Episode 77: Capt. Russell Kleppinger - The Tarponator

Mill House Podcast

Mill House

Wilderness, Sports, Leisure, Education, Hobbies

5 • 973 Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2023

⏱️ 116 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At 49 years of age, Russell Kleppinger has found himself as one of the all time greats in the tarpon fishing world. He was consistently catching around a thousand tarpon a year before he stopped counting. Last year in 2022, he caught three fish over 200 pounds. (based on measurements) Fishing was all he can remember thinking about. When he was five days old, his Dad ran the family to the Bahamas. His Dad was a terrible fisherman who ran aground all the time on the inside flats of Biscayne Bay. Running in the dark with no GPS, he’d find himself high and dry with his 52 foot vessel, and it was during these occasions Russell would catch his first bonefish. At eighteen, he got his captain's license. For five and a half years he was a mate on the boat, “Big Time” before becoming a captain. He was good in the blue water, but his fishing savvy was refined closer to shore. He became a tarpon wizard no doubt, but is being too good at something bad? On today's Podcast we talk about how Russell thinks on the water. We examine how he finds and catches the poon like no one else, but as important, we talk about the pressure he’s putting on this valuable resource, shark predation, and the future of our sport.

Transcript

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0:16.0	Russell Cleppingerger catches more tarpin than anyone, period. Every year, close to a thousand fish come to his boat side with a hook in their face. His spectrum of knowledge is breathtaking.
0:19.0	Today we talk about his techniques, but more interestingly, his understanding of tarpon, what they do, his massive impact, and the sharks that prey on them.
0:31.6	We've broken. We broke everything, lines, we broke hooks, we broke rods, we broke our minds, we broke our minds, we broke marriages, we broke the whole thing.
0:47.0	We came up with the idea of going out that night and chasing girls and whoever had the biggest
0:51.4	pair of pain he's won the pot.
0:53.0	I knocked another arrow and he turned around the other way and I shot him going through the other way.
0:58.0	So I doubled him both ways.
1:00.0	But it was nothing for us to paddle an air mattress out into government cut.
1:04.0	I got him on. All right now, we're going to teach him a lot so.
1:09.0	I'm just an old guy that likes to fish and I'm not quitting yet.
1:14.0	And he said, well, who the hell do you think you are, Sue App?
1:17.0	And I said, that's exactly who I am.
1:21.0	Life's journey to the grave should not be one arriving with a pretty well preserved body,
1:26.0	but rather skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly torn out,
1:31.0	thoroughly used up, proclaiming wildly. Wow! What a ride!
1:37.0	There's something fishizzy going on here. Well Russell, I mean, thank you for coming up to Boca to do this podcast with us.
1:55.3	Absolutely. We've been speaking about this for a while. I've known you for quite a while.
2:01.8	Probably the greatest tarpen fisherman I know I wouldn't say that well I mean I think you
2:06.8	catch the most tarp yeah I'm just gonna say here there might be different people
2:12.2	that that do things differently they catch a lot of fish but
2:16.3	your numbers I don't know who else catches close to a thousand fish a year what's
2:19.8	the biggest number you've ever had in a year. Over a thousand.
	...

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