By Joe Cermele

Here's one for the "enjoy it because it won't happen again" file. According to the fishing reports page in Florida's Sun Sentinel, 13-year-old Jake Hobbs was ballooning a live blue runner from the Deerfield Beach Fishing Pier the other day when he got a little surprise. What he thought was a big king mack stripping line off the reel at mach 2 turned out to be a 70-pound sailfish. Other anglers on the pier figured it out as soon as the sail took to the sky. Crowds gathered. Chaos ensued.

From the story:
The fight should have ended when the sailfish went around the end of the pier, which had been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and was closed for repairs. A gentleman who jumped over the fence — he was later banned from the pier — safely guided the fish around so Hobbs could fight it from the other side. His brother Luke, 9, also helped, lifting up other anglers' fishing rods so Hobbs could go under them.

By John Merwin

I have shared the water fairly often with alligators over the years, especially when bass fishing Florida lakes. It never bothered me much. They were mostly shy, sinking from sight as our boat approached or sliding off the bank if out sunning themselves. I’ve never had an untoward gator incident.

I would not, however, do the same fishing in a float tube. 

By Joe Cermele

There is a really good article posted on the website of the Alaska's Peninsula Clarion about tips for getting young people started in fly tying. In it, author Brian Smith interviews area flyfishermen and fly shop owners to get their pointers, a lot of which make sense. As a few examples, guide Nick Ohlrich suggests starting with flies that don't imitate something too specific, such as a flesh fly instead of stonefly nymph. Guide Lee Kuepper says beginners should start with a kit rather than get overwhelmed by choosing individual materials. It's worth a read, but it made me think of which patterns I'd start with if I had to teach someone to tie.

By Joe Cermele

This is fact, not fiction, and it goes like this: Last September, Saskatchewan resident Karen Gwillim was driving through the town of Craven when she spied a young cormorant in a bit of a predicament. Like many other anglers, I think a cormorant in a bad predicament is a good thing, but Gwillim took pity on the bird, which had a silver digital camera hanging around its neck. She removed the camera, which had spent lots of time in the water, and the bird flew off (to eat more gamefish, no doubt). Gwillim removed the memory card, let it dry, and opened it on her computer. The pictures were intact. So did she find homemade pornography or lost pictures of grandma's birthday party? Not hardly.

The memory card was loaded with fishing pictures. There were over 200 frames of guys holding big pike and walleyes from what Gwillim guessed was nearby Shell Lake. She posted the photos on her Facebook page but no one ever came forward. It wasn't until just this past Tuesday, when Gwillim was interviewed on a talk show, that Frank Resendes called the station and said he was one of the anglers in the photos and knew the camera's owner. Apparently, the owner lost the camera while helping a buddy land a fish 8 months earlier. You can read the whole saga on the website of CBC News Saskatchewan.