Reel on the tail

[Flymstr]

OK you asked for another one. By the way I am in the process of trying to reach Don from the Chinook attack 2 story, so I can get a picture of him today. He still has the scars from that day.


Well this story takes place on the Clackamas river just below Cazadero Dam in 1985. It was Summer Steelhead fishing, and we had a favorite spot that always produced several fish a day. School was out and I was working for a good friend of mine, "Steve". I still fish with Steve to this day, and he can verify this story. So during this time I was just really starting to perfect fly fishing with nymphs, and I had not yet purchased a good rod and reel. I was using a really old Mitchell fly reel my grandfather gave to me. This reel had caught many fish and was on it's last leg, but I wanted to retire it after the summer run of fish came through. Well I hit into a nice fish, and about a minute into the fight, the spool fell out of the cage. This reel had the old push button release and I believe I must have caught it on my sleeve. Well he spool feel into the rocks and dissapeared out of site. I tried as hard as I could to retrieve it, but it was stuck and not coming out. After some time I was forced to break off the fish and the spool was gone. Needless to say, this was an irreplaceable spool, so I was upset. The fishing was great though, so we headed into Estacada pet and tackle to get a new reel. I purchased a Scientific Angler and caught three more fish that day. We continued to fish for another week or so, and one day we were really getting into some nice fish. As Steve was wrangling one to the bank, it suddenly dove down into the area where my spool had dissapeared. As the fish came out of the rocks, we were both shocked to see the fish wrapped up in white fly line. We looked at each other and laughed that someone had lost all there line on a fish. As he brought the fish up to the bank we saw what it was. My fly line was strung around this fish and my Mitchell spool was hanging from the tail. We retrieved the spool, returned the Scientific Angler, and I continued to catch fish with that reel for the rest of the summer. I still have that old reel, and I will never forget how a fish retrieved my grandfathers spool from the bottom of the Clackamas river.
This story is also 100% true, although I know it's hard to believe. Steve can verify.

Flymstr;

[spactrukn]

Still a very cool story Aaron. As a matter of fact I was up there below Cazadero fishing today for a few hours. There was a weighted styrofoam float that was broke off and just floating out there in a very deep holr. I was wondering if I should try to snag that thing to see what was on the other end of it..... This is true as well as I think I may even have a picture of it..