Tail-Smackers, Snaggers and the Short Arm of the Law

This story would be funny if it wasn’t a perfect example of why enforcing fishing laws is so difficult. D.C. Reid is Spey casting for reluctant salmon on a Canadian river while some hardware chuckers happily snag fish nearby. “Red in the face, he enters the oddest fight in all of salmon fishing: he gains three feet, the fish gains three feet. Repeat for 15 minutes. When he finally gains the upper hand, the fish is seen to have a wool ‘fly’ in the back. ‘He turned to smack the fly with his tail so he could eat it,’ he says and bonks the 25-pound spring with a rock, assuming the fish was biting.” In Canada’s Times Colonist.