Flyfishing legend Billy Pate has set several saltwater records, including the previous world-record tarpon of 188 pounds. He was the first flyfisherman to catch a blue marlin, too. But the fish he remembers best, and the one that is still talked about around the docks at Homosassa, Fla., was a tarpon that didn't set any records.

Pate, of Islamorada, Fla., encountered the fish that gained him more fame than any other on a spring morning in May 1991. Pate usually fished the flats near the mouth of the Homosassa River on Florida's west coast with a guide or a friend. This day, the guide couldn't go, so Pate fished by himself.

After making the short run to the fishing grounds, Pate saw that guides and their clients were fighting tarpon just outside the river's mouth. He gave them a wide berth and came in south of the armada of fishing boats. Killing his engine, Pate watched the action from a distance and noticed that the other boats were getting closer. He could tell by the way the flyfishermen were casting that tarpon were moving toward him. No sooner had he climbed into the forward casting platform of his boat than Pate saw the shadows of a dozen or more tarpon sliding through the shallows within casting distance.

"I always like to cast to the biggest tarpon in the bunch, and in this case it was the lead fish," recalls Pate, who dropped a 5-inch tarpon streamer in front of the school. Immediately, the foremost tarpon swirled on the fly and inhaled it. Pate reared back on his heavy rod and the fish went airborne. Though it wasn't long, the tarpon looked bigger around than a beer barrel. As it fell back to the water, Pate began to wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew.

Guides and anglers in the nearby boats quickly saw that Pate was tethered to a tarpon that he couldn't hope to beat by himself. In fact, Pate had no intention of boating the fish until he saw it leap for the first time.

"I thought it might be a record. It looked every bit as big as my world record at the time, 188 pounds," recalls Pate. "So I decided, 'What the heck, I'll just see how it goes and if I can get it in the boat somehow, I will.'"

Pate, who controls his flats boat with two electric trolling motors mounted on either side, managed to keep up with the tarpon as it towed him to sea. Luckily, the fish turned and headed back toward shore. The other boats gave Pate a wide berth, and the tarpon eventually played itself out with a series of prodigious leaps and runs. Three hours into the fight, Pate had the fish on its side. His rod was bowed like an arch, but the angler managed to hold onto the tarpon while he retrieved a lip gaff from under the front deck.

Pate was convinced he had a new world record and that he needed to weigh the tarpon on certified scales. To do that, of course, he had to boat it. "I thought, 'How in the world am I going to get this tarpon in over the side by myself? It would be tough enough with two men,'" says Pate. "I looked over my shoulder and saw that one of the guides was coming toward me as fast as he could go, but he was still a ways off. Without waiting, I put both my hands on the gaff handle, planted my foot against the gunwale and pulled. About the same time, the tarpon got its second wind and rushed forward""right into the boat."

Pate figures that he's fought more than 5,000 tarpon during his fishing career. He estimates that "ninety-nine point nine percent of them swam away to fight again." Not this one; he had to dispatch the tarpon with a billy club. By then, the helpful guide had arrived.

"We measured the tarpon's girth and it was forty-four inches. My world record was forty-three inches around, so that was good," says Pate. "But it was several inches shorter than my record, and I knew that was going to hurt."