Sure You Have Enough Line On That Reel?

Rick Pope, founder of Temple Fork Outfitters rod company tells the story of a Peacock Bass spooling his bait casting reel not once, but twice in a 5 minute period while fishing in Brazil’s Amazon a couple of years ago.
   “We were making the transition from one lagoon we had been fly fishing in to another thru a long inlet which we could not fly fish in.  Our guide “Blackie” suggested we troll with our bait casting gear thru the inlet that was a couple of hundred yards long.  I picked up my casting rig with a Shimano 200 Calcutta loaded with 65 lb test braid and a ½ oz jig and managed to make much too long a cast, nearly empting the spool on the reel.  No sooner had the jig hit the water than I had a hook up with a good Peacock and the reel began to whine.  As Blackie had the boat going at 5 or 6 knots, before he could get the boat turned around the Peacock Bass has emptied the line off the reel and bang I’m spooled & the line is gone!  Blackie calmly backs up and seeing the braid floating, he turns around & picks it up as when the pressure on the line ceased, the Peacock stopped running.  My fishing partner Ken Wellams and I realize that maybe we can salvage this situation.  We take the line and begin to thread it thru the tip of the rod and back thru the guides. While trying to tie an arbor knot on the spool the fish feels a little pressure and surges… out goes the line thru the rod guides and off again.  Blackie gets us over to the line again a second time and Ken picks it up and gently pulls in about 15’ of line as the guide moves the boat forward.   Handing the line to me again, Ken puts a rag around his hand and wraps the line securely around his hand to theoretically fight the fish if it  surges again.  Blackie and I were able to get the line fed back thru the guides, thru the level wind eye of the reel and an arbor knot tied on the spool, we are suddenly back in business.  I started cranking. Wellams and I were thinking this is going to be the first 30 lb Peacock Bass caught on the upper Rio Negro. The Peacock Bass on the end of the line weighted 15 lbs on the Boga when we landed it.  It was about 10 minutes of shock, horror, thrill & excitement…it was wonderful!”
    Rick Pope, founder Temple Fork Outfitters  April, 2016