Tarpon undertake one of the most impressive migrations in the marine world, and yet we still understand surprisingly little about it. The broad strokes are known: fish winter in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and along Central American coastlines. As water temperatures rise in spring, they begin moving north and inshore, flooding the Florida Keys in April and May, pushing up both Florida coasts through summer, and reaching as far north as Virginia and the Carolinas by August. But the details remain murky. Satellite tagging studies have revealed individual fish traveling over 1,000 miles in a season, with some tagged in the Keys later detected off the Yucatan Peninsula. The triggers for migration appear to be a combination of water temperature, photoperiod (day length), and possibly barometric pressure, but the exact mechanisms are debated. What's clear is that tarpon have a navigational system sophisticated enough to return to the same bridges, channels, and flats year after year — some fish have been documented at the same Key West bridge for over a decade. The Florida Keys migration is the event that defines tarpon fishing worldwide. Beginning in late March and peaking from May through July, thousands of tarpon pour through the channels between the Keys, stage on ocean-side flats, and string along the bridges in lines that can stretch for hundreds of yards. The fish range from 60-pound adolescents to 200-pound giants, and they're accessible to fly anglers wading, from skiffs, and even from shore at certain bridges. Gulf Coast tarpon follow different patterns. Louisiana's passes and jetties see tarpon from June through September, often in association with massive schools of pogies (menhaden) that the fish follow inshore. Texas tarpon — once one of the great fisheries on Earth before it was decimated by the freeze of 1989 — are making a slow comeback along the lower coast. Alabama and Mississippi's barrier islands also hold seasonal fish that are chronically underexplored.

Few sights in saltwater are as mesmerizing — or as maddening — as a daisy chain. A group of tarpon, often six to twenty fish, swims in a slow, rotating circle near the surface, nose to tail, rolling and gulping air in a hypnotic pattern. They look eminently catchable. They are, in fact, nearly uncatchable. Daisy-chaining is associated with pre-spawn behavior, though the exact function is debated. The leading theory is that it's a courtship display — fish of both sexes congregating to assess potential mates. Other researchers have suggested it may be related to oxygen exchange in warm, oxygen-poor water, or even a form of predator defense (the rotating circle makes it difficult for sharks to isolate an individual). Whatever the mechanism, daisy-chaining tarpon have their minds on something other than eating. That said, they're not completely unfeedable. The key is persistence and precision. Cast your fly to the edge of the chain — never into the middle, which will blow up the formation — and let it sink. Sometimes a fish on the outside of the rotation will peel off and eat, particularly if the fly is small, dark, and unobtrusive. A black or purple Tarpon Bunny or a small EP Baitfish in the two-to-three-inch range has the best chance. But set your expectations accordingly: a ten-percent hook-up rate on daisy-chaining fish is excellent. Tarpon spawning itself occurs offshore in deep water, and it has only been directly observed a handful of times. Females release millions of eggs that are fertilized externally, and the resulting larvae — transparent, ribbon-like creatures called leptocephali — drift in ocean currents for weeks before metamorphosing into juvenile fish and moving inshore. This larval stage is shared with eels, which are tarpon's closest living relatives. That's right — the Silver King is essentially a 200-pound eel that learned to jump.