The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

I've been lucky. Just one after many, many years of flyfishing. I'd been working a BIG fish one beautiful afternoon in a shallow cove at Lake Davis which was surface feeding. I had the cove to myself and he must have been at least a six pound fish. I'd put him down at least three times but after patiently resting him he'd return to the same spot. I FINALLY hit him just right and set the hook. He took off like a bullet and put on quite a show - he's take air and I'd drop the tip - I was able to turn him 2 or 3 times. It was one of those moments when instinctively I seemed to be doing every thing right. And all of a sudden my line went slack - he'd some how managed to throw the hook.

I swore, with a smile on my face, and in frustration slapped the surface of the water with my flyrod. I broke off the tip of my Sage SP. I didn't have a second rod with me so that ended my day of fishing - I guess that old fish had the last laugh. I now use the tip of that rod as a bodkin for my fly tying. And yes Sage did replace the tip.

God knows I've been lucky with the number of trees, rocks and ground I've jammed the tip of my fly rod into while hiking around streams, creeks and rivers. I drove home once, a short distance, after fishing a near by river to find I'd left my rod on top of the car. Car doors, tailgates, boat decks, slips and falls, casting the heavy bugs and streamers - the potentials are almost endless. It's amazing I have any rods left at all - but I do - so I continue to fish and now generally carry a back up rod just in case.

Pete