Episode 81: Capt. Frank Davis - Boca Grande Pass

Mill House Podcast

Mill House

Wilderness, Sports, Leisure, Education, Hobbies

5 • 973 Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2023

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Few have seen the evolution of tarpon fishing in the famous Boca Grande Pass as Frank Davis. In the early 1960’s, his family moved there and as far back as he can remember his Dad used to take him tarpon fishing. Pass fishing for tarpon began in the late 1880’s and by 1910 Boca Grande was booming. Over the next hundred and thirteen years Presidents, athletes, and movie stars were there to capture this prized fish and a photograph of a dead tarpon hanging next to them. In his teenage years, Frank worked on a harbor pilot boat, eventually becoming a mate on a 60 foot Hatteras. At age twenty five, he captained a boat that won his first marlin tournament - cashing in a hundred thousand dollars. But his heart was alway with the fish that swam in the pass where he caught his first silver king. Thirty six years ago he started guiding his home waters and has witnessed first hand the abuse by fishermen there by poor etiquette, pressure, snagging, tournaments, and greed. He championed the ban of jig fishing and the deadly Professional Tarpon Tournament Series. Frank Davis is now regarded as the voice of reason for fishing the fabled waters of Boca Grande.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the late 1800s early tarpon pioneers discovered Boca Grand and its famous pass. The pass is where thousands of tarpon collect in a small area.
0:17.0	Presidents, athletes, and movie stars have all fished these fabled waters in search of a giant tarpon. In all their
0:24.6	restaurants and hotels there you'll see molds of this great fish hanging on
0:29.1	their walls. Old photographs too of dead tarpon hanging from hooks.
0:34.0	In addition to the mass of humanoids in the past,
0:37.0	sharks have become a major problem as well,
0:40.0	targeting vulnerable tarpon that had been hooked.
0:43.0	For years, the most effective way to fish was with live bait into the early 1990s
0:48.0	when a snagging jig became the norm.
0:51.0	On today's podcast, we sit with Captain Frank Davis who has become
0:55.9	the voice of reason for the sacred tarpenhall. We hope you enjoy this important
1:00.7	conversation. We broke everything, we broke lines, we broke hooks, we broke rods, we broke our minds, we broke our minds, we broke marriages, we broke the whole thing.
1:18.0	We came up with the idea of going out that night and chasing girls and whoever had the biggest pair of
1:23.6	pain he's went to pot. I knocked another arrow and he turned around the other
1:27.6	way and I shot him going through the other way so I double-lunged him both ways.
1:31.2	But it was nothing for us to paddle an air mattress out into government cut.
1:37.0	I got him on.
1:38.0	All right now, we're going to teach him a lesson.
1:41.0	I'm just an old guy that likes to fish. I'm not quitting yet. And he said, well, who
1:47.2	the hell do you think you are, Sue App? And I said, that's exactly who I am.
1:58.0	Life's journey to the grave should not be one arriving with a pretty well-preserved body, but rather skid-in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly torn out, thoroughly used up, proclaiming wildly,
2:07.0	Wow! What a ride!
	...

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