"Amateur Maneuver"
Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:05 pmI first met Dean Shirota on a trip to Christmas Island. He's always willing to share his knowledge and love of fly fishing. I learned a lot. The following is an email I got this week from Dean telling me about all the fun I missed by passing up a morning bonefish trip here on Oahu.
"There was a slight tide coming in and I was thinking the fish would start to tail pretty soon. In about 15 minutes the tails started popping out of the water. We stalked tails for a while but the sun was in a weird angle so was hard to see. I decided to head out towards the deeper channel. At this one spot I made one blind cast and hooked into a huge fish. Man this thing took off and eventually cut me off in the breakers. It must have ripped off over 150 yards of line. After that I decided to go back into the shallows and try to sight fish again. On the way in I saw a tail pop out nearby and made a cast. I stripped once and the fish grabbed the fly. The fish took off and as I was clearing my line the last section looped around the reel. Not wanting to cut the fish off I started running in the water and tried to take the loop off. Somehow I dropped my rod and reel and the fish was taking it out water skiing. I ran to catch up to the rod, picked it up, untangled the loop, fought the fish and eventually landed the 30 inch 10 lb+ fish. Man talk about a major "amateur maneuver"."
As you can see, fishing with Dean is always an "adventure". You should see the picture of the two 8 pound octopus that....... well, that's another story for another day.
Aloha,
Stan
"There was a slight tide coming in and I was thinking the fish would start to tail pretty soon. In about 15 minutes the tails started popping out of the water. We stalked tails for a while but the sun was in a weird angle so was hard to see. I decided to head out towards the deeper channel. At this one spot I made one blind cast and hooked into a huge fish. Man this thing took off and eventually cut me off in the breakers. It must have ripped off over 150 yards of line. After that I decided to go back into the shallows and try to sight fish again. On the way in I saw a tail pop out nearby and made a cast. I stripped once and the fish grabbed the fly. The fish took off and as I was clearing my line the last section looped around the reel. Not wanting to cut the fish off I started running in the water and tried to take the loop off. Somehow I dropped my rod and reel and the fish was taking it out water skiing. I ran to catch up to the rod, picked it up, untangled the loop, fought the fish and eventually landed the 30 inch 10 lb+ fish. Man talk about a major "amateur maneuver"."
As you can see, fishing with Dean is always an "adventure". You should see the picture of the two 8 pound octopus that....... well, that's another story for another day.
Aloha,
Stan