04-15-2009, 12:31 PM
Jumping in kind of late on this, but.....
With fish that have teeth like that, they do not bite the leader. Usually the leader slips between the teeth. When you break off, it's due to one of two reasons: either fatique, as the leader bends back and forth at that point, or because (as with pike and musky), the fish rolls on the leader and cuts it with its gill plates---which, on fish like that, are like razor blades.
Re: the myth of the pirannah: Although they can be vicious, they do not travel in the vast schools so often pictured. Back more than a century ago, in order to make a more dramatic picture, Teddy Roosevelt had them run seines across the river and start concentrating the fish in a tight area. Then they threw a cow in with the cameras rolling.
Like Disney's bull caca about lemmings, that image sank into our collective psyche and is believed to this day.
Folks who know the Amazon well tell me there are very few places they'd be concerned about swimming because of those fish.
Tiger fish are great sport. Usually they are fished for as an adjunct to hunting safaris. But if I could afford a trip to Africa I wouldn't hesitate to go just to flyfish for the tigers.
Brook
[signature]
With fish that have teeth like that, they do not bite the leader. Usually the leader slips between the teeth. When you break off, it's due to one of two reasons: either fatique, as the leader bends back and forth at that point, or because (as with pike and musky), the fish rolls on the leader and cuts it with its gill plates---which, on fish like that, are like razor blades.
Re: the myth of the pirannah: Although they can be vicious, they do not travel in the vast schools so often pictured. Back more than a century ago, in order to make a more dramatic picture, Teddy Roosevelt had them run seines across the river and start concentrating the fish in a tight area. Then they threw a cow in with the cameras rolling.
Like Disney's bull caca about lemmings, that image sank into our collective psyche and is believed to this day.
Folks who know the Amazon well tell me there are very few places they'd be concerned about swimming because of those fish.
Tiger fish are great sport. Usually they are fished for as an adjunct to hunting safaris. But if I could afford a trip to Africa I wouldn't hesitate to go just to flyfish for the tigers.
Brook
[signature]