Mr. Snaggerman: (Man, you're gonna put an eye out with that thang...)
This year I fished next to the ultimate snaggerman. He was so good at what he did that I just named him “snaggerman”. What greater complement could I pay him than that? It was probably 3 or 4 days into the trip when this guy appeared. He ended up next to Marvin and I one evening and tried to crowd his way into the hole and looked frustrated when he couldn’t. I didn’t pay much attention to his stroke that evening as he was upstream of me and for the most part I had my back to him all evening. The next morning, however, he was up early and standing near my rock hole at 4am. I was extremely surprised to see him there that early, since it’s not often that anyone beats me to my spot. But I guess he just figured he needed to get my spot. Well, I was able to get into my hole about 15-yards upstream of him. It wasn’t long until I took notice that this guy was the hardest tugging most snaggingest sockeye fisherman I’d ever seen (myself and Rod included). His stroke started from the time his fly hit the water until his rod tip was 10 feet behind his head. And the speed was astounding. His rod made a sound like the sword of Zorro slicing through the air. How his arm didn’t fall off after a dozen or so of those Zorro-like casts is still a mystery to me.
Well about 4:30 am that morning the fish started to wake up and I began to hit a few. I see snaggerman hookup and land one…in the mouth. Lucky shot. A few moments later I slow drift my way into a nice mouth-hooked hen. After a nice tussle I land mine. I bonk mine on the head, slit its throat, and stick it on the stringer. In mere moments I’m back out on the water working my magic. Since he’s downstream of me this morning, I’m stuck looking at snaggerman again. No sooner than I get out on the water than that freak fish-ons again. Another mouth-hook. No way. No way. How in the world can he mouth hook two in a row with that technique? He must be the devil. So, its about 4:45am now and that clown has 2 fish on the bank already. Of course I start to press a little bit trying harder and harder. If I have one fault as a sockeyer it’s my tendency to try too hard at times. As a result, I foul hook a couple of fish and lose a fly or two. Snaggerman is quiet for a few minutes and then about 5am wham bam his third mouth-hooked fish in a row. Hooked, landed, and limited. I’ve just had my butt kicked by a snaggerman. Unbelievable.
I saw snaggerman the next two mornings down at the log hole. Each morning he repeated the same performance, limiting out in no less than an hour. Once I beat him. Another time I didn’t beat him since I was playing catch and release after getting my second fish. But the amazing thing was that snaggerman was so darn lucky in mouth-hooking fish. Given the technique he used there is no way that he should have been able to do what he did unless he was truly the devil - old Satan himself. The good thing, though, is that the guy got his limit early in the morning and then he was gone the rest of the day. He never came back in the mornings and I never saw him appear again in the evenings. I guess he was as efficient as they come, but man, he was toeing the line of getting a ticket on every single cast he made.
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