SEE THE FISH
Each time I lost a big fish, I asked myself over and over what were the mistakes that had produced the loss of a great catch. Often singing the “mea culpa” with all sorts of digressions, some of the most demanding and miserable, others blame was not to change the tippet “knowing that there is a big fish”, not having regulated the reel brake enough or have simply given too many “facilities to fish.” Anyway … endless self reproaches that lasted for days and sometimes weeks, an authentic fisherman waterway penance of not knowing when would have in my rod a fish like that.
Until one day in mid-May, fishing at sunset with a caddis dry fly, I saw a huge trout near my shore, which confidently at the beginning of twilight, eating incessantly all caddisflies unfortunates who passed near his mouth. I shot several times and the third ate confidently.
The fish I had seen only partially and although I knew it was big, I could not pinpoint its size until it first approached the shore. Once the combat finished and in the fund net, I remove the fly and carefully returned to the water. The animal darted into the current but the reel by surprise give line skating. It turns out that my carelessness, the small caddisfly had been inside the net and had caught on one side of the trout struggle was within the net. This time with an unusual energy the fish tired from the previous bout, trout headed straight tumultuous, extremely long, fast and unfordable. I could not do anything to bring it back to the shore, just pulled line and line to exhaust it and start pulling out the reservation line. Since I could not commute downstream, I endured as I could until the tippet finally crash and the fish escaped forever.
The surprising fact itself left me a pleasant experience: had fought twice with the same fish and in the second, the fish had won the game. But I had seen and I had the trout in my hands, just minutes before. This “discovery” corresponded very pleasantly and gave me a good key to stop lamenting and worry about losing the next catch in new fishing adventures.
See the fish is important whenever possible to get an idea of what we have hooked at the end of our line. See it means to see the fish clearly, no partial glimpse. If I can see but not get to catch it, I consider myself lucky and less unhappy if a fatal outcome. See the fish, calibrate their measurements and weight to eye, help and how to being able to capture and if broken (most often), the loss is not so painful, ‘This is !!!, it does not hurt either like watching a trout escape judging by his fight and pulls a huge fish but which we could not see clearly at any time and therefore never know how it was. Honestly this is what I disliked most of all. ‘Do not see the fish !!!.
Last season I lost (of course!), several large trout. Only one could be fully sighted and this was the least I worried all. With all others, they followed reproaches, always cabals and all the usual repertoire of conjecture and other nonsense.
For this reason long as I can do something I always try to see the fish, either getting closer to this or trying to take it to my bank, if left, and there see and recalibrate. No big deal, but it serves me.
In the background on reflection, it is a self-deception, but halfway, because if trout falls to the bottom of the net at least have had the chance to see and even more: if a fish of 60 cm, almost leaving worrying instantly, because for me although it is an important piece, is a fish that has already been caught in the past and is not a super trophy 70 or 80 cm, which have fished very few and they see them or not, are most desire and it hurts more to lose and not see … and watching …
~ Carles V.