MY HANDS WERE COVERED IN PIZZA OIL AND NO MATTER

THE PIZZA OF SORROW Nic Isabelle

It’s April 2019 and I find myself on assignment for FlyCastaway at St Brandon’s Atoll. Milan and I had been off for a couple of days. Back in those days, we often had a few days to do a bit of fishing and exploration for ourselves on St Brandon’s. On this particular day the tides looked good for us to explore some of the landmasses and marl ridges in the southern area of the atoll. After a fairly busy morning going toe to toe with a few large bluefin trevally and a couple of unsuccessful shots at Indo-Pacific permit, we decided to take five, have lunch and absorb the beautiful scenery. Our chosen lunch spot was down-current of a large marl ridge and, thinking back to it now, it looked incredibly fishy. After dropping the anchor we pulled out our lunch packs that happened to include a couple of oily pizza slices, which we were both delighted with as that kind of treat isn’t custom on an off day in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

After quickly eating the first slice I reached for the second and that’s when I heard Milan say, in a fairly stressed tone, “There’s an enormous GT in front of the boat.” Without being ready to fish, my initial thought was that we had no chance. Gingerly, I stood up to have a look for myself and that’s when I caught sight of a giant blue shape sitting stationary in the current. “Oh shit, a gift from the fishing gods!” was the first thought that came into my head. I quickly got my 12-weight out of the rod holder, stripped 70ft of line off the reel and began casting my fly in its direction.

My nerves were pretty shot at this point as I had been trying for a while to seal the deal with a sizeable metre-plus GT and I knew that, as opportunities go, this was as good as it was going to get. I duffed the first shot (yes, this happens to us guides too). I then collected myself, slowed my casting stroke and sent out the right presentation way long and ahead of the GT. I waited for the fly to drift toward the fish and then began a long continuous retrieve. The fish eventually acknowledged the fly and began kicking towards it, slow and determined. I then sped up the retrieve a tad. Somehow the fish covered 30 feet in a blink of an eye and before I knew it this massive bucketmouth exploded out of the water, and I was finally connected to a real giant of the species.

Now, remember the oily pizza slice? My hands were covered in oil and no matter how hard I tried to close my hand around the fly line I just couldn’t get any purchase and the line just kept sliding through my hand. In a recurring dream I often have, I’m playing cricket and opening the batting. The bowler begins his run up but I just can’t open my eyes. Like a bad dream, this scenario felt exactly the same, except there’s no happy ending, no awakening. After about five seconds of sheer terror as the fly line zipped through my fingers in a blur, I was left with slack line and silence which was only broken by the click click of a lighter as Milan lit himself a ciggy. A wave of nausea mixed with anger flooded through me as I quickly reeled in my line.

The only thing I could come up with was. “Fuck this pizza man! I can’t believe I just lost the fish of a lifetime like this. Milan, I’m done for the day. You’re up!”