Lead to the Head leads to New Lead, by Jack Bright

This is one of my favorite submissions, sent to me by Jack Bright, long-time collector and a bastion of the ORCA community. It is certainly one of the most intriguing ways to develop a lead!

One Sunday, being a nice day. Thought I'd go to the Thornapple, a nice smallmouth river just 5 minutes from my house. Picked a neat spot for my folding chair, and a couple of cigars to enjoy. Noticed a 30ish lady just downstream about 10 yards fishing, I found this intriguing, not many young ladies out fishing by themselves these days, and watched as she tossed her nightcrawler into a hole just downstream, we chatted a bit. She said she had caught a couple about 14" and returned them. Admirable!

A few kids yelling and splashing about turned out to be hers. We chatted a bit more. Suddenly she was snagged on a rock or log and started pulling hard, must have been strong line, the hook came loose and came directly at me, the bell sinker, about a 1/2 ounce, hit me just above my glasses and stunned me. Checked my forehead, I was bleeding, as though I had been shot! She panicked and was very apologetic. She got her large tackle box and checked for a bandage -- none. At that point I asked to look at the contents of the box, explaining my interests in collecting, and she said she would bring her Grandfathers tackle from her families cottage up north. You never know !



All of this just goes to show you that you should always BE PREPARED. You never know when a lead might develop, or when you might run into a woman on a trout stream in a bikini fishing, like the following story from Larry Myrhe in The Sioux City Journal entitled The girl, the trout and the bikini (or, How my career as a professional fly fisherman swam away).

-- Dr. Todd in Chicago, Illinois