We're usually always talking about the one that got away and probably always will. It's just part of fishing. You win some and you lose some. Usually we only see the victory photos and I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Most fisherman are competitive and love a little glory every now and then. I know you've seen it, proud anglers posing triumphantly with the prized catch, which is usually accompanied by a detailed description of what they did right and how successful they were. Inevitably, some level of praise follows and the endeavor now seems all the more worthy of the time and effort. Plus, other anglers stand to learn something from the information. It's all good.

 

But what about the one's that get away? Where's the value in that and what about the glory, if there is any?  I think there is, and I tried to remember but can't recall the last time I read about someone essentially explaining their failures and what they couldn't accomplish, so I thought it would be interesting to put a twist on things and do exactly that.

 

So what happens when they do get away? Usually all your left with is the story, right? After all, there's a million ways to lose a fish and that makes the stories even better to tell (or exaggerate). With every fish you lose there's an opportunity to learn from mistakes and correct your them. Maybe even share them too. I've lost plenty of fish this year and I'm not ashamed to admit it. They have all made me a better fisherman. I've got a few stories to go along with them, and they all pertain to my personal favorite pursuit, tarpon.

We'll kick it off with this one. This big girl looks just about done, right? Not really. Note the steep angle -- this picture was taken from the tower on my boat.  She rolled and caught one more gulp of oygen before darting off under the bow. Right about that time the line got caught in a groove on the rub rail, and snap! No mas.  

Lesson learned? Well, there were a few but one would be to fix the rub rail. I did. That was an easy one to start with. The other lesson, and this one isn't always easy, is to keep the fish from rolling late in the fight and gulping that oxygen to begin with. It's fairly predictable, and can be avoided by keeping a watchful eye on the line itself. When the line looks to be rising with the fish you can dip the rod tip in the water and apply downward pressure to keep the fish from rolling. If successful, you should see the fish stay down and bubbles come up.They'll try to roll again and the process needs to be repeated, but generally, it helps quite a bit in tiring out the fish and reducing the overall fight time.  

 

 

Here's another tarpon that got away. Not my personal choice but while using relatively light tackle at the Skyway (8 foot, 10-20# rod and 4500 baitrunner) we ended up in an up and down fight with this bigger fish. She hunkered down and rubbed us off on some structure below. 

Lesson learned? Fish with the gear that can handle the situation. If we were on the beach then I suppose it would've been fine, but deeper water and structure is a different ballgame, and the fish use whatever surroundings they have to their advantage. A rod with more backbone and a larger class reel may have helped us lift the fish up and away from the rocky bottom.

 

 

A little later that same day, here's another fish we thought was whipped pretty good, but sometimes they're never as tired as you think. As you can see we're trying to lead the fish to the boat for handling. One good tailswipe against the line or leader is all she needed to straighten the hook and swim off, which isn't a bad thing. The fish had been leadered so it counts, and in reality the Palm Beach release is much better for the fish. To be honest, handling them can be a pain. 

Lesson learned? I'm not sure we could've done anything differently here except to maybe lighten the drag a little boatside, and do a better job of palming the spool while tiring the fish. Everybody has their preferences, but I don't like cranking the drag down. Even when tired and wary, tarpon are very strong, make explosive moves out of nowhere, and will certainly test your tackle and your knots. With a locked down drag, I think you increase the chances of failure sometime during the fight. I prefer to use a lighter drag where you essentially control the drag pressure manually. This way you can still muscle the fish and take what they give you, while still retaining the ability to react and reduce the drag pressure if necessary.

 

Here's the hook. It's the 7/0 Mustad Demon Circle, and is relatively light wire. It's excellent for hooking tarpon, but the drawback is the light wire, so you need to have a good feel for exactly how much pressure you can put on the fish. It's like walking a tightrope --you need to get comfortable with the amount of drag pressure you can apply that's effective, but won't pull the hook.  

 

 

My turn to mess up now. Here's a tarpon that was hooked clean in the side of the mouth but I allowed her to roll over the leader and it ended up wrapped up the fish's bony jaw. One quick run and a boatside leap equals another break off.

 

 

  

Speaking about hooks, here's a fish that was hooked with a 4/0 Gamakatsu circle hook and pass crab. We let her drag the boat against the tide for a few minutes to tire out but she came unbuttoned in the process. Wonder why? Well, here's the hook. As you can see the hook point failed to fully or even partially penetrate the fish's mouth, so the fish was hooked similar to what would be nothing more than a pin prick. Situations like this are why you always need to keep tension on the fish throughout the entire fight, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that. I've been amazed at some of the fish we've landed, seeing they were just barely hooked.  

 

 

This photo is not the best illustration but you can see the hook point is bent upwards...

Was it Brad's lucky day, or not? He and I were fishing next to each other one day last year. I look over and see him jump and lose 2 tarpon in about 10 minutes. I gesture over to him with hands up in the air as if to say -- hey man, get your act together! He idled over and showed me what happened. The line roller on his reel had developed a groove that went unnoticed for a good while. When he hooked the last fish and closed the bail, the line got stuck in the groove resulting in a break off. He then borrowed one of my set ups and landed the next fish he hooks. Of course, I got skunked that day. I posted the 'ofer' and he went 1 for 3. Apparently it was his lucky day.

And now for my favorite. It's a crazy story that starts with me fishing alone, with the rod in the rod holder, unattended. A tarpon strikes, and the butt of the rod promptly snaps in 1/2 and flys out of the rod holder. So now there's a tarpon swimming around hooked in the mouth and dragging my rod and reel behind. About 30 minutes later the fish swims past the guys fishing down from me and snags one of their lines. They reel up and realize they've caught my rod. No sooner do they pick it up and come tight, the tarpon again performs it's trademark leap and the fight is on; for them anyway. They end up boating the fish and returned my rod and reel back to me...in a few pieces. The Captain and I joked about it, and agreed to each claim 1/2 of the fish. That's me drifting over there wide right cheering them along. Not really, that was my fish!

 

 

After reading all this you may be wondering if we ever actually catch anything? Believe it or not we do. I've always heard that a decent landing ratio is 1 in 2, or 50%. I think our ratio was somewhere between 65% - 70% this year. I'll take that anyday, and hope to repeat it next season. 

One more thing -- it does help to have your 'perfect' girlfriend fishing with you to boost your ratio. She was the great equalizer in her freshman year of tarpon fishing, going a perfect 5 for 5 this year -- she never lost a fish. Here's proof we do get a few to the boat.