My time in the Keys was such that I was able to make a close brush with many of the players in this film. Some I knew well, others just on the edge, in passing, or seeing them staked out on some tarpon run…like Ballast Key or Southeast corner of the Marquesas…maybe Pearl Basin. I had no idea that important history was being made, I was just trying to get out of debt…poling my skiff as hard as I could, hoping for a bite, dog-paddling to the finish line. This film includes a re-do of the 1974 cult classic “Tarpon,” that circulated through the Keys and back room fly fishing circles in the 1970s and 1980s, then vanished. Bootleg VHS copies were passed around. This version includes new footage, lost footage, restored footage. McGuane, Harrison, Buffett, De La Valdene, Hiaasen, Gil Drake, Woody, Steve Huff come back to life. Key West is caught on camera before Hollywood and the big money crowd moved in, smothering the town in a blanket of greed. Some of the best fly rod tarpon footage ever captured comes alive fifty years later. I was there for some of the leftovers. Seems like yesterday.