Image: outdoorlife.com
Harold Bishop is a St. Augustine, Florida, entrepreneur who leads the Allurent Corporation and offers a host of control systems engineering services. Among Harold Bishop’s favorite free time activities in coastal Florida are boating and fishing.
One of the most popular game fish is the tarpon, which spends all but the first decade of its life offshore, and it can range as far north as Long Island and as far south as Brazil. A “catch and release” sport fish that is not desirable as food, the tarpon has a prehistoric lineage that extends 125 million years.
A unique tarpon evolutionary adaptation is the air bladder, which allows oxygen to be taken directly from the surface air. This enables survival in oxygen-depleted waters that have few predators, and also enables larvae to migrate to freshwater estuaries and develop for six or seven years, until they are ready to spawn.
Once the tarpon reaches maturity, it migrates offshore and joins schools. Adults typically top out around the 200 pound range. Tarpon are abundant in regions such as the Florida Keys year-round, and peak migrations take place in April and May.
Harold Bishop 
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