S6, Ep 88: Tarpon Town Magic: Fishing, Friends and Firsts
In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash is joined by Captain David Blinken and special guest Steve Ramirez as they explore the vibrant fishing scene in Campeche, Mexico. David shares the idyllic tarpon weather conditions, highlighting the hot and humid climate with low winds in the morning and an influx of tarpon cruising during the summer. Steve recounts his first tarpon catch on the fly and provides insights into his unique process of documenting his fishing adventures for his books and essays.
David elaborates on the distinct fishing seasons in Campeche, explaining the differences between the spring/summer and winter seasons in terms of fish size and quantity. He provides practical tips on what to expect and the type of gear to bring for a successful fishing trip.
Don't miss this engaging episode filled with valuable fishing insights, travel tips and the passion for adventure that drives both David and Steve.
To learn more about David, check out our full length interview.
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Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,
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Marvin: and we're back with an exotic on the salt with Captain David Blinken and special
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Marvin: guest Steve Ramirez. David, how are you?
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David: I'm great. We're down here in Piche, Mexico at Tarpon Town, and I'm here with
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David: Steve and got to watch him experience his first tarpon yesterday on the fly.
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Marvin: Yeah, that's pretty fantastic. I saw the picture on Instagram,
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Marvin: Steve, of you kissing the fish before you let it go back.
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Steve: Well, you know, I always thank them. But here at Tarpontown,
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Steve: they wanted me to kiss it too. So I was happy to oblige.
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Marvin: A little bit of extra love. So, David, talk a little bit about the kind of for
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Marvin: folks that haven't been following this kind of, you know, what to expect when
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Marvin: you come to Tarpontown and what you've seen today in terms of conditions and
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Marvin: what you expect kind of for the rest of your time down there.
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David: Well, in terms of conditions, it's perfect tarpon weather.
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David: It's hot, it's humid, low wind in the morning with a little wind picking up in the afternoon.
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David: We have a high falling tide all day.
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David: And we've got a lot of fish cruising as they do in the summer.
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Marvin: That's pretty neat. And have you had to pour cold water on anybody to get them
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Marvin: out of bed first thing in the morning before the sun comes up?
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David: No, but we've had to pour cold water on ourselves while we're out fishing.
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Marvin: Fair enough. And, you know, Steve, it's interesting before we started recording,
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Marvin: you know, you know, we've been lucky enough to do a couple of interviews together.
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Marvin: And, you know, I know for you, you travel to these destinations and you fish
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Marvin: with fishing friends and miraculously these things become chapters and books or essays.
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Marvin: And so I thought it'd be interesting for folks to kind of understand,
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Marvin: you know, what it is for lack of a better word, when you're on assignment,
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Marvin: you know, are you taking notes? Do you write at night before you go to bed?
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Marvin: Do you just wait until you get home? But I thought we could give folks a little
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Marvin: bit of an insight into that.
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Steve: Sure that's great so i
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Steve: actually uh everywhere i travel i carry these
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Steve: little waterproof notebooks um and when i buy them at rei one of the guys actually
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Steve: asked me do you actually write into rain and i said yeah i actually do all the
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Steve: time so uh so i do take notes not always when i'm right there doing it but sometimes
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Steve: i'll just sit on a rock and start writing.
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Steve: And I also take a lot of photographs that I'm not going to keep,
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Steve: you know, photo of flowers or growing out of a log or whatever.
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Steve: Something strikes me, the clouds, to remind me.
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Steve: So I take my notes and actually just before we got on here, I was taking notes
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Steve: about my day today, which was a solo with Roberto. And.
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Steve: Saw we're seeing easily i saw 100 tarpon each day easily probably more and getting
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Steve: a lot of calf and bringing some to the boat so that's pretty good uh so i'll take those notes,
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Steve: but then the other thing i do is very organic so
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Steve: i'm writing a fifth book which is the start of a new
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Steve: series for lions press this will be part of it it's
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Steve: also going to show up in a different formatted fly fisherman magazine
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Steve: but the way i write i'm able to kind of place myself back where i was and relive
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Steve: it and i never know what a chapter is going to be until i start creating it
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Steve: it's almost like it's being funneled through me as silly as that may sound it just flows,
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Steve: and to this i'm out on the water today and i was thinking hmm what would this
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Steve: one be like Like, I was trying to decide whether I was going to name it in Spanish or English.
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Steve: So I'll get thoughts, and I'll write down things that have nothing to do with
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Steve: fishing, as you know, Marvin.
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Steve: Like seeing yellow butterflies going across the ocean.
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Steve: It makes me think of something. Or hearing parrots and then seeing them in the trees.
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Steve: I know people have told me when they read my writing that they love that,
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Steve: that they feel like they're there.
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Steve: And that's how I do it. But I actually go, I'm able to go back there in my mind
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Steve: and write it with as much passion and depth and description as I can.
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David: I can tell you this. Last night at dinner, Steve was reliving a lot of yesterday.
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David: Watching the fish for the first time, seeing them in the air.
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David: I think if it wasn't a night, it would have been, it would have been a nightmare
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David: had Steve not landed one.
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Steve: Yes, quite a challenge.
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Marvin: And so, Steve, it's interesting. So, you know, I know obviously you don't travel every single day.
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Marvin: So do you generally, you know, have a really good rough draft of that chapter
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Marvin: from that experience before you go to the next one? Or do you sometimes have to?
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Steve: No, I haven't. I know exactly. Well, I know roughly how the book will lay out
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Steve: because I've created it in my mind.
