If you have been fishing for any length of time there are certain fish that stick in your mind.
This means different things to different people. I don’t know what it says about me that the most memorable fish in my memory are the ones I didn’t even land. Nothing good, I’m sure.
Supporter Spotlight
I used to flyfish the Delaware River along the New York-Pennsylvania border. It’s an area well known for producing large, wild trout that fight with abandon.
Indeed, I have caught numerous brown and rainbow trout of 20 inches or better. Including a 24-inch made more memorable not for just being the largest trout I had ever caught from a body of water not connected to the Great Lakes, which is full of huge fish by the way, but also because my brother Eamon, also caught a monster that day and we were accompanied by a great friend named Ryan.
So yes, it was a big fish. Was it made more memorable because of the company? Or even more by the memory of one I hooked years before and took off like it had been shot out of cannon never to be seen? Or, a bigger one than that, which jumped in my face and left me with a bent hook? If we go often enough, this happens to us all.
I literally can smell the water and hear sounds of splashing rapids in a little pool of a stream near my dad’s house, which I had fished literally a hundred times, as I caught numerous small trout. Then one cast later, I was connected to something else that left the premises quickly. I couldn’t tell you how many fish I caught that evening, but that one memory is sealed in.
My father happened to be sitting streamside enjoying the evening as well, and he said, “What just happened there?”
Supporter Spotlight
Did that add to the memories as well?
Tarpon have never been a common catch for me due to the distance between them and me. All the ones I have come across have been memorable.
The first one I ever caught was late at night under a bridge in the Florida Keys, as they all have been, mostly, with one notable exception. My buddy was coughing up a tornado in our hotel in the middle of the night and I had to get out. Some guy we knew had pointed a spot out to me as a good place for night fishing. I had a casting rod that was more suited for bass fishing, but I figured it wouldn’t matter anyway.
I was totally wrong. It was happening! Large shrimp were being washed by the outgoing current and the tarpon were on.
I didn’t know what lures to use and I wasn’t prepared in any way. I cast a Rapala swimming plug and twitched it on top. In three seconds, I was stuck to a leaping brute. It wasn’t huge for a tarpon, but for me it was astounding. It jumped clean out of the water what seemed like dozens of times. Miracle of miracles it then was laying at my feet.
What happened next was foggy but here I was with a 50-pound fish that had multiple treble hooks flying around, and I didn’t really know how sharp a tarpon’s gill plates were. Needless to say, I got hooked. I was to shake it out just before the barb pushed in and the fish then did me the favor of getting off and swimming away.
Obviously, I have pretty clear memories from that encounter. Even so, sometimes I think about that night and have questions about the whole process. However, as is often the case with me, one that I didn’t catch remains crystal clear in my memory.
The same is true of another night move with another old fishing buddy.
He had already caught a small tarpon and we were stoked. Small jacks and ladyfish were keeping us busy and it was a good time. Then I saw a VERY large fish swirl and take up a feeding station right in front of me.
I made a cast. It was a little short.
Again.
This next part plays out in my mind time and again: My little shrimp fly swam past Goliath. She turned to it, turned away, then came back all the way over and slurped it while going away. My rod doubled and she flew out of the water.
Next thing was my line dissolving off my reel. She jumped again an impossible distance away. My leader was frayed off and it seemed to take forever to reel my dead line back. Off to my right I heard, “Well that was something.”
Again, a perfect, clear memory of a failed catch.
Of course, the only tarpon I ever hooked in North Carolina left me similarly empty-handed but thrilled nonetheless. It might be a character defect that I remember these instances so much more vividly.
As you may be able to tell, I’ve been fortunate enough to fish a lot of amazing places with some special people. A few of them are no longer with us and I think of them often.
There have been many giant fish that others have only ever seen in magazines. I wrote some of those articles.
I’ve said this before, I’ve been from one end of this continent to the other and been blessed with many incredible fishing experiences, but the times I’ve spent fishing with my child really have been life-changing and those that stick with me years and years later.
As Mr. Thoreau once told me:
“Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.”
It’s no accident.
