A First

I was fishing a flat close to a channel when out of the corner of my eye I saw some thing on the edge of the channel moving into deeper water. I was quite sure it was not a bone fish but I made a cast in the general direction just for the heck of it. Two strips and it stopped dead. For a second or two nothing happened and then it took off and did it ever take off. When it was getting near the end of the backing I started to put a little more pressure on it and managed to slow it up and then stop it. I got a little line back and then it just stopped and I couldn’t move it. The way it acted I was pretty sure I had a big mutton snapper on and he got into a hole. For what seemed eternity it would simply not move. Before I decided to break it off I gave it a bunch of slack line. When I reeled it back I felt it moving very slowly. I had 12 pound tippet on and was putting what I figured to be the max amount of pressure on. It seemed to take for ever reeling in the backing to when I finally got into the fly line. I saw the big red tail and then knew it was a mutton snapper. With one eye on the fish and the other watching for sharks and cudas I put the rod under my arm and scooped him up with both hands and hauled him back to the boat. This whole experience was quite amazing as I caught him on #4 blind gotcha. When I got back to the dock of course I gathered every one I could find to show what I caught on my fly rod. This was my donation to the Christmas dinner Hank is having today for a few friends and fish bums like me.