Billy Pate: IGFA Hall of Famer and Fishing Legend скачать в хорошем качестве

Billy Pate: IGFA Hall of Famer and Fishing Legend

Billy Pate is one of the world's foremost big-game fly fishermen. He may be best known for his 188-pound world record tarpon on 16-pound tippet, for starting World Wide Sportsman in 1967, and for catching the first blue marlin on a fly rod. But that is just the start of Pate's angling achievements. He has held more significant saltwater fly fishing records than any other angler. He was the first man to catch a black marlin on fly (Australia, 1972). And he was the first person to catch six billfish species on fly. Pate began fishing South Carolina brooks at the age of 6. Eight years later he persuaded his parents to buy him a fly rod, and from that point on he has fished almost exclusively with fly tackle. During a trip to the Florida Keys in the early 1960s Pate became enamored with catching tarpon on fly, and on his first day out he was "hooked for life." There is a complicated science to fly fishing for billfish, and Billy Pate is a leader in this specialized sport. Dr. Webster Robinson pioneered the technique, catching the first Atlantic sailfish, Pacific sailfish and striped marlin. When Pate caught a 146-pound striped marlin in Ecuador in 1970 (a record on 15-pound tippet which stood until 1995), no one had as yet taken a blue, black or white marlin on fly. On his way home from Ecuador, Pate resolved that he would be the first person to catch six billfish species on a fly rod. He spent the next eight years doing just that, catching a white marlin, a black marlin, and Atlantic and Pacific sailfish. On August 21, 1978 in Havana, Cuba, Pate finally caught a blue marlin, the fish that had proven to be the most difficult, fulfilling his long-sought dream and also becoming the first to catch this species on fly. An inveterate traveler, Billy Pate has journeyed to 40 countries in search of his quarry. He meticulously researches, organizes and prepares for all trips, and for each and every contest between man and fish. Though Pate has actively sought records, to him it is not just about filling up holes in the record book. He fishes for the thrill, pursuing species that are challenging and exciting. Besides holding records for blue, white, black and striped marlin and Atlantic and Pacific sailfish, he has set records for mako shark, jack crevalle, bonefish, channel bass, grouper and redfish. But to Pate, light tackle fishing for tarpon is the ultimate challenge. His 188-pound, 7'5" tarpon, caught on 16-pound tippet on May 13, 1982 in Homosassa, Florida, was a record for 21 years. From Carolina to Brazil, and from the Pacific coast of Panama to Sherbro Island off Africa's Sierra Leone, Pate has fished for the silver king, estimating that he has hooked more than 5,000 in his lifetime. It was on a trip to Costa Rica in the mid-1960s that Pate and Islamorada fishing guide George Hommell came up with the idea for World Wide Sportsman. World Wide became one of the most famous fishing tackle shops anywhere and is credited with opening up many new fly fishing locations around the world. Twenty-eight years, in 1995, Pate and Hommell sold the company to Bass Pro Shops. Billy Pate is an encyclopedia of fly-fishing knowledge. Interested in a fly reel that would be the "best in the world," he combined his ideas with features of the Seamaster and Fin-Nor brands, designing the reel that bears his name and has been manufactured by Ted Juracsik since the 1970s. Pate has been featured in a segment of The American Sportsman and in many videos; he sees these films as teaching tools and a way to pass on his lifetime of fishing experience. Pate has won numerous tournaments, including four victories in both the Gold Cup Tarpon Fly Championship and the International Billfish Fly Championship. Not only dedicated to the pursuit of the fish he enjoys catching the most, Pate is also a committed conservationist. He was instrumental in instituting the $50 tarpon tag system in Florida, and is a founder or has been a board member of the Everglades Protection Association (now part of the Florida Coastal Conservation Association), Trout Unlimited, Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited, the Don Hawley Foundation, and the Pate Foundation. Though he has established remarkable milestones in fishing, Billy Pate insists his greatest pleasures have come from the wonderful friends he has made and the lovely waters he has fished. This dedicated master angler will always rank among the truly outstanding fly fishers of this or any other generation.