Got to go fishing this weekend at a 6 acre pond in the city. It's heavily fished so the authorities only allow fishing on wednesdays and saturdays. First cast of the day I tie a royal cachman wet fly on the end of a 9 foot leader and an 18 inch long tippet and let it sit out from shore about 25 feet. A couple of mallards start swimming over toward the line from the right, one vears away to the right, but the other is heading straight toward the end of the fly line to investigate. No problem, he will ignore it and be on his way, right? Wrong! He ignored it all right, but then proceeded to the wet fly which was still floating on the top of the water. I decided I'd better get that fly out of there before he hooks himself. Well the Mallard reached for the fly as I was making the pick-up and sure enough, I had caught a duck on a fly. Quite a tussle with him trying to fly away and threshing around on the water. I felt terrible (still do). Luckily I always debarb my hooks. Because I didn't want to stress the poor duck out more than I had already done, I got him in fairly close to shore and cut the tippet off. So he was released with a hook in his bill and about 8 to 12 inches of tippet hanging out which he kept trying to scratch away. Not sure if it was the same duck that I saw later, but there was one that gave me a wide berth as he walked behind me and I didn't see the hook or tippet hanging from his bill. May not have been the same duck. Sure hope that never happens again.

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Lee - Better Loops and Singing Reels