84 A Fish Story

I’m sure that if you have ever fished you have a fish story, and if you can trump mine I want to hear it. My story begins one sunny weekend when Lloyd McGill and I decided to go fishing at Wyclees Lagoon where by all accounts the smallest fish caught would be at least forty lbs.

Not having any of my own fishing gear, Lloyd scrounged an old Pete’s Real with about a 120 lb test line and no leader for me to use. All I can remember is that his gear was somewhat better but as to what it was I now have no idea.

What I do remember is that it was a bad decision to take off without a fishing club or a net, and I would rue it to this day. With that we grabbed a lunch and took off for Wyclees Lagoon and a story that was waiting to be told.

In less then an hour we were at the lagoon and as the tide was not too low the water was flowing into Smith Inlet at only a moderate rate. We shot up the north arm of the lagoon and took a quick look around in the lagoon itself, before deciding to anchor in the north arm just where it emptied into Smith Inlet. Here we let our lines trail out behind the boat where we thought the fish would school before entering the lagoon. As we didn’t have an anchor we went ashore and found a large rock, which we tied to our bowline.

Our strategy seemed to be working as we had only been fishing a few minutes when I got a strike and my line started singing at a startling rate. My thought was that the break was on a little too much so I attempted to loosen it some. Not being familiar with the gear I backed the break off too much and suddenly the line was reeling out at lightening speed. In trying to retighten it I bloodied all my knuckles as the reel was spinning like a top. It was about this time that the fish reached the end of the line with such force as to bend the real sideways to the rod and it came lose and fell off. I was fortunate that the line was tied to the real as I quickly dropped the rod and was now able to begin pulling the fish in by hand.

All this time I was yelling my head off for Lloyd to lift the anchor, as I imagined the line was going to snap. How Lloyd got his line in and the anchor lifted I will never know but soon we were drifting wherever the fish would take us.

I continued pulling the fish in hand over hand when suddenly there he was this enormous dark green monster glistening just under the surface, I could have reached down and grabbed him by the tail, but better yet, where was the net to scoop him up? Back at camp of course.

The monster had hit the end of the line so hard that he had straightened the eye end of the hook. So with a flick of his tail he pulled enough slack to throw the hook and off he swam. I pulled the line in and there it was, the end of the line with a lonesome swivel, the hook and the fish had gone.

Lloyd didn’t seem to depressed but he wasn’t the one who had lost the fish, on the other hand why cry, the fish that got away is always the big one, and who knows, he could have been a one hundred and forty pounder only God knows for sure.