New York Occasions bestselling creator Monte Burke is obsessive about obsession, and his newest work, Lords of the Fly: Insanity, Obsession and the Hunt for the World-Report Tarpon is—as Carl Hiaasen describes it—a “humorous, wistful, great e book” that tells “a narrative of the obsessed, unhinged, and sometimes good dreamers who chase large tarpon.”
Monte–whose different books embrace Saban, 4th & Objective, Sowbelly, and Leaper–excels at documenting excessive fixations with excellence and conquest. In Lords of the Fly, he recounts the glory days of the late Seventies and early Eighties when angling legends like Lefty Kreh, Stu Apte, Ted Williams, Tom Evans, and Billy Pate converged to Homosassa, a sleepy city on Florida’s west coast the place hordes of colossal fish made straightforward targets for anglers within the know.
Explaining the chaos of casting to a fish the dimensions of a Nice Dane, Monte says, “Kant described the elegant as magnificence blended with terror, and to me, that’s huge tarpon fishing. I’ve seen a few of the finest anglers I do know in a bow when a one-hundred-twenty pound tarpon come at them, and seen this one that is the perfect caster I’ve ever seen fully lose his shit.”
However even anglers who hold it collectively aren’t immune from trauma, particularly when chasing information. “Simply judging from Tom Evans and Billy Pate, I believe it’s extra painful to lose than to win,” Monte says when requested if the enjoyment high-octane anglers’ get from setting information offsets the ache when these information fall. “For lots of high-achieving folks, Nick Saban being considered one of them, successful was okay, however shedding was terrible.”
Concerning his path to writing, Monte recollects a day early in his profession when he informed the editor Sid Evans he needed to be an out of doors author. “Cease proper there,” Evans informed him. “Don’t say you need to be an out of doors author. Say you need to be a author.” Each e book and article Monte has written since demonstrates he’s taken this recommendation to coronary heart.
Within the sixth episode of the Studying the Water podcast, “You’re Solely One Forged Away From Greatness,” Monte joins host Tim Schulz to share insights about why there’s a lot good—and dangerous—writing about fishing, the outlook for tarpon within the post-glory-days period, Nick Saban, Monte’s Mt. Rushmore for fishing writers, a colourful anecdote from an interview with then Vice President George H. W. Bush, and the function of religion in fishing.
“There’s a complete lot of religion that goes on in fishing,” Monte says. “A author I do know named Paul Broome will deliver it up on a troublesome day: Monty, you’re just one forged away from greatness.”
You may hearken to all the dialogue with Monte Burke in Episode 6 of the Studying the Water podcast, accessible by means of Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket Casts.
