Some buoys sets had only one to two fish, often bigger, visible just under the surface even from 50 yards away. Most of the bigger fish were not interested, but it was exciting to get a big one to follow. Big is, in this game, four or five feet long. We would circle and cast, circle and cast. A dorado, if it really wants a fly or a bait, can actually see it and will charge from as far as a hundred yards, or more. I never saw that but everyone else had. These are a fish that make their living catching flying fish in the air, which is even more impressive once you have seen what the flying fish around here can do. Around 1:00 the wind came up and the sea got too rough to stand and cast. Also, among the whitecaps it was impossible to spot the white buoys. And without the buoys it was like trying to find a needle in the, well, ocean. We quit with 8 fish between the five fishing from two boats, the biggest maybe 15 pounds. We had released 5-6 more that were small. That was, I was told, an O.K. first day, nothing great. That was, I am saddened to say, the last fish I would land on this trip. Have you ever been jinxed? I mean have a full out literal interpretation of murphy's law pasted on your forehead. Well, I did. It was, I am certain, because of my special reel. This reel is special for several reasons. It is 20 years old and I have never landed a fish with it. Mostly because I rarely get a chance to fish for fish that demand a reel of it's type. It is one of those big salt water tarpon and tuna types, complete with 6 point disc drag and free spool lever, really handy when casting so that one does not fight the drag setting until a fish is hooked or running line is out for further casting. I found the reel in a Libby-Owens-Ford Company employee store in Toledo, Ohio. L-O-F was a division of Shakespeare, or vice versa. Anyway, amidst a puny selection of cheap spinning and baitcasting rods and reels there was this fly reel. A Shakespeare full up saltwater big game fly reel. It must have been part of an experimental run, as the reel never made it to the market. There were two of them sitting there, in this most unlikely of places. $15 each. I bought both and gave one to a friend. That was 20 years ago. In the ensuing years I haven't had that much cause to strap that reel on to really see if it is as good as it seems. How often do you use a reel that weighs 6 ounces and carries 3-400 yards of backing and a #10 line. And I traded someone a vasectomy for a Fin-Nor #3 which I used tarpon fishing. So, it really wasn't until this trip that I really put the reel on and gave it a chance. That first day I was using my #11 line on the Fin-Nor and a skipping bug. The popper was a great dorado lure, but the casting of the big popper was a real exhausting affair after the first hour. The next day I tried my #9 outfit with a streamer, but the wind was just too much for the #9 line. So I tried the #10 with the Shakespeare reel. It was just right. When I asked, Dave, Frank, Dick, and Lou were all using
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