I just recently got to spend 6  days in Southern Florida, one day in Tampa and 5 days fishing on Tavernier Key. I flew Southwest Airlines from Norfolk VA to Tampa FL. When I arrived at 7:30 pm by friend Eric picked me up and we headed straight to his friend Taylor's to go fishing. We fished the docklights in St. Pete and caught red drum and snook. I caught a nice 29" snook off of one of the docks. Eric was casting to a dozen big snook that were hitting baits around a submerged light and Taylor got so excited by the take that he stepped right off the bow of the boat. I look back and all I see are feet going into the water. Taylor comes up and the first thing he says is, "Did he get the fish?" . Unfortunately the fish took the fly head on and Eric could never get a good hook set, snook are definitely a tough fish too catch.  After getting back to Taylors house at 5:30 am, Eric and I got in his truck and headed to Sarasota to check out the boat. All I can say is I can't wait. Very cool guys, I got some good pictures of the hull that I will post later and got to check out the tower that it will coming with.  After talking with the Andros guys and checking everything out off to Tavernier. We get into Tavernier around 5:00 pm and I meet Eric's friend Nate, that lives on the island. His house sits a block from the Atlantic and two blocks from the boat ramp, what a tuff life. We sit around and have some drinks,eat stone crabs, steak and cobia, rig leaders and flies and talk tarpon until about 1 am.  We get up at 5:30 am on Friday and load the boat and head out on the water. We head to Tavernier Flats, which is about 2 miles from the boat ramp and Nate gets up on the platform and starts poling us around. Eric is up first and gets a couple of shots at some nice permit, no love. We then set up on the edge of the flat and start poling along the edge. Tarpon after tarpon comes down the edge, but none seem interested. We near the end of the flat and we see a nice happy school of rollers, I am up and just can't seem to make one eat. Nate makes a call and decides to run to Rodriquez Key. We setup on the edge of the flat and again start seeing fish come at us. We decide to stake and let Nate get on the bow. We spot a happy high riding tarpon coming right at the boat and Nate decides to take a shot. As he is getting ready to cast, Eric is stretching the fly line for him and breaks it. Eric informs Nate and Nates first reaction is " How far can I cast ?" Eric tells him the break is about 80 feet into the fly line. As Eric is tying a blood not in the fly line. Nate makes a cast and feeds the tarpon. Luckily the blood knot makes it through the guides and we are in business. The fish takes off and I start the boat and we start trying to get some backing back. About 150 yds into the backing Nate realizes his backing is crossed over and won't come off the spool. He yells to Eric, while I am trying to now keep the fishing from breaking off by moving the boat forward as the fish surges. We start gaining line and Nate is hand lining this tarpon in as we get closer to him. Eric decides to cut the backing and blood knot this also. He gets the backing free, Nate gets the fish back on the reel and we leader him before he breaks off. We head back to the flat and I am up on the bow. Another happy fish comes in at us right up on the flat., I make a cast at him and feed him my fly. What an awesome sight to have my first tarpon on the fly. Very short lived though. He comes unbuttoned in less than a minute.  We pretty much take shots at fish the rest of the day with no other hookups. Still a good day all together. We head back clean the boat, get some food, and then have drinks and rerig until about 2 am. Saturday at 5:30a.m. we are up and starting to load the boat again. We decide to look for fish off of Buchanan Banks which is in Florida bay.  What an awesome run through the mangroves and around the flats. We spend part of the morning chasing schools of bonefish that seem to always make a turn just at the right time and then when looking for laid up poon. We found one fish and he didn't want to play. So we headed out towards Long Key and came out at the Channel 5 bridge. Nate decided we were going to fish ocean side off of Long Key because he thought there would be less boats with it being a weekend. That was a good call, we get there and there are only 3 other boats. We take the number 4 spot and immediately start seeing fish. I am on the bow and chains of big ocean fish start coming through. I make a decent cast over the back of the lead fish and start twitching the fly just enough to keep it in position and hopefully entice one of these beasts