Why is this man smiling?

That's Bob Murphy, a colleague at TPWD and native of Texas' Golden Triangle. Bob and I are both in South Padre Island for the sinking of the USTS Texas Clipper -- which has now been delayed twice.

After the last flurry of phone calls letting folks know we were pushing-back the scuttling of the ship, Bob and I had just enough time to head down to Isla Blanca Park at the south end of South Padre Island to do a little rock-hopping.

We were looking for snook on a strong incoming tide. The water, pre-cold front, was in beautiful condition.

A few bumps -- missed fish, and not snook from what I could tell -- and I look up to see Bob hooked into something. He lifts his rod tip and swings a shimmering, shivering Atlantic cutlass fish (we call them ribbon fish around here) onto the rocks.

I hook into something small -- a pretty little Rock hind (the diminutive, polka-dotted member of the grouper family) -- followed quickly by my own ribbon fish.

By this time I am fishing the calm, northern side of the north jetties; Bob is working the tidal rip on the channel side just 20 feet away from me. We're chatting as the last glow of a pretty nice sunset lights the skies.

Suddenly, Bob's rod bows and I see him fumble to get a good grip as line sizzles off the reel. I'm sure it's a big snook and open my mouth to tell him to hold on tight (why do anglers offer such advice? Like he hadn't thought of that ....) when a huge, silvery shape rockets out of the water.

Tarpon!

And not just any tarpon, but a better-than-man-sized fish well into the triple digits. The fish crashed back into the water with the sound of someone dropping a 2-ton granite jetty boulder into the channel. Bob's reel sizzles again, then: slack.

The fish "came unscrewed." That's no surprise since tarpon have notoriously hard, bony mouths, and the majority of hook-ups for any angler typically result in lost fish.

"Jumping" a tarpon is the thrill, the rest is just a slugfest for the most part.

Bob whooped and yelled and jumped up and down on the rocks, then suddenly went silent.

"Sorry for all the noise," he said, a bit sheepishly.

I laughed.

"Sorry? Man, if it was me, I'd still be laughing/cussing/crying -- all at the same time. I nearly had a heart attack, and I was just watching."

It was Bob's second tarpon. The first came years ago, on the very same set of jetties.

Those are some pretty good rocks.