Viking Lars | Saturday, 8 April 2017
Or rather *a* habit. We all have habits, some more than others, and even those who claim to have none have at least one. I mean, you could simply call it a habit to have none.
Habits are often good - some of them are the result of experience, others are the result of routine (which some will argue is another word for habit, but let's not dwell on semantics.
I have many routines and habits. A habit allowes you to perform certain tasks without really thinking about what you're doing. For instance, I follow a certain routine when packing for a fishing trip, and consequently I rarely forget anything.
One habit I've had for many, many years is now gone. For years and years, I've had the habit that when I decide on my last cast (or perform the last cast, because when I decide a cast is my last, it never is), I begin walking ashore while reeling in the line with the rod pointing back over my shoulder. I began doing it that way, because if you reel in a lot of monofilament shooting line from a stripping basket, you'll often get tangles.
And of the habit grew stronger the day I caught a sea trout while reeling in with my back to the water, and over the years I've caught maybe a handful or two of fish this way. I spent a few hours in the strong winds fishing is nice stretch of water on the coast of the island Fyn in Denmark.
And when I made my last cast, I turned towards the shore, started walking in while slowly reeling in the line. When I had most of the shootinghead on the reel, I turned to pick up the fly, and just as I lifted it off the water, a good sized trout turned under the fly.
I immediately had the reaction to re-cast in the direction the fish took off in, but that's not really that easy with all the line on the reel. I stripped off some line of course, and made a few casts, but the fish was long gone.
Had I not reeled in the line, I would have had a fair chance at another shot, so now I will retrieve the line from my last cast, and then deal with the occasional tangle as I reel up the line from the basket. Then - on the other hand, if I hadn't reeled in the line, maybe the trout wouldnøt have followed it in?
Dammit - maybe I shoud make it a habit to reel in every other last cast and retrieve every other last cast.
Have a nice weekend!
Lars
The Picture of the day is my 8-wt Hot Torpedo, which I prefer over the 6-wt when the wind is really and/or when I fish big flies.