Hatcher called early. i was still in bed. hatcher said: "had a client cancel on me and I've got a free morning. Tide looks good around 10 o'clock. You want to go out?"

Dumb question. Hatcher is an old friend and a fishing guide and it was tarpon season.

I was at the dock before I'd finished sucking down my first cup of coffee. An hour later we were nearing Boca Grande Pass.

It was April and there was talk that the tarpon would not be showing up in their usual numbers this season. Some said it was on account of a vicious red tide that had blossomed between Naples and the Keys. Fishermen had reported seeing thousands of dead tarpon floating offshore. Others blamed it on all the fresh water that had been dumped from Lake Okee-chobee and was gushing out the Caloosahatchee, turning the tarpon away. Rumor had it that the tarpon were bypassing Boca Grande and heading north to Tampa Bay.

Every year it's something. And every year, despite the most devious conspiracies of nature and humankind, the tarpon always appear. Blind faith has been inspired by smaller miracles.

Boca Grande Pass is the deepest natural pass in all of Florida, a fish superhighway, and when we arrived it was crowded with boats, five or six dozen, some of them fishing almost stern to stern. There are long-established rules about working the pass during tarpon season-you can't anchor, you must keep your motor running, you absolutely cannot block another boat's drift-and pity the fool who fishes there in blithe disregard of protocol and hierarchy.

But in recent years the nastiest skirmishes have been between the traditionalists and the jiggers. The traditionalists fish with live bait on heavy tackle. The jiggers use artificial lures on light tackle. Hatcher is a traditionalist. According to him, if there's a decline of tarpon in Boca Grande Pass, then it's all the fault of the jiggers.

"The way I fish, you hook a tarpon, you bring it in reasonably fast and then when you release it, the tarpon still has the strength to swim away," he says. "But those damn jiggers and their light tackle, it takes a long time to get the fish in. When they release it, the fish is worn out. It either dies or it's shark bait."

It's an ongoing feud, and things sometimes get twitchy in the pass. I don't know that gunshots have ever been fired, but I would not hold it unlikely.

Hatcher eased us into the lineup, set out our lines and then we watched and we waited. A hundred yards off our bow, a tarpon leapt and then another. Within minutes a boatload of jiggers was upon them-another pass no-no.

"You aren't supposed to chase the fish," said Hatcher. "It disrupts everything. Damn jiggers."

We talked and told stories. This was Hatcher's: A friend of his named McKenna, a regular tarpon maniac, had gone fishing up the Caloosahatchee, near the U.S. 41 bridge, a couple of Saturdays earlier. He decided to spend the night on his boat, all the better for working an early morning tide. McKenna set out his lines and went to sleep and, as is his custom, he slept in the nude. As is also his custom, he'd had a few beers, so he slept in the nude quite soundly.

"That tarpon struck about 9 a.m. and, you know McKenna, he wasn't about to waste time with pants," said Hatcher. "All those poor Fort Myers people, going to church, having to watch a naked man dancing on the back of his boat."

The click-click-click of my Penn reel's drag interrupted the story.

"Fish on!" shouted Hatcher.

And, for the next few minutes at least, there was no feuding in the pass.