|
Fishing Passion:
a lifelong love affair with angling
Jim C. Chapralis
|
“Any
angler who knows there is a great deal more to fishing than
simply catching fish will love FISHING PASSION! Even after
retirement, Jim Chapralis is still remembered as one of the
most respected names in the fishing travel business, and as
you read his personal odyssey you’ll understand why. A real
page-turner!!”
–Bob Stearns, Contributing Editor, FIELD
& STREAM |
Snippets
from “Fishing Passion
”
From
Fishing with the Greats—Stu
Apte.
“
. . .I thought Stu
Apte, StuApte was the biggest B.S.er in fishing. Back in
the 1950s, I read about this cat who claimed that he was landing big
sailfish—over 100 pounds—in Panama on 16-pound, plug-casting
tackle. 16-pound line, mind you!
Heck, we Midwestern anglers were breaking 20-pound lines on muskies
that weighed 20 pounds or less. Then he landed a 95-pound sail on
four-pound test line. What was he doing? Tranquilizing these fish with
some kind of a dart?
But
later in the chapter, Chapralis writes:
“ . . . If I were to pick one person as the world’s best all-round angler in the history of fishing it would be Stu Apte in his prime. That’s quite a statement, I know, but remember, I said all-round. There are many superb anglers in the world today, but my balance swings toward Apte . . .”
From
First Customer chapter.
“ . . .While I was preparing camp on
shore, he fell off the boat head first into the muck. Good thing I
happened to return to the boat and saw his legs flopping in the water.
I was able to pull him out but he nearly drowned. Then I took him on
land, and told him to sit down and relax under the shade of a tree
while I attended to cleaning fish and preparing lunch, but he saw a
big snake and was so alarmed that he took off and got lost. Good thing
I was able to follow his footsteps . . .”
From
Colombian Episodes chapter.
“ . . .I sat on the floor
as the ‘[witch] doctor’ felt the swelling of the ankle and foot.
He thought for a moment and then he dug into a bag and pulled out a
jar of some repugnant black and grey salve. Before applying the
ointment, he opened the bag again and removed a few feathers which he
proceeded to scatter around the floor in a circle around my foot. I
think there were nine feathers.
He then set fire to the feathers on the floor and mumbled
something in a dialect; it was definitely not Spanish. Then he started
to chant as he also rubbed or shook some sort of a small gourd. Very
mystic. Then he applied that vile salve on my foot and ankle and
placed one hand on the heel of my foot and the other in front of the
foot and pulled like hell, apparently trying to force the bones back
in place. I let out a heckuva cry as I’ve never felt such pain
before . . .”
Also
from Colombian Episodes chapter.
“ . . .The prisoner and his guard sat
in the back while George sat next to the pilot. About halfway there,
while George and the guard had dozed off, the prisoner evidently
decided to hijack the plane. He reached for the guard’s gun, which
woke up the guard. There was a struggle. Bang!!!
The gun discharged. Or more accurately, the guard shot the prisoner in
the heart. Blood gushed out from his chest like a water fountain at
first but then only in spurts, and finally only in dribbles. The
prisoner was dead. There was blood all over the back of the plane.
‘No problema! El es morte . . .’
And the guard went back to sleep.
When they arrived at the air
strip, the Orinoco Ark representative was there to meet the plane.
‘How was your flight?’ he asked, as George prepared to
unsqueeze himself from the tight confines of the Cessna. Then the rep
noticed the blood and the dead prisoner in the back. He recovered
nicely: ‘Oh well, the fishing is terrific at the Ark!’”
From
A Life for a Salmon chapter.
“Doc, I have two ambitions: I want to fish in Alaska and
catch a silver salmon, and I want to take the train across Canada
before I die. I’m going to do that, no matter what the consequences
are.”
The doctor shook his head. He adamantly advised against these
goals.
“The choice is yours, of course. I can’t stop you.”
“I understand. I better do it soon.”
He
began planning . . .”
From
The Shocking Adventure of a Camp
Owner chapter.
“When I got back to the plane, the soldiers were waiting. I
was quickly surrounded and taken into the big house, seven machine
guns casually pointing my way. Inside, they told me to stand, while
they sat in a circle around me. They were all very young, and seemed
uncertain as to what to do with me
. . . My papers were demanded . . . The boy who had asked for
them couldn’t read, and had to ask his friends if any of them could.
Two could, but it took them several minutes, lips moving with each
word, to read a half-page letter. When the letter had been discussed,
they handed it back to me and said, ‘This is no good.’ My stomach
felt like I had swallowed hot lead.
‘We will have to decide what to do with you,” I was told by
the boy facing me.’”
From The Great Kishkutena Adventure chapter.
“ . . .There we
were, Bob Feldtman and I, clad only in our underpants and boots,
fiercely backpaddling our canoe against the current so that we
wouldn’t run smack into that huge, ornery moose standing in the
middle of the stream huffing and puffing and blocking our course. We
were tired, hungry, cold, wet, dejected and too concerned to worry
about the swarms of blood-sucking mosquitoes that feasted ravenously
on us. The moose looked at us with those baleful eyes, lowering his
head to make sure we were aware of his massive antlers and warning us
with snorts and grunts . . . It was showdown time, and we weren’t
going to be the first to blink . . .”
From
Screw the Duke of Roxborough and
other Norwegian Fishing Stories chapter.
“Visualize this: You are sitting on a rock, holding a stick
and a hot dog over the campfire. A ghillie sits on each side of you,
jabbering in Norwegian. Invariably, one ghillie tells what apparently
is a helluva funny Norwegian joke. The other guide breaks out in a
crescendo of guffaws and laughter. Both are shaking uproariously,
their bellies wiggling, their eyes tearing from laughter, and there
you are, poker-faced, holding a wiener on a stick over a fire.
Laughter is quite contagious, so eventually you laugh, and they laugh
harder until they realize you couldn’t possibly understand the joke,
so they stop laughing and look at you strangely. Serious conversation
resumes for a while, but minutes later, the second ghillie thinks of a
joke, and the whole episode repeats itself.”
From
Le Shack chapter
“I love fishing these streams at night.
It’s great to have the entire river to yourself, but this is rare on
a warm summer night with the promise of a heavy hatch. Usually there
are other anglers on the water, but after 11 p.m., they begin to leave
for home.
You
hear car doors slam and engines started as one by one the cars depart.
Finally, I have the whole stream to myself! This is my most joyous
time at Le Shack’s waters. I look at the heavens and I’m
overwhelmed that some of the stars that I see, may not exist today;
they are so far away that it takes thousands of years for the light to
reach us. Hard to believe.
’Round
midnight. The witching hour. It’s almost silent now. Occasionally
the drone of an overhead plane breaks the silence, but mostly I hear
frogs and crickets. I try to filter out their croaking and chirping,
as I need to zero in on the sounds of big trout feeding on the
surface. Sometimes they’ll feed so quietly that the noise isn’t
audible, while at other times they’ll crash the surface and scare
the heck out of you. It’s important not only to hear the trout but
also to know its exact location.
Sometimes, at night, I hear
a slurp or sucking noise, much like a plumber’s plunger, a sure sign
of a big fish inhaling a floating insect. That plunging sound is rare,
and the lower the resonance, the larger the trout. As in my daytime
fishing, I fantasize about big trout at night, too, but at night my
imagined trout are huge. Twice as big.”
To
order your copy
|
