Labor Day weekend and many people were fishing somewhere. I was fly fishing in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico (Rocky Point) with an old and a new friend. Many of my fly fishing stories involve friends or family. Dave Weaver and I have been fishing together over 20 years and we enjoy telling stories on each other. This is one of those stories that Dave will enjoy telling because it didn’t happen to him. A new friend Emanuele Strano is an Italian student working on his PhD from Polytechnic Swiss Federal School

of Lausanne, Switzerland in coordination with ASU. He had just arrived for the new school year and emailed me about fishing locally and the next thing he knew, he was hooking strange and beautiful saltwater fish in the Sea of Cortez. His home in Genova, Italy is a Mediterranean town where people don’t fly fish in saltwater. Emanuele (Ema) had fly fished for Pike and Trout in home waters, but saltwater fly rodding was new to him. We were fishing at La Pinta, The Second Estuary and having

an average day of catching Cabrilla, Trigger, Orange Mouth Corvina, Pompano, and many Bone Fish. I was telling Ema that Bone Fish are a prize fish for many fly fishers. Many fly casters will spend a small fortune just for the opportunity to catch Bone Fish, and here we were just a few hours from home catching fish after fish. We had caught the end of the outgoing tide and it was taking us across the estuary to an area that we enjoy fishing. All along the way we were catching fish. We had started

early and picked up some burritos for a mid-morning snack. The outgoing tide ebbed and turned into a slack tide. We decided this was a good time for our treat. So, we stopped and rehashed our morning catch. Everyone had been catching fish, but we agreed that the Bone Fish strike was tentative and we had probably missed lots of fish. The tide had turned and was starting to fill the estuary. We were working our way back when I hooked something quite solid. At first it didn’t move much, but then it took off at a good pace. At first I gave it some line thinking that I had a big Orange Mouth. This fish never surfaced so I don’t really know what it was. The fish was towing me against the incoming tide, I was accelerating and leaving a wake behind me. Right about now I am wondering what Jonah was thinking about, right before the whale ate him. I really was not afraid, I intended to change my shorts today anyway. The guys were laughing and wondering how long it would take the big fish to tow me to San Carlos, Mexico. I was thinking I was just about to plane out and would be able to ski soon. My best guess

was that I had hooked a large sting ray. The rays are strong and usually stay on the bottom. It could have been a Sea Lion, we had seen one earlier, or possibly a sea turtle, and we had seen one of those also. My line was holding firm and the fish had towed me about 200 feet. It was time to break this guy off, so I gave my line a strong quick jerk and managed to break the line. I was glad to be free of whatever had caught me, my only regret was not knowing what exactly was on the other end of the line. Vince Deadmond The Fly Fishing Hardware guy can be reached at Best Hardware 237 N Apache trail Apache Junction, AZ vince@ajbest.com or at (480) 982-7461.