A Passion for Tarpon

Description

Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal Winner for Best Sports and Recreation Book of the Year

Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal Winner for Best Regional Non-Fiction Title of the Year

Independent Publisher “IPPY” Bronze Medal Winner for Best Sports and Recreation Book of the Year

• Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist

“This book is the most technical and up-to-date book about how to catch giant tarpon with a fly rod. It is a master class with no short cuts. Andy’s knowledge, enthusiasm and passion for the sport shine brilliantly.”

—Lefty Kreh
From the Introduction

A Passion for Tarpon. And it is spellbinding. In clear, concise language, the author personally guides the reader through the entire strategy of what it takes to successfully fool today’s often finicky tarpon into eating your fly. As in Andy’s own fishing, nothing is left to chance. Everything is explored in engaging and entertaining detail: intuitively reading the fish, choosing effective flies for each situation, selecting the right tackle, honing your casting and presentation techniques, tricks for feeding the fish, critical advice on how to set the hook, the secrets to fighting tarpon efficiently and quickly.

As if all this weren’t enough, A Passion for Tarpon is much more than a cutting-edge fishing manual. Artfully interspersed among the author’s colorful and illuminating tactical chapters are remarkable, in-depth interviews with a dazzling lineup of renowned professional tarpon guides and rabid anglers—a veritable “who’s who” from the world of tarpon fishing. Some are legends. Some are reclusive. All are interesting. Collectively these alpha tarpon hunters have experienced hundreds of years on the flats. Their rich stories—many told here for the first time—of obsession with this singular, leaping, lustrous demon are thrilling and authentic. This riveting running narrative gets as close to the soul of why we chase tarpon as anything in print.

The original photography of Pat Ford, with spectacular two-page color spreads separating all the principal chapters, makes the book a visual feast.

Breathtaking in scope, A Passion for Tarpon by Andy Mill is destined to become one of the great fly-fishing books of all time.

“Andy Mill knows tarpon as well as anyone alive. Many experienced guides in the Florida Keys say he’s the best they have ever fished with—maybe the best who has ever fished tarpon with a fly . . . I can tell you from personal experience that he is a masterful angler who combines an athlete’s fine-tuned instincts and equipoise with a keen, inquisitive mind.”

—George H. W. Bush
41st President of the United States
From the Foreword

Meet the Author

Andy Mill first became world-famous as an Olympic downhill skier known for his speed and daring. For eight years, Mill created and produced the Sportsmen’s Journal television series for the Outdoor Life Network. A lifelong angler raised in the Colorado Rockies, the author has spent the last two decades in furious pursuit of tarpon on the fly. He has applied his stamina and grace as an athlete, his intense ability to focus, and his exceptional instincts as a hunter to reach the pinnacle of this exciting sport. Mill has won a record 11 tarpon tournaments—and is the only fly fisher to ever win a tarpon, a bonefish and a permit tournament. He divides his year between Aspen, Colorado and Boca Raton, Florida. This is his first book.

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