Winners and Losers
rolfe, verb, \rälf\
To lose a fish by one of various methods, including but not limited to: poor technique, bad knots, dull hooks, poor hook sets, not paying attention, paying too much attention, or a general inclination toward bad luck.
I lose a lot of consequential fish. Give me a hook-up with a steelhead, salmon, tarpon or carp, and I’ll find a way to safely release the fish without so much as touching the leader. I’ve lost steelhead on British Columbia’s Dean River, Washington’s Skagit, and a handful of others. The only tarpon I’ve ever connected to said goodbye with a mirthful leap in the warm waters of a Puerto Rican flat, along with some baby-tarpon-sized bonefish. Carp, though slightly less heartbreak-inducing, bedevil me with their ungraspable shape and tendency to wait for just the right moment before a decisive shake of their bulbous noggins severs my 15-pound Maxima.
There was a time when this affected me deeply. Several years ago, after a particularly brutal string of lost steelhead that culminated in a disheartening trip to the Dean, I seriously entertained the thought that the world had it out for me—that I was, somehow, the victim of a cruel twist of fate over which I had no control.
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