic reaction I set the hook. Immediately a tarpon of about 2 1/2 feet, that is a small one, jumped completely clear of the water. Wat a smashing sight. It was good for a high heart beat rate. The line went limb right after, the tarpon had shaken the hook out. Well, I couldn't blame him and it was an exiting experience to get the take anyway. At coffeetime the number of tarpons that showed had clearly come down and we decided to move to another spot. There a lot of small snook and other fish showed in the surface.

The streamer had bearly touched the water when it was taken and again a snook could be released. A few more followed. At about 11 o'clock we stopped fishing. At Wichers' place we first had a pie and then went to get my scuba gear. After collecting a tank at Aqua Diving we went on to Porto Marie bay, a beautiful place to go scubadiving, swimming, snorkling or just relax on the beach. The two dives of this afternoon were more than worth the effort again.
On our way back we spotted some flamingo's at the old salt pans. Very gracious birds with their absurd long legs.

We also spotted a cara cara, an American kestrel, orange troupial, Curacao parakeets (nearly every island in the Caribbean has its own species or subspecies of parakeet) and bananaquits. All in all it was a very intensively spent day. In the evening, the stoba, a Curacao meat dish, at Ron's place tasted great. Unfortunately this was the only day off at the island, as early next morning I had to fly to the USA. There we did not have any time to go fishing.

A pity, it would have been great to try and catch some bluegills, crappies or sunfishes on a nymph. Just like in 1999 (see the foto album).
Later on, in April, Ron got a real big tarpon again, click on the picture above. What a whopper !!!