You often hear two sayings:
'The big one got away" and "life is frittered away by details".
Both of these sayings are quite true of course. The saying the big one got away, is often associated with the belief that fisherman always lie about the size of the fish they catch. I do remember fishing on the Snoqualmie a few years back, the limit was two trout over 12". I saw this guy trolling in a boat and asked how he was doing? He said he had a 12" and 16" trout on board. Later at the boat ramp the game warden just happened to be there. He was ticketing the guy I talked to since both his fish were under 12"!! One was only about 6"..HA! The game warden asked me whether I had kept anything and I said no. He then proceeded to search my boat thoroughly because as you know fisherman always lie.
The truth of the matter is that when fishing almost any substandard tackle will bring in the small ones. One you get on that once in a lifetime brute they strain everything right to the breaking point and then more often than we like to remember they do in fact break off.
Sometimes there is nothing we can do about this, but many times it is simply because we didn't check our terminal tackle. Is the hook sharp? A couple times when fly fishing small creeks I actually had fished a bit with no point on the hook at all. The fly had inadvertently flicked against something hard and shattered off.
I have had my leader pull away from my fly line, and the tippets of course have broken many times. This can be due to nicks. wind knots, or even the age of the tippet material. After landing a couple fish or even after fishing awhile it is good to collect yourself and check this terminal gear. I liken it to golf and how people always say the best way to cut strokes off your game is to concentrate on "the short game", the putting. More fish are lost in my opinion, especially LARGE fish, that dream fish., the fabled "uncatchable fish", http://425flyfisher.blogspot.com/2008/10/uncatchable-fish.html by have suspect terminal tackle than any other reason.
The most important time to check things is the first trip of the year of course. And if you have several reels with different weights of lines it takes some time to clean your line and look at the reels the rods, and the many knots. Another saying of mine is "when in doubt throw it out"! ;>)
These are the tedious details of fishing that really need to be done. We spend so much time planning trips, trying to find the right places to fish, coordinating other people so they can go on that date, travel and getting to that point where we can make that perfect cast for that beautiful fish, only to have anotherof those stories about , ...you know... "this really big fish you wouldn't believe it,...it snapped off"
