Fly Fishing the Stock Market: How to Search for, Catch, and Net the Market's Best Trades

CHAPTER 13

The One That Got Away

Every fishing trip that I go on reminds me of one unforgettable moment. When I think back, every little detail rushes to the forefront of my mind. I was dredging the bottom in some deep, slow water with a weighted nymph when I hooked what I thought was the bottom. I happened to be using the last fly in this particular pattern, so I was reluctant to break the line. I pulled gently over and over from all angles in an attempt to loosen the snag. When I stopped to take a breather, to my surprise, the line started slowly leaving my reel, tick by tick. I didn’t know what to think of it at first, but then as my backing started to show, I realized it was a fish—and a big one at that!

My friend Tom, who was 100 yards upstream from me, noticed all the commotion and asked me if I had a camera. When I replied that I had left it in the car, he quickly got out of the river and walked down toward me to take a picture with his camera.

The water was murky, so I had decided to use a 3x tippet to provide a slightly stronger line in the event that I was to encounter a prize fish. I decided to try to reverse the runaway brown trout by horsing back on the rod and reeling in the slack. It then ran some more and I reeled some more, over and over, until it finally tired. After I had reeled it in far enough, I raised my rod up in the air, rearing back to bring the big beast into my net. The fish was huge! I failed at the first attempt. I reached a little farther the second ...