To the Editor:

I was a traditional tarpon fishing guide in Boca Grande Pass for 26 years. In my prime I boated somewhere around 500 tarpon a year and on good years well over 600. In all those years I rarely caught a tarpon anywhere but in the mouth from the inside out with my Mustad 7690 5/0 J hooks. By rarely I mean once or twice a year. It was my belief and the belief of the master who taught me that those one or two fish had thrown the hook when they jumped and the hook landed somewhere else on the tarpon.

To the Editor:

As an elementary school teacher for more than 28 years, I have always told my students to follow their hearts in doing what is right for a cause. The awareness that my tarpon slaughter movie has created for the tarpon of Boca Grande is one of my proudest moments and a testimony for all those who have walked through my classroom door. The photos taken that day tell the real truth, because the camera doesn’t lie.

It took Capt. Shane Sovan a little while to realize that he was not cut out to be a college student. He was three months into his first year at Manatee Community College when it came to him.

“I’m not a sit inside kind of person,” said Shane. “I want to be outside, doing something.”

Several Boca Grande youth are beginning to make their way in the adult world, and have graduated.

The Boca Beacon online subscription system and new e-edition are now up and running.

Subscribers who started their accounts with the Beacon before April 15 will continue to receive access to the e-edition of the Beacon at no charge through October 31. New subscribers can purchase a subscription to the e-edition.

Everyone knows tarpon. Catching one is the thrill of a lifetime. They swarm by the thousands through Boca Grande Pass every summer to spawn in the Gulf of Mexico. Anyone who has spent time on Gasparilla Island knows all of that. But for a fish that is so famous, very little else is certain.

The Tarpon Genetic Recapture study was started in 2005, to track the recapture rates, population structure and migratory patterns of the silver king.