Where’s Mike’s fish?

Published 10:14 am Monday, July 11, 2011

I’ve lost fish before, but none have been seen so soon and so frequently by so many people as the one that got away at Corbett Lake..

That’s what I was thinking during my recent trip to Corbett near Merritt in Canada, where my loss turned out like a cross between Follow the Bouncing Ball and

Where’s Waldo?

I’d hooked a nice fish on a size 16 black chironomid and was bringing him to the boat when he went underneath it and wrapped my line around my anchor rope.

Snap. The line broke just above my giant chartreuse strike indicator. The fish left with the fly still in his mouth, followed by about four feet of 4X leader and the indicator.

I was in a little bay at the time. About an hour later, a saw a fish leap completely in the air and come down followed by my indicator.

I hollered at my friend Dale Dennis from Arlington, who was fishing at a nearby point, that I’d seen the fish again.

A couple hours later, he reported that he’d seen my fish and the indicator go past him on the way down the lake.

At dinner, we told our friend Chuck Morrison about the fish. He reported that he’d seen a fish with an indicator go by another couple bays down the lake. He thought at first it was on the line of a nearby angler, but soon realized it wasn’t.

Was it chartreuse, I asked. Yes it was.

After dinner, Dale was down on the dock shooling some photos and talked with a French Canadian couple about their day. They reported seeing a nice fish go by, trailed by an indicator. And yes, it was chartreuse.

My fish had covered a lot of the lake. As far as I know, nobody caught it again right away, but Dale did catch a couple fish on the trip that had chironomids stuck in their lips.

I know the fish can dissolve a hook pretty quickly and make it fall off. I hope that’s what happened to mine. But it was interesting to follow the fish around the lake for a day.