FISH STORY#1
New species on a fly
Although I have never been one to chase all the different species with a fly rod as some others do, I have had some recent efforts that make it look that way. My peacock bass efforts were not successful in Ft. Lauderdale last month and I also tried for a fifty-pound piranha and did not get that to happen either. Believe me, there are fish like that swimming around in the ponds in south Florida. I went out and tried for them, but what happened to me this last week was a complete surprise I threw a fly at an alligator and caught it. It all started out fun, but I felt like Pooh Bear did when he got his butt caught in the window, by the time it was over.
Since this episode is rather short I need to fill in some of the situation to keep my usual writing boredom factor up. I was visiting Gulf Shores, Alabama to tie flies in the Federation of Fly Fishers southeast council conclave. It was near Fred Ericksonıs home so I stayed with him and Fran. They live in a golf course community and Fran has made the modest three acres they live on look like a botanical garden. Waking to the sound of the fountains and eating on the porch among the bunnies and turtles and listening to the birds greet the day is something special. Hosting at this level is a bygone southern trait of this area.
Any way, in the course of this working visit we did play a round of golf. Besides losing all bets to the home course advantaged Fred, we noticed the many big bass roaming the ponds in which we often deposited the balls. One of the two courses has a pond across the street from the Erickson house and it just so happens that course had just been plugged and sand covered. It was out of play for a few days. Sneaking on to throw a fly or two was worth the scorn of the golf pro if he found out.
We did that the first evening until the bugs chased us off and I picked up one small bass on a little popping "gurgler." It is pattern I was demonstrating this week and we have had wonderful results taking all sorts of fish on it. The next night we sneaked back on the same lake to try again. Fred went one way and I the other around the lake. Fred got first choice and he took the upwind side to throw downwind. I went out to the middle of the pond, the green part with the traps and flags on it that you are supposed to hit with your ball but seldom do. I was working the fly along the wooden sea wall and noticed a couple of logs floating around the corner I was coming to. As I got to about thirty feet from these logs I recognized it as a small alligator with the eyes and nose sticking out of the water. He was looking to the right of me and might have been asleep.
I have seen many alligators along the fishing waters here in the South and in Mexico and have listened to the guys with me say that they will take a fly. But, then what do you do? I also read an article about a couple, at the conclave this week, in which they had a customer throw a popping fly at one and had it snap it up. Then it broke it off and wandered on looking for better food.
I considered my situation; no fish (Fred had one already) and a cheap fly with a strong leader, maybe even a fifteen pound leader. The rod was a six weight. That might have been a bit small for what looked like a forty-pound, four-foot gator but what was to lose as it would break the line anyway right off. I laid the fly a foot off the nose of the little dinosaur.
It did not move, even when I popped it. I tried again. Nothing again. Unc, the master at all things fishing, once told me you had to get it close and even might have to put it on the nose. I "lined" him between the eyes and nose with the fly a foot on the other side. He did not move. I was almost going to reconsider the "log" theory or even think I might be on candid camera. When I "popped" it once, the animal snapped so fast I did not really think he had moved but the fly was stuck in the far side of his mouth half way back. Now what?
He did not move until I tried to pull a bit and set the hook. And then he just tried to sink down into the murk. I stopped that with the rod just aimed almost straight at him so if he took off I would not break the rod. Pulling at him just started to turn him around in the water and that is when he caught sight of me. Thinking I might have something to do with his current lack of mobility he decided to leave. With a quick swoosh of the tail he was headed off under water to the other side of the lake at a rapid rate. All I could do was hang on and let the line drag try to stop him.
As he got about half way across and was well into my backing I had a thought; "what weight of backing did I really have on this little rod?" My bet was twenty-pound. "What strength leader did I really have," was my next ponder. It could have been twenty too; I had the rod rigged last for the gulf's toothy fish . This match could mean I would break the fly line off and that could be expensive. Then I remembered what the "what's next" was. These things would roll to get loose and then wrap up in the fly line thus taking the leader out of the game and leaving the backing to break. The animal could even sink all wrapped up and die. I started to break him off before he rolled by stopping the line flow with my left hand and pointing the rod tip right at him. Meanwhile Fred was cheering from the far bank, but not too close the edge.
What happened was he stopped running and floated to the top and started a funny 'face clearingı' maneuver with his hind foot. He was trying to scrape the hook out of the side of his upper jaw and actually did it on the second or third try. But, he hooked himself in the left rear foot in the web when it popped out. I was feeling more sorry for him now and tried even harder to break the line. This pulling stopped him from swimming efficiently and he started to be pulled back in. I pumped a little and I gained a couple of inches at a time. Then he pumped a little and gained some of it back. The line did not break because I did not want to tear the web with a hard jerk but I did think the hook should have straightened out as hard as I was pulling. It was a relief to get the fly line back on the spool and take the backing out of play. Of course that meant I only had about eighty feet to go.
My end game soon changed to getting as close to the end of the leader as possible and cutting him off. As I got him up close to me, I was standing on a small sea wall, I could see the tide of this battle could change and he might get the idea that 'who caught whom' might be turned around. When I got the leader on the rod, and could get it in my hand, I was only about seven feet from that thick tail and the teeth. I figured the web must be really tough to have held up that well and I did not have enough hands to grab a knife, so. I jerked hard. The leader broke right where it should have and off went the gator like a calf released in a bulldogging contest. I almost fell back in the sand trap.
I will not be throwing flies at gators again. It was a mistake and a learning episode for sure. Lets hope little gators donıt have a memory like the one captain Hook pissed off. These little ones grow into big ones and I did not like the look in the eye of this one at the end of the fight.
So if you are playing Fred's course, keep your eye on the left rear foot of the gators along the route of play. One has a pretty green and white popping bug stuck there. He might be bent on revenge and may mistake a golf swing as a fly cast.
Scud Yates
May 2001
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