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Club History

In September of 1961 a group of dedicated Tarpon fishermen on Fort Myers Beach got together and formed “The Tarpon Hunters Club” with the basic aims of good sportsmanship, conservation, courtesy and boating safety. The club was officially “chartered” by January, 1962, and the name, by then, changed to “The Tarpon Hunters Club of Fort Myers Beach.”

The first club President was Frank Dellabella and even before the end of 1961 the club had over 100 members. One criterion for becoming a full club member, at $1.50 per year, was that you had to have participated in a club “hunt,” of which there were seven, one per month, March through September. These hunts were held at night on the nearest Saturday to a full moon. The hunts finished at midnight and a “weigh-in” was held at the Tarpon Tackle Shop on Fort Myers Beach (another landmark long since gone). The heaviest Tarpon were taken to the “weigh-in” and weighed on a certified scale then hung on a rack for photographs.

How times have changed for the better! The club has interesting scrap books full of photos of the members standing by the racks with their catch. We are told that the night hunts ceased after a club member was lost overboard returning from a trip through Pine Island Sound and never found. Yes, you did read earlier that one of the basic aims of the club was boating safety. By 1963 the club had 256 members and in that year caught a total of 168 Tarpon releasing 101 and bringing in 67 to be weighed and displayed on the racks.

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This site was updated April, 2011 Site design by NRK Designs