streamer. Beautiful screaming dives for the take. As this Booby thing catches on, someone will make a mint with a Booby hook disgorger. Them babies have sharp beaks and know how to use them! I did blow my one chance at a good bonefish when I snagged a Petrel (species uncertain) on the backcast. Never backcast over a nesting colony of petrels. It's bad enough trying to fish while 30 mom and pop petrels dive bomb your head. Snagging one in the air on a backcast is just a pure bonus. Remember you heard it here first. But it's really among the mammals that the future of flyfishing lies. I have foul hooked a beaver by casting over it and retrieving back, hard. The leader was too light to really judge the sport potential. But the real revelation occurred right in my own home. I had returned from bassbugging one day and leaned my rigged 9 foot rod upright in the corner of the living room. Tall ceilings in Boston apartments. While sipping a cool one in the kitchen, I rocked back in the chair and noticed my cat playfully batting at the bassbug which had come loose from the hookkeeper. It didn't register. The next minute I heard a howl, scratching feet trying to get traction on a hardwood floor, a reel giving line fast, and the unmistakable sound of your best rod trying to negotiate passage through a doorway on its own. The cheap ones give a real tinny rattle. As the brown streak flashed past me, I dove to save the situation. That is, I grabbed for the rod. Now, I've caught some strong fish in my day, but there isn't one thing with a fin that can compare with a cat with four wheel drive and studded tires. Fifteen pound test leader and hooking solidly in the lip gives the best sport. I looked at my reel as it set new RPM records and contemplated my options, bleak as they were. In true flyfishing fashion, I followed, running, downstream. Down the hallway, through the livingroom, down the basement stairs, around the furnace, up the basement stairs, out into the garage. Try it with your best nine foot rod pointing the way, and the more doors you leave open the better. My quarry finally outdistanced me completely and came to bay, tethered by the mouth, under the sofa. One mad cat! And that was not a barbless hook. As good as the sport was, I do have to say that we've got to get this unhooking thing worked out better. I won't bore you with the details of the two hour process; the call to the vet, the tranquilizer shot that didn't work, the scratches and bandaids, etc., but it has kept me from trying it again. Yet, in the broader scheme of polluted water and disappearing fish, that's just a minor detail. Catfishing. Not catfishfishing. Catfishing. Kind of has a ring to it. TRUMP DOYLE , McKenzie Flyfishers, March 1989
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