LOWELL, Mass. — At some point in almost every angler’s life there comes a time when the object of the game goes from catching a lot of fish to catching big fish.

Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Trevor Gowdy said his father, Curt Gowdy, taught him how to fish at age 7.
The more single-minded one becomes in this quest, the less