What makes someone become obsessed with tarpon fishing?
I recently joined hosts Rob Jung and Michael David MacBride on Bell Cow Productions’ Fresh Off the Stack to talk about my new novel, Poontown: A Novel of Chasing Tarpon and Glory, and the real-world experiences that inspired it.
Rob is an angler himself, so we had plenty to talk about.
We got into the peculiar hold tarpon can have over the people who pursue them: fish that can weigh well over 100 pounds, swim through remarkably shallow water, take a fly, and then explode into the air once hooked. For some anglers, that first encounter with a giant tarpon becomes a dividing line. There is life before your first tarpon—and life after.
For me, there certainly was.
We also talked about the history and culture surrounding competitive tarpon fishing, including baseball legend Ted Williams, an accomplished fly fisherman whose connection to the sport is much less widely known than his achievements on the baseball field.
Those experiences—and the personalities, rivalries, teamwork and obsession I encountered during years of competitive fishing—eventually found their way into Poontown.
The novel follows five teams through five grueling days of competition for one of tarpon fishing’s most coveted prizes. But as we discuss in the interview, the story is ultimately about something bigger than fishing: what happens when the pursuit of something extraordinary begins to take over your life.
Many thanks to Rob, Michael David and Bell Cow Productions for having me. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.
Watch the full episode of Fresh Off the Stack below:
▶️ Click to watch the conversation on YouTube
