Big fish story...
went out to throw a few flies today; little urban drainage lake close to home. Landed a few nice hybrid 'gills and a couple small greenies. Then I hooked a decent cat. I'm not a huge fan of cats on the fly rod; not that they don't give you a damn good tug, but they're kinda like hooking a bulldog; mostly they wanna go deep and tug and shake. Anyway this'n'd go 16" or so I'd reckon; maybe a pound or pound-in-a-half. This particular lake has pretty steep banks and 5-6' of rip-rap around the perimeter; I had a hard time figuring how I could keep the rod up, keep tension on the fish and get down to unhook him without getting wet. Turned out I couldn't; as I reached for him I put too much pressure on the leader and broke him off. Or well; was gonna cut him loose anyway but I did lose a nice new wooly-bugger.
A few little ones later I hooked another one. Now, I gotta tell ya, I felt like Johnny Cash singing Shel Silverstein's "Boy Named Sue"...I'll tell ya I've fought tougher men but I really can't remember when...I think I've caught bigger fish, but I have NEVER had a fish fight me like this'un. I fought him for over half an hour. He took me deep into the backing more than once in long runs down the lake; just when I thought I had him tuckered out off he's go again. I was fishing a little 5wt WW Griggs glass rod...up to the task it turned out, but I wondered. My belly is pretty banged up from bracing the rod butt against it; I have a pic but when I looked at it (an old fat guy's belly with a lot of hair) I decided it wasn't fit for public consumption. But let me tellya, I'm gonna have some major bruises over the next coupla days.
I didn't even get to see this mother for quite a while, and when I finally did I reckoned he'd go 22"+, maybe 24" which would equate to 4-5lbs; lotta fish. But I could see there was no way I'd ever land him by myself given the situation of this particular shore line et al. Finally I managed to get to my cell phone and called my son-in-law who lives not far and long story short said get over here, which he did. He slid down the bank and said should I grab the line and I said no it'll break him off if you do. So he's trying to take pics with HIS phone, and he slipped on a rock and reflex action...he grabbed the line. Gone. He felt really bad but I said hey, I was gonna let him go anyway. But it woulda been nice to put a measure on that hog and get a pic. Oh well.
So no fish pics but my son-in-law did get kind of a neat shot against the sun which almost looks like a night/moon light shot...
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