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Writers never know whether folks really read their stuff. Being an outdoors writer, I have the additional pressure of not only wondering if people read my column, but also wondering whether they think I'm full of bull. Sometimes I can hear the comments that will surely be muttered over someone's morning coffee, even as I'm still typing out the text: "Yeah, I read his column, but 10 flounder, and all of them over 6 pounds? There is absolutely no way!"

Well, last week I talked about some problems with not having bilingual fishing regulations so our Hispanic population knows what is kosher and what is not. I also talked about tarpon. It was the tarpon segment that I received the most e-mails about, asking where, how and when.

Maybe some of you do believe me.

Being my very favorite sport fish, I thought maybe I could throw y'all a bone or two on how to catch these incredible fish. Pound for pound and inch for inch, tarpon are like the Jack Russell terrier of the sea. They are strong, they can jump, twist, turn and basically make a fool out of you if you're not prepared. So here we go with some Tarpon 101 tips.

Port Royal Sound is the place where you will probably have your best shot. Get a good chart or, if you have a GPS, look for ledges and humps toward the mouth of the sound that are in the 20- to 30-foot range. Even though tarpon will cruise into water as shallow as 5 feet, these ledges hold fish just waiting to ambush bait that drop over the edge. On your depth finder, tarpon appear as an inverted banana shape.

But bait is the key. Where you find large schools of menhaden is where you will find tarpon. Ideally, if you are able to find a ledge in the right depth with swirling eddies with muddy patches in the green water and pods of menhaden washing in or out, depending on the tide, tarpon will show up there at some point. But if the bait isn't there, keep moving until you find it.

As for tackle, medium heavy rods are a must. I usually load my reels with 30- to 40-pound test monofilament and set the drag good and tight. Tarpon mouths are all bone and cartilage so you need that stiff rod and tight drag to get the hook to penetrate all that bone.

As for hooks, you can't go wrong with circle hooks. They basically do the hooking for you, which is real helpful when one strikes when you are not ready. I use 11/0 circle hooks on my top baits and 13/0-14/0 hooks on my bottom rigs.

And never use more than four lines or you'll regret it should you hook a feisty tarpon that screams across the other lines in the blink of an eye. On top, I use the large Cajun Thunder corks with 4 feet of 100-pound mono leader. On the bottom, use fish finder rigs, then a swivel with 4 feet of mono leader to the hook. Fish finder rigs allow you to vary the size pyramid sinker you'll use to keep the bait on the bottom, depending on how fast the tide is going. You'll need a dozen weights that range from 8 to 10 ounces.

Now for the most important part -- bait. Without a doubt, menhaden are the food of choice for tarpon. The stinger is that when I say you need menhaden, I'm not talking a dozen, I'm talking as many as you can get, and then some. To be really effective, get an 8- or 10-foot cast net and load 'er up! Try to fill two 54-quart coolers with dead menhaden and keep around three to four dozen of the biggest ones in your live well.

Once you have loaded up with bait and found your spot, start chumming and never stop. The more you chum, the better your chances of hooking up become. Some folks fill several chum bags but I prefer one chum bag and the rest of chumming is done with scissors, where I "chunk" the menhaden. Instead of little pieces, I cut the menhaden into three pieces and every so often, throw out a handful. I can't tell you why chunking seems to work better but it does. The last good year we had, which was around three years ago, I nailed 48 tarpon in one month. No, really!

So there is my Tarpon 101. If you have never caught a "silver king," it is one of the most exciting fish out there. Another reason to try it is that you don't have to burn much fuel to get to them and once you catch one, you'll never look back. It happened to me.

So go get 'em and remember to save yourself one scale -- or as we call them, a "silver dolla!"