If you have not seen the old Spencer Tracy movie \u201dThe old Man and the Sea\u201d it\u2019s something you should do. \u00a0 It\u2019s a fabulous book by Hemmingway and made into a movie with Spencer Tracy. \u00a0 If you have ever hooked into a fish that challenges every inch of your ability, it\u2019s hard not to think of this classic. \u00a0Last night was my \u201cThe Old Man and the Sea\u201d venture.<\/p>\n
Bill Carnazzo & I went fishing last night downstream to the Cathedral. The Cathedral is a great place to start as it gets shade before much of the river due to the high walls. We saw some fish jumping in the pool below the Cathedral. Bill landed a few on a dry fly. I wasn\u2019t having much luck nymphing.<\/p>\n
We headed upstream to the large pool where we saw large fish rising. I threw out a large \u00a0Turk Tarantula Dry Fly #10 \u00a0and saw a fish going for it, but backed away as the fly moved into the fast water. \u00a0A few casts later I I looked back to see where Bill was and he started yelling that a fish had engulfed my fly. He wasn\u2019t just saying a fish took my fly, he was saying it attacked it. As I quickly set the hook I realized this was a huge fish.<\/p>\n
He headed for the fast water and I thought I must stop him from getting into it as it spilled out of the pool. I stopped him but then suddenly it felt that the line had gotten stuck on the bottom. You know that feeling where you lift your rod and there is not the slightest bit of movement. I lifted several times and nothing. I thought he had gotten off and that I had snagged the bottom. I could see the line below the fast water and it was in a big arc which is not good. At that point I was about to give up and break off the fly when he started moving again. Now I started think of \u201c Old man and the Sea\u201d. I was in a fight of a lifetime. If you have ever hooked a big steelhead you know what I was feeling.<\/p>\n
As the fish made a \u201cB\u201d line towards the fast water my rod was bending to the limit. I tried changing the angle as that sometimes works in getting the fish to stop running. I didn\u2019t want him getting in the fast water that was spilling out of the pool. Once in there I knew he would be gone. I worked him closer and he came completely out of the water about 10\u2019 from where I was standing. My adrenalin started pumping as this brown was thick as a salmon and had a tail that must have been 6\u201d wide.<\/p>\n
Bill was scurrying over to me with his camera and saw him jump. The fish took off toward the fast water pouring out of the pool. My rod was bent over to the point of breaking as I tried to keep him from going over the edge. I thought about letting him go over and then chasing him down stream, but that was just asking too much. I saw the river runs through where Brad Pitt floats down the river with a fish on and I am just too old to give that a try. In my younger years perhaps. As I looked at my rod and I knew I was in deep trouble as it looked like it was about to break. Then when it looked like my rod had reached it maximum the line snapped as the fish broke off the fly. I would have loved to have landed this fish as it was definitely a trophy fish. Not that I would have kept it , but I certainly would have taken several of pics.<\/p>\n
In the movie Spencer Tracy lands his monster fish. \u00a0 \u00a0 In this case the fish got away. I don\u2019t feel bad about losing this fish. He put up a great fight and I enjoyed every second of the fight. You don\u2019t always have to win to gain a great deal of pleasure in life.<\/p>\n
Tom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you have not seen the old Spencer Tracy movie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-private-trout-preserve"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horseshoebarpreserve.com\/fly-fishing-american-river\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}