Remembering a first: Catching mahi-mahi on fly | Fishing

So, I knew I was setting myself up for trouble when I set a goal to catch a mahi-mahi on a fly rod. The sad part of this story is that I set this goal on May 6, 2008. What’s even worse is, I wrote about it in my fishing column. Several months later, I met a couple who read my column regularly in a tackle shop.

“Hey, C.J.” the man yelled across the aisle, “Have you caught that mahi-mahi on a fly rod yet?” It always surprises me when someone asks me questions about things that I have said in my columns. It’s like we are just continuing a conversation that I don’t really remember being a part of.

“No, I haven’t,” I replied.

“Why not?” the man and his wife both asked in unison.

“I don’t know. I just haven’t gotten around to it, but I still plan to do it,” I said.

I thought a minute and realized that, in fact, I did know why I hadn’t done it yet. I didn’t own a fly rod. Duh. Now, I was in a writer/fisherperson’s dilemma. I knew when I set that goal that I was really serious about it. In fact, I talked about it several times with other anglers, mentioned it in a subsequent column and even discussed it on my radio fishing-talk show. I was appalled with myself.

“This is an outrage,” I chastised myself. “I will not let this goal go unmet.” Oh, how upsetting it is to be righteously indignant with yourself. Who could I blame for this? No one. I wasn’t happy with that answer, so I blamed it on my wife. Go figure. Up until this very moment she had no idea she bore the brunt of this unkept resolution.

I mulled the whole thing over for a while … a long while. I spoke to several people about fly fishing and watched a bunch of YouTube videos. By now a year had passed. Hey, at least I can’t be faulted for acting on impulse. After several trips to several tackle shops, I settled on a combination rod and reel setup.

The store clerk asked me, “Do you want this right-handed or left-handed?”

How would I know, I’ve never owned a fly rod. “What do you suggest?” I replied.

And so it went for awhile. Finally, the purchase was made, and the world’s newest fly-fishing-person was on his way to happy destiny.

2010 came along and the fly rod was still inside its zippered case. During a reorganizing of my cuddy cabin, I moved the fly rod to the storage room. I ran across schooling mahi several times after that, but never had the fly rod in the boat. So, I took it out of the storage room and put it back in the cuddy cabin. During one of my radio broadcasts, I got into a long conversation about catching a mahi on a fly rod and the desire to accomplish this goal returned. This time, I was determined. It was Sept. 7, 2011, when I ran across some decent-sized schoolie mahi while fishing with my buddy, Marc Phelps.

Suddenly, it struck me, like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.

“Marc, take the wheel, hook a mahi and keep it in the water, toss some cut bait in the water, turn the boat west, clear all the fishing lines, pull the downrigger, get the camera ready, and I’ll get the fly rod out,” I bellowed.

“Anything else captain?” he sneered.

I didn’t have time for senseless banter, so I dug the fly rod case out of the cabin and brought it on deck. It looked like I might never get the rod out of the case, because the zipper had corroded and frozen in place.

I plunged a razor-sharp filet knife through the case, gutted the zipper out of it and removed the fly rod. Several minutes later, the green-and-white, deceiver-pattern fly was sailing through the air until the stripped line caught on my shoe, then on my pants and then on my right ear.

I started over again. This time, the fly landed right where I was hoping. Several strips and two missed strikes later, a beautifully lit up, bright-blue mahi skyrocketed at the end of my line. After a very interesting and confusing 20-minute fight, the fish was netted and brought aboard. Three years, four months and one day had passed since I first uttered this goal, but here I was, holding my first ever mahi-mahi caught on a fly rod. A herculean accomplishment if I’ve ever seen one.

On my radio show, I talked about my accomplishment. “That was fun. I should catch a bigger one,” I told my listeners, then in one sentence too many, said, “In fact, I should catch a mahi-mahi on fly that’s big enough to win this year’s Key West Fishing Tournament.” Uh-oh, there, I’ve done it again. And life is good in the Florida Keys; life is very good in the Florida Keys.

C.J. Geotis is a life-long fisherman who followed his dream 20 years ago to live in the Florida Keys. His book, Florida Keys Fish Stories, is available at Amazon.com. He lives in Marathon with his wife, Loretta, and her Coca-Cola collection. His email is fishstoriescj@comcast.net.