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| The Reel |
Last year I talked about fly
fishing and let you in on my struggles to get that perfect cast. I ended the season
with only one little trout but it was a huge accomplishment, to me, to be able
to cast perfectly and bring in that fish all on a fly rod. This year, for a
fishing adventure, I will be targeting something a little larger, sharks. As your
imagination runs out of control, especially since last week was shark week on
the Discovery Channel that shows great whites in the 20 foot range, let me “reel”
you back in. did you see what I did there? I’ll be looking to catch a 4-6 foot
black tip, fine tooth, or other species in that range. The rod and reel I’ll be
using for this adventure is a complete 180 from the fly rod of last year. A thick
ten foot rod housing a reel that weighs around three pounds spooled with line
strong enough to, well, land a shark. The reel alone weighs more than the fly
rod, reel, and line all together. To make things just a little more interesting
I’ll be surf fishing, meaning I’ll be casting from the shore and pulling the behemoths
onto land to, this is where the fun starts, remove the hook. Yea, I said it.
Remove the hook from a shark’s mouth. The hooks are made to rotate to the
corner of the mouth causing less damage to the shark and make it easier to
remove with long pliers of course. You didn’t think I was going to stick my
hand in the mouth did you? Now I won’t be just focusing on catching Jaws, but
other fish as well such as croaker, whiting, sea trout, mullet, red drum (also
known as red fish), and other less toothy fish. Some of them we will be using
as bait, others will be tossed back, and some will be cooked for dinner, no sharks
on the menu for us but all other is fair game. If you have ever had fresh
seafood, I mean right out of the water onto the grill, you’ll know why I’m
excited about that. So by the end of our week long stent in South Carolina I hope
to have caught and released a shark without losing a limb, caught my own
dinner, get sunburned, and actually get a chance to relax in the sun before
winter comes leaving me stuck inside for another four months.
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| The Target (black tip) |
