(ed. note – As one of our readers commented that we have been short on wisdom of late, here’s a “Papa Doble.” Google those terms for references to the potent and now famous cocktail of the same name. It ain’t no foo-foo umbrella drink; it’s the he-man woman hater variant of the daiquiri.)
“I have had a marlin sound four hundred yards straight down, all the rod under water over the side, bent double with that weight going down, down, down, watching the line go, putting on all pressure possible on the reel to check him, him going down and down until you are sure every inch of line will go. Suddenly he stops sounding and you straighten up, get onto your feet, get the butt in the socket and work him up slowly, finally you have the double line on the reel and think he is coming to gaff and then the line begins to rip out as he hooks up and heads off to sea just under the surface to come out in ten long, clean jumps. This after an hour and a half of fight.”
- Ernest Hemingway, “Marlin off the Morro: A Cuban Letter,” Esquire, Autumn 1933
“To see that happen, to feel that fish in his rod, to feel that power and that great rush, to be a connected part of it and then to dominate it and master it and bring that fish to gaff, alone and with no one else touching the rod, reel or leader, is something worth waiting many days for, sun and all, and as said, while you wait there is plenty of time to think. A good part of the things you think about are not put into a magazine printed on shiny paper and designed to go through the mails. Some they can put you in jail for if you write and others are simply no one’s business but a great part of the time you think about fish.”
- Ernest Hemingway, “Out in the Stream: A Cuban Letter,” Esquire, August 1934
2 responses so far ↓
1 Theresa // Apr 12, 2009 at 3:52 pm
“Papa Doble” – what a wonderful way for us old people to get our daily required amount of fruit juices.
2 armchairoutfitter // Apr 12, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Try it, you’ll like it.
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