Walter & Group...
Lefty's comment on fighting large fish while getting older caused me to think of the poem, "YOU ARE OLD FATHER WILLIAM" by Lewis Carroll. I attached it after Googling it.
Gordy
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Here are some things which have happened to me while fly fishing salty pelagics .
Let's see how some of you would have solved these problems:
1.) A large fish is hooked. A tangle of line is on the deck ready to steam up to the stripper guide as the fish runs.
2.) By one means or another this tangle got through the guides and now is between the fish and the rod tip.
3.) While fighting a large tarpon, the fly line engages a ball of seaweed. It's heavy and won't come off.
4.) Your tarpon is about to run around a lobster trap buoy. You are alone in your flats skiff.
5.) The fish runs beneath a large matted weed line.
6.) You have been fighting a large fish for about 45 minutes. He's no where near ready to land. Suddenly the handle falls off your fly reel into the water.
7.) A large lemon shark approaches the tarpon you just hooked a minute ago.
8.) A huge bull shark is chasing the 80 lb. tarpon you are fighting.
9.) You have just taken the hook out of a large tarpon and are ready to release the fish as a big hammerhead shark approaches.
10.) You just released a 50 lb. tarpon in clear water 6' deep. You are dismayed to see that the tarpon is on the bottom upside down (belly up) and not moving.
11.) You try to remove the hook from the tarpon's mouth but it is stuck in the bone so deep you cannot get it out.
12.) The `12 lb. albie you have just landed is vibrating so rapidly that you can't get the hook out for a quick release.
13.) You just removed the hook from a schoolie bluefin tuna of about 20 lbs. What is the best way of releasing that fish ?
14.) This morning the sailfish are very aggressive.... they have been "piling on" the fly and inhaling it so deep that the class tippet keeps breaking. What do you do when the next fish approaches ?
15.) The grouper you hooked on a Clouser and density compensated fly line has sounded and gone into the rocks. You can't budge him.
16.) You have been fishing for small bluefin tuna in the 20 lb. to 40 lb. range. Suddenly a giant tuna of about 700 lbs booms through the school and grabs your fly.
17.) You have a guest on your skiff. Every time a tarpon takes his fly he immediately strikes with the rod tip and pulls the fly right out of the fish's open mouth.
18.) A large tarpon tracks your fly and follows it but won't take it !
19.) A bonefish follows your fly for quite a distance but doesn't take it.
20.) The whipped loop on the end of your fly line rubbed on the coral as you fought your last fish and is coming apart. It is the only line you brought.
21.) You have been fishing with an intermediate sink fly line. Now the fish are on the flat in water only 12" deep. You don't have a floating fly line.
22.) You have fought a tarpon on a 15' Spey rod. You are in a skiff and cannot get the fish to the boat by usual means.
23.) The large striped bass you are fighting from a skiff dives straight down under the boat on the port side and then runs under the bottom in the direction of the starboard side. (A "keel-haul !)
24.) You are casting to tarpon rolling on the surface one evening in the Bahia Honda channel .... water is 15' to 25' deep. You cannot get a strike.
25.) You just hooked a tarpon as you were about to pull your retrieved fly from the water. The fish leaps only 10 feet from the skiff. you have 75' feet of fly line on the deck.
26.) You have just made a cast to a bonefish which spooked. Your guide points out another approaching from behind you. He hasn't got time to turn the skiff.
27.) The tarpon are feeding in a weed line. Scattered weeds all over the place on either side of this line. You are fishing with an intermediate line, but do not have any weedless flies.
28.) You and your buddy have just hooked up on two big tarpon ... a double header.
Have fun with these real life events !
Gordy
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You are old father William a poem by Lewis Carroll.mht
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