While we thoroughly enjoyed the Cap'n stories about the "ghillie" that kept falling asleep and the buddy that risked jail-time to smuggle some split-shot onto their "beat", we still gotta wonder - Atlantics? Really, Cap'n? We can understand the tropical stuff, but full-on, rent-a-beat-and-throw-goofy-old-stuff Atlantic fishin'?
Aren't you supposed to fish for those with silk lines? Gut leaders? Greenheart rods? Shouldn't you be wearing tweed, smoking a briar, and be seriously contemplating colonizing the nearest country full of folks more unlike and less well-off than you?
In fairness to the Cap'n, he's been wanting to do this for a long time, and judging by his $500/lb fish, he saw what he needed, and he probably ain't goin' back.
Perhaps there is something that we are missing in all of this...maybe some folks are drawn to tradition not for the sport, but for the comfortable ritual established around it. The familiar feeling of doing something that the rest of the herd is doing, achieving complacency through homogeneity.
Well, we never got the urge to wear the Old Man's cologne or fix up 50's rides, so we're really not sure what all the fuss is about. But when it comes to tradition, we think that it definitely has a place, and that place is behind us. It should be thoroughly reviewed from time to time, and looked upon as A Good Start.
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The promise of "all the Maker's Mark I could drink" from the back east gang held as much allure for me as partaking in the vaunted tradition of "Salmon Fishing". The looks of disgust and muttered Can-French from the sleepy guides after seeing our AK flies out-fish their storied, moldy patterns almost made up for the 32 hour round trip van ride (for 2.5 days of fishing). I humbly submit that one of the finer aspects of tradition is the act of breaking with it while juiced up on one of Kentucky's finest. I am told that Ted Williams' head palpably quaked in its cryogenic petri-dish for the entire duration of our visit to the Gaspe. Mission accomplished!
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