Extreme Fishing Read Online Free PDF

guaranteed way of catching a fish or several – either that or using worms – and then you were definitely going to go home with something to cook for supper. Fish
tend to swallow worms so using lures reduces the risk of damaging the fish, as the hook will usually catch the side of the mouth. This is the best method for catching and releasing a fish, whether
you need to do so because of quota, size or because it’s a female carrying eggs.
    Alex and I put on our life jackets and wade into crocodile alley with our rods. The water soon sweeps us away. Surprisingly the machaca, considering they are members of the violent-crime piranha
family who specialise in ‘waste management’, are vegetarian, save the occasional insect. They love to gorge on the wild figs of the
Ficus tonduzii
, known locally as the Chilamate
tree, which grows along the riverbanks, its branches overhanging the water. As well as figs, the fish also eat various flowers, palm fruits and wild plums. I’ve never heard of a fish like it.
Rumour has it they also love a cup of lemon and ginger tea after a hard day at yoga and are rather partial to tie-dyed T-shirts.
    We cast our lines out as we travel downstream, trotting a piece of bait along the riverbed. It’s similar to the ‘drop minnow’ method I use to catch trout on the Coquet, which
is, as we say up north, ‘deadly’, basically because the bait is carried by the fast water into the mouths of the trout waiting in ambush. Thankfully, back home, we do it from the
relative comfort of the riverbank, not in the drink.
    Alex gets a bite but struggles to reel it in because we’re in such deep water. It’s a machaca but it quickly flies off the hook. We retreat to the bank and watch as fruit drops off a
tree into the water and a hungry machaca snaps it up. Bam! It takes it and is gone. I’m not only really keen to win one of these fighting fish for dinner but I’m also hell-bent on
joining Alex’s club.
    We walk up the riverbank and find a spot to wade in and see if we have better luck fishing on our feet. It’s late morning and as I stare at the water I have a flashback to the tajalines
crab massacre in room 25. I imagine the chambermaid’s scream. My rod is yanked forward: I’ve got a bite. I set the rod up and let it run. Then, very slowly, I reel in the fish, which is
fighting like a featherweight champion. I get it to the bank and pick it up. It’s tiny, no more than a pound, but I turn to camera and proudly say, ‘Look: my first ever
cuchaka.’
    ‘Machaca,’ interjects Alex.
    ‘Fuck! Machaca.’
    ‘Machaca,’ he repeats.
    ‘Machaca,’ I say, reddening with embarrassment. I pop the fish back in the water and he swims off. According to club rules any fish under a pound has to be put back in the river. The
club is like the British fishing bodies, there to safeguard the health of the river and the fish, as well as to promote the sport. Alex also hooks one and it’s a good size, so we’re
keeping it for our dinner. I carefully hold the vicious fish while delivering a piece to camera.
    ‘Look at that: beautiful Costa Rican machaca – and what’s great is, I can’t believe how many fish are here. What it tells us all is that this is a very, very healthy
river. This fella is for dinner. Well done, matey,’ I say to Alex. ‘Whoa!’
    Suddenly the fish makes a bid for freedom, plops into the river and is gone. I am mortified.
    ‘I’ve just lost your fish – oh, fuck! Oh, shit, I’ve just lost the fish!’
    Alex looks at me like I’m a right member – but definitely not of his exclusive fishing club. I apologise profusely.
    ‘It’s OK, buddy,’ he says.
    ‘I’d be knocking me out if I were you.’
    ‘Next time!’ he laughs. ‘You’re paying for lunch anyway!’
    ‘Because I’ve lost the fucking fish!’
    Off camera it was even worse. I also managed to stand on Alex’s best and most cherished rod just after I lost the ‘cuchaka’. So stunned was I at