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Steve: And so I know the places I'm trying to go to because I know what the book needs to say.
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Steve: I mean, it is a lot of fishing stories that are interesting.
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Steve: So this one's going to have Portugal and Mexico and maybe something in Central
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Steve: America and definitely the Amazon and then end up in Patagonia.
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Steve: I know what I'm trying to say, but I don't know what's going to happen until I arrive at a place.
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Marvin: Got it. So, you know, the general arc is you're going.
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Marvin: And so, David, you know, you and I have talked and I've met Raul with you in Edison.
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Marvin: You want to let folks know. I know you regularly visit Raul multiple times a year.
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Marvin: You want to tell them a little bit about kind of how the fishing varies over
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Marvin: the seasons and kind of what people can expect if they come with you or if they
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Marvin: come on their own to Tarpontown?
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David: Absolutely. And in fact, there's two distinct seasons.
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David: There's the spring, summer, early fall, where you can get lots of fish numbers.
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David: Numbers but November through April you
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David: have the chance of getting bigger fish maybe not
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David: as many but certainly bigger and I'll give you an idea of size like today we
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David: were catching fish between five and like 20 pounds but in the other season you
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David: can certainly expect to catch fish in excess of 25,
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David: 30 pounds up to like 50, 60.
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David: It's not a regular thing, but they're around that time of year.
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David: So we tend to bring eight through 10 weights is the range of rods.
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Marvin: Got it. And so if I remember correctly, you guys have two more days of fishing.
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Marvin: Is that right? And then you fly home on Wednesday?
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David: Well, I have two more days. Steve has one more day because he's going up to
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David: the Mayan ruins tomorrow. and checking things out in the upcountry.
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Steve: As you know Marvin it's not all about fishing for me hmm so tomorrow role and
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Steve: I are gonna be doing some exploring and I'm gonna see the history of the landscape
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Steve: of his home and I can tell you I've only been here two days and,
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Steve: I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. There's no way I would come down here
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Steve: and fish and not do it here with Raul and Turpentine. There's no way.
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David: It's funny. It's funny. I've been to the Mayan ruins once by choice,
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David: but three other times because we got blown out.
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David: And it's not an everyday thing. When you come in the winter,
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David: you come for five days, you expect to lose one because when cold fronts come
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David: down out of the north, you just can't fish.
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David: So you know we'll go to the Mayan ruins go to art galleries great restaurants
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David: so you have a lot of things you can do here but in that in that winter season
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David: you kind of have that expectation,
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David: it probably happens one set of every four trips but you got to be ready for it well.
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Marvin: I hope you both of you have an uneventful trip back on Wednesday I was lucky
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Marvin: enough to make it out of to dodge when I cast when the crowd flare problem happened.
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Marvin: So I think I've probably used up all of my travel mojo for 2024.
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Marvin: But also too, you know, we're on the countdown. And so in less than a month,
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Marvin: Steve, your final book of the casting series will be out, Casting Homeward.
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Marvin: I know people can pre-order that on Amazon. I will drop a link in the show notes to that for folks.
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Marvin: And also drop a link, David, to Tarpon Town as well.
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Marvin: And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
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Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
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Marvin: And as I always say, we need to make David's life easy, so just send them to
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Marvin: me. Don't send them to David.
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Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
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Marvin: And we're here in a drawing for a Royal Wolf line of your choice.
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Marvin: And David and I, I wouldn't say we're smitten with Royal Wolf lines, but we do like them.
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Marvin: And I don't fish the tropical saltwater ones, but I definitely fish the triangle tapers.
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Marvin: And they're great lines. So send us your questions. and as I always say,
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Marvin: folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
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Marvin: Tight lines, everybody.
David Blinken
Guide
David Blinken owner and guide has taken the time to observe the environment in which he guides, and he sees things that others might not, this ability is what separates him from the pack. His clients benefit from this, which allows David to provide them with an experience that they can take home and remember until their next trip.
North flats began as an idea in David’s discussions with friends, “why get trapped in an office” they used to tell him, you need to explore and make your passion your business.
Davids’s passion and desire are what allows him to give people a lasting and fun experience that not only connects them with fish but to the environment in which they live. This not only gives his clients a better understanding of where to find the fish but also a better appreciation of their environment and how to preserve the very thing they love, flyfishing
There is not just great fishing to experience but a passion that brings people together, which is why people keep coming back year after year.
Steve Ramirez
Author
Steve Ramirez is an award-winning author who lives and writes in the Texas Hill Country. Steve’s first book, Casting Forward, was featured in the film Mending the Line. His second and third books, Casting Onward and Casting Seaward, have received critical acclaim as important works of outdoor adventure and conservation literature. Casting Homeward is the fourth installment in the Lyons Press Casting series, which has quickly become a uniquely poignant and meaningful body of work in the realm of nature-oriented literature. Steve currently writes the Seasonable Angler column for Fly Fisherman Magazine and his work has appeared in various journals including, Fly Fisherman, Trout Magazine, The Flyfish Journal, American Angler, Tail Magazine, Hallowed Waters Journal, Under Wild Skies, and many more.
Steve serves as the Ambassador for Texas for the American Museum of Fly-Fishing, is a Life Member of Trout Unlimited, and a contributing member of the Nature Conservancy and Audubon. As a certified Master Naturalist, Steve is passionately involved in promoting the restoration and conservation of the watersheds, rivers, wetlands, and shorelines of North America and beyond. He is an avid outdoor adventure traveler who has explored four continents, but who always seems to return home to the spring fed Hill Country streams of Texas.
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