to eat it. I twitch just at the right time and a nice 120 lb tarpon rolls up and eats it. I still have flashbacks of the take daily. I come tight and hit him several times and he leaps about 15 feet horizontal and then takes about 150 yds of backing. As I am standing there in aw, I come back to reality and we start chasing him down. I start getting backing back and fighting him. All I can say, is they are one powerful fish. I have my fly line back and he shifts directions and starts heading for the beach. I reel up and come tight and then nothing. I am guessing when he shifted directions the hook rolled out of whatever it was holding on to. Still something I will never forget. I step down and Eric takes the bow.  We start seeing another chain come through and second cast Eric hooks up. Another nice take and Eric is well into his backing. We chase the fish down and the fish comes straight up out of the water about 6 ft and the leader parts. We fish the rest of the evening and no more takers. We make the long run back to Tavernier (about 22 miles) , we stop behind Islamorada and look for some bones on the flat, we see a few tailers but just could never get close enough. Off to get some dinner and drinks at O.V's and then back in the boat to hit some dock lights. We pull up on a few lights by someones rock jetty and catch some mangrove snapper ( good eating) on fly .  We then motor back to the house and clean the boat and have some more drinks, rerig and then crash at about 2:30 am. Sunday up at 5:30 am we decide to try Long Key again and hope for some more ocean poon. We put out at the public ramp on Islamorada and make the run to Long Key. We start poling along the flat and see a few fish, but the wind starts picking up. We decide to call it at about 1:00 pm and head to McCormick Creek in the Everglades. We head back to Tavernier put in on the bay side and make the 45 minute run to the Everglades. I have never been in the Everglades and now I know why people talk about it so much. What an amazing place to be. We motor back through the creek and get into the lake. Eric and Nate decide to fish spinning rods and I stuck to the fly. They caught quite a bit more than I, but it was still alot of fun. They ended up catching baby goliaths.(those are one very cool fish, nice to see that they are making a come back.), snook, and jack crevalle. I caught speckled trout, snook and mangrove snapper.  Once the sun started going behind the trees, we decided to fish the mouth of the creek. When we came out it was teaming with life and that is where some of the jack crevelle were caught and snook. Also saw a couple of sharks, that was pretty cool watching them ambush mullet. The sun set and the full moon was coming up, so we decided to run back. When we got back to the house it was about 9:30, after we cleaned up and had some food. Eric and I decided to go hit the bridge for some tarpon. When we arrived they were blowing up all over the place. I tied on a slider and started getting hits on almost every cast. I finally came tight and a tarpon of about 15 to 20 lbs starts jumping all over the place. the full moon was sitting behind the bridge and you could watch them jump into the moonlight, very cool. He took me under the bridge and I managed to get him out, he was about three feet from me and decided he wanted to wrap himself in some rebar that was under water on the ledge. Pop, he broke off. I hooked a second one and he came unbuttoned when he was jumping into the moon under the bridge, I will never forget that jump. Eric was fishing right along with me and landed about a three pound tarpon and a nice mid 20" snook. It was getting late, the current picked up, and the bugs were getting bad so about 2 am we decided to call it. We slept in on Monday and got up about 7am. Went to a little cuban place across the street and had some coffee ( good stuff) and then went ocean side to Rodriguez key for some more tarpon action. We staked out and saw a few, but it was cloudy and windy and just not very condusive to sight fishing. We called it at about 3p.m. and Eric and I packed our stuff and headed back to Tampa. We got to Eric house at about midnight and then got up about 6 am to fish the beach for snook, before I had to fly out back home. We ended up with wind and rain and never saw a fish. Got to the airport around 1pm and had a nice smooth flight back. I might not have landed a tarpon, but I look at it as a percentage thing. The more I hook the closer I am to landing one. I learned alot and met some great people that I will probably fish with again soon. As always fishing with  Eric is a great adventure. Pics and video coming soon!