Cayman Tarpon

Watching a tarpon feed reminds me of something out of a Saw movie. These fish look like a cross between a sardine and a prehistoric shark and are one of the oldest fish in the sea. Huge eyes that can see in the dark, large mirrored scales, and a massive up-turned mouth make these fish look ominous. In Cayman during the day they become social. They can be found resting together under ledges and in coral caves. They become active at night, feeding on smaller fish which congregate under the multitude of dock lights. These large silver fish seem docile and sedentary when seen by divers. How wrong could they be!

Last week I flew to Grand Cayman and joined up with Mike Nelson to try and get some shots of these predators feeding. The first day was a skunk, We headed north through the Stingray City cut and onto the Tarpon Alley dive mooring. The conditions were epic, but there wasn't a tarpon in sight. Mike towed me behind the boat for over a mile-- nothing! We headed around to Turtle Farm and found a bunch of snoozing fish which was like watching paint dry from a photo point of view. I wanted ACTION. We worked a spot under the lights that night and got some jump shots, but it was far from the underwater feeding I had come for.

That night we got a call from Moke at Don Foster's Dive. Their morning two tank trip just happened to go south that day and find a big cave full of silverside baitfish being clobbered by tarpon. The next morning we headed south on the dive shop's advice. Just under the mooring was the entance to one of the larger caves. From above it looked like nothing, but as you slipped through the narrow crack and leveled out at around 45', it EXPLODED!!! There were clouds of silversides 2" to 3" long bellowing out into the daylight like an overstuffed turkey. Along the edges were bar jacks hunting in groups of 2 and 3 making stabs at the silver bellowing mass. As they struck the bait it sounded like a handful of small stones hitting a tin roof-- the tiny fish creating a multitude of pressure plate induced sound as they tried to escape.

The bar jacks were just the opening act. Swimming into the cave, the silver cloak opened in front and closed up behind, blocking almost all light in the center of the cave. The 20 to 80 lbs tarpon congregated at both sides of the cave and sat as still as possible, allowing the agitated silversides to relax and close in even tighter around them. Tarpon have no swim bladders; in the evolutionary swing of things they were a bit early for that upgrade. This means that like other gamefish they cannot stop moving, or they will sink. Tarpon have overcome this Darwinistic poke in the eye by developing the ability to gulp air on the surface and use their stomachs as bouyancy compensators. This allows them to hover midwater, perfectly still.

When the silversides closed in close enough to their mouths, the tarpon unleashed! From the resting position, their upturned mouths resembled the closed loading bow of a on/off car ferry. In a few hundredths of a second, this silver motionless log exploded-- mouths expanding to 3 or 4 times the diameter of their bodies. Like a bathtub plug hole, the silversides were drained en mass in a silver liquid river down the tarpons' throats. As fast as it began, the upturned cargo door slammed shut. In the world of milliseconds, the strike was only half over. The surrounding bait bail disintegrated like a silver hand grenade, blowing a 6' void in the the cloud of bait.

It was in the middle of this mayhem that Mike and I sat for almost 3 hours underwater. I like my job!