What was your first caught fish on a fly? Cathy Feldkamp’s was a mako shark.
Well, we all start somewhere.
“Cat” joined the TU staff six months ago, and although she’s an avid outdoors person, she had never fly-fished for trout. But she very much wanted to learn. As you might imagine, there’s no shortage of colleagues who offered to help.
It’s just that some of us have more twisted minds than others. I’m pointing the finger at myself.
To be clear, Cat got her first casts in on a communications staff retreat in Colorado under the tutelage of TROUT Weekly’s editor and part-time fly guide Kara Armano. Indeed, they got a few fish to nibble on some dry flies, but nothing to net.
On to bigger fish
So, for round two I offered to take Cat to the far side of the fly-fishing spectrum and into the dark and delusional world of mako sharks.
Home base for Cat is Southern California, and I had arranged to meet up with my old buddy Conway Bowman in San Diego. I first wrote about Conway and mako shark fishing in a piece called “Fly Fishing Gone Mad” for Field & Stream magazine over 20 years ago. That bit really put me on the map as a writer (and sent a little business his way), and we have remained close friends ever since.
On this day, Cat shows up at the dock and Conway runs us out several miles off the coast in his 24-foot boat, puts the stinky, oily bluefin tuna chum in a bucket hanging over the side, and we sit and wait. And wait. And wait.
For four hours in lumpy seas. All the while I’m thinking,
“I hope Cat doesn’t think I’m nuts for talking her into this.”
At times its more about the stories
But there was a method to the madness. Conway explained how he got into fishing—by trout fishing with his father around Stanley, Idaho, during regular summer vacations. If trout could start a path for Conway toward fly fishing for sharks, why couldn’t fly fishing for sharks help to start that path for Cat toward trout?
Fishing is fishing, after all. And it’s all good.
Suddenly, boom… there it is. A lit-up mako slashing and weaving through the slick. Conway estimated it would weigh 125-150 pounds… a perfect “starter” shark.
Cat did not hesitate. Conway teased that fish with a baitcaster and a rubber-legged squid lure. She made a perfect cast. It saw Cat’s fly and swung around and bit it. She set the hook and that shark ran… and broke the leader.
But then it came back for more, and Cat fed him another fly. This time it stayed buttoned on, and she fought it well. The shark peeled off a couple hundred yards of line and backing and made a few spectacular jumps. That’s all you can really ask for.
Now, as you might imagine, there are no grip-n-grins in mako shark fishing. The game ends when you get back to monofilament in the rod tip. That counts as a caught fish. And soon after that happened with Cat, the shark (mercifully, for all parties) broke off.
Mastering lessons beyond fishing
Now, I considered Cat a true gamer before all this. She won me over by just climbing on the boat in the first place. But she battled that fish like a seasoned pro. I get the funny feeling that there won’t be a trout in the whole world that’s going to seem like an insurmountable challenge for Cat in the future.
And to be sure, we all had some important fishing lessons reinforced that day:
The ins and outs of how to fiy-fish for trout will come to Cat over time. She’s already mastered the most important stuff.