Reaux

This one originally was posted in SOL but I thought the denizens here might enjoy it.

Back to Basics

It has no moving parts, it’s imperious to sand, and never needs servicing, or oiling, you don’t even need a rod, yet you can cast a lure over two hundred feet with it. I use one sometimes, mostly for amusement, sometimes out of necessity. It is the humble hand line. Mine is two hundred feet of two hundred and fifty pound stiff mono – sword fishing line.

Once I drove down to the Canal from Cambridge for a little fly fishing for schoolies; rigging up I soon discovered that I had made a critical mistake, my fly reel turned out to just be a spare spool. I wasn’t happy, to say the least, after a few (many) choice words I rummaged around in the back of the truck looking for something to use so that the trip down wouldn’t be a waste and came across the hand line neatly wrapped on its stick and next to it a box of Rebels. I could only throw them thirty or forty feet but it was enough – I caught fish. I did garner a lot of strange looks from the regulars on their bike patrol, to this day I still wonder what they were saying to themselves.

Then there was the time at Wasque Point. After watching the circus of the picket line I decided to limber up a little, and have a some fun, prior to moving down the beach for a little fly fishing. Cleaning up the beach thirty yards up the rip from the nearest fisherman I uncoiled the hand line and looped it in big coils on the cleared beach. Then twirling it about I’d fling the four ounce Hopkins the full two hundred feet and then let it drift with the fast running tide giving the occasional jerk on the line. I was getting hits but I couldn’t hook up.

Then as I was about to make another cast I saw a fisherman approach. “Damn I can’t believe he’s going to jump my spot” I thought. He stood off to my side as he unwrapped a new Spofford Ballistic Missile and tied it on. After I retrieved my line he came up to me and said “Excuse me, would you like to use this?” and proffered me his nice outfit and brand new lure.

Reaux

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Reaux