THE CHRONICLES OF LOSS

IT HELPS TO TALK ABOUT PAIN AND LOSS, RIGHT? THAT’S WHY GROUP THERAPY AND CAMP “KUMBAYA” SINGALONG SESSIONS EXIST. WITH THAT IN MIND, WE ASKED SEVERAL VERY ACCOMPLISHED ANGLERS ABOUT THE FISH THAT KEEP THEM UP AT NIGHT. YOU KNOW, THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY BUT THAT VISIT FREQUENTLY IN THEIR DREAMS. AMID TEARS, RAGE, SORROW AND VENDETTAS (AGAINST INANIMATE OBJECTS AND PIZZA GREASE), THEY BARED THE DARK SIDE OF THEIR SOULS. THESE ARE THEIR CHRONICLES OF LOSS.

THE PLATOON POON Conrad Botes

I was on a beach somewhere in West Africa. It was about 10 o’clock in the morning and the tarpon were going absolutely berserk just behind the shore break, in broad daylight. It was a spectacle straight out of some National Geographic documentary, and something that I had not experienced before during daylight hours.

There were five of us and we were fishing off a point just outside the river mouth. But reaching the tarpon was difficult, almost impossible. To make matters worse, real estate was limited to two anglers in the sweet spot, and even they needed to add about five metres to their cast beyond the point break to where the fish were rolling and smashing mullet.

I identified the very tip of the point as the spot from where you could reach the fish. The problem was that you would get washed off the point very quickly by crashing waves and end up in a gully behind it. A good name for the gully would have been Tarpon Alley if it wasn’t for the bull sharks we’d already spotted in it.

I walked over to Peter who was fishing close by. “Why don’t you try that point over there, Pete?”

“I don’t want to get washed off into Shark Alley by the first wave,” he replied.

“Do you mind if I give it a try?”

“Go for it,” he laughed.

Watching the surf, I took a lull between two sets of waves to walk out onto the tip of the point. I made a cast that seemed to land in the sweet spot. It must have been two strips in when a tarpon hit the fly and, simultaneously, a wave hit me off the point. All I remember was swimming towards the beach and holding onto the rod with all my might as a big tarpon jumped right on the edge of my peripheral vision.

Eventually I reached the beach where I managed to put the brakes on the tarpon. Some of my friends came running, getting ready to help land the fish. It had been long years since I’d caught a big tarpon in the surf and, while I was really slugging away at fighting it, I was overjoyed at finally catching one again.

I remember seeing the head of the fly line rolling onto the reel; the fish in the shallows with its back and tail fin out the water and Damien walking towards the tarpon in order to grab the leader and secure the fish.

Suddenly, without any struggle from the fish, the line went slack. The hook pulled. I watched as the tarpon slowly slipped over the lip of the sandbar and disappeared.

Later I looked at the photos Travys took of me fighting and losing the tarpon. It reminded me of the scene from Platoon where the dying Sergeant Elias Gordon (Willem Dafoe) throws his arms skyward in a gesture of defeat, desperation and betrayal.

I REMEMBER SWIMMING TOWARDS THE BEACH AND HOLDING ONTO THE ROD WITH ALL MY MIGHT AS A BIG TARPON JUMPED RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF MY PERIPHERAL VISION.

THE PERMIT CURSE Oliver White

For years I struggled to tick the permit box. I was living in the Bahamas, fishing a ton of saltwater and it just never worked. I had had plenty of shots at it. Then I was in Mexico with Jose Wejebe, probably the best permit angler on the planet at the time, and a camera guy. We were supposed to catch a permit for the camera but we came back with nothing, while my wife caught a giant permit and only had an iPhone picture. There was another time, going through Ascension Bay. We were running the boat and there was a school of about 50 permit. We whipped the boat around to get in front of the permit. They were coming towards us. Bang! One cast, right in front of the lead fish and I was tight… and it was a bonefish.

So that’s how my permit fishing was going.

Then, I was filming a show at Abaco, living in the Bahamas and the fishing was fucking lights out. We just crushed it, got the show in the can and then the guys were like, “We’ve got more time and you haven’t caught a permit yet… let’s go do it!” My buddy Clint Kemp, who owns Black Fly Lodge, was guiding so I was in his boat with the camera. We talked about how I had been cursed by permit and how, for years, it just hadn’t connected.

The way we were fishing for permit then is that we would bobble with the boat, stand on the platform and look for rays. If you found the fish on a ray, you’d kill the engine, pole in and take a shot. Those fish were relatively cooperative. We found a fish on a ray like that. When I went to make a back cast, it spooked a little bit and started to take off so I bombed a Hail Mary cast and he scarfed the fly. Bang! On! And it was a big one, a 30-plus pounder. So I’ve got this monster permit on, we’re fighting it, everything is great. We’re celebrating the whole thing because we’d finally done it and we had it on camera. We went to land the fish, grab the leader and phipfh! That was it. It swam off.

It was the exuberance of us making it happen, getting all connected with a big fish and then the total despair of, “Oh, he was right… there…” and then gone.

After that it took me another year to finally get a permit.