In the 1980s Joe Shirshac took hundreds of fly fishers to the Brooks River in Alaska in July for the fresh run Sockeye Salmon which ran 4 to 8 pounds and bigger.
There were big Brown Bears there that eat many salmon. Anglers are fishing right with the bears which is pretty wild.
Joe figured out that 8# Maxima was the heaviest tippet material they could use and still break off a salmon when the bears were chasing them.
Sounds pretty scary to me.
__________________________________________________ _________
One of our friends returned from the trip to the Brooks and handed me the bottom of his fly rod. All that was left was ~13" of the butt section with only the cork grip and reel seat plus the fly reel and some backing.
He said a big Brown bear was chasing his salmon so he ran back up to the bank and tried to break the fish off. He snapped the rod right above the cork and the front of the rod went down the line toward the fish.
He still couldn't break off the fish so he took his knife out and cut off the fly line.
I guess it was a pretty wild incident?
Bookmarks