Some fish with fishing poles and hooks, others with their bare hands...

An undergrad in our lab is going to graduate school, so she invited us to her father's home in the Keys for a barbecue. While we were there, we found a marina where a huge school of tarpon live. For those who don't know tarpon are huge fish (up to 8ft long and 350 lbs) that live in schools. There were several in the marina that were over 6 feet and probably 200-250lbs. They are considered great sport fish because they jump a lot when they are hooked. We found out how exciting jumping fish can be.

Imagine dangling a small fish in front of these hungry eyes.




Then more congregate to look hungrily at the dangling baitfish.

Then wham! One jumps up suddenly after the baitfish.


I must say it was difficult to keep from jumping back instead of letting the Tarpon grab the baitfish from my hand.



The girl's hands in this picture is another graduate student Xin who wanted to feed the tarpon but was completely clueless. She was trying to take a picture of the tarpon, while she was dangling a baitfish. However, a tarpon jumped out of water and grabbed her baitfish before she was even ready. It sure made for a great photo.

In the end only Patricia, Xin, and I fed the Tarpon. None of the other men students would even try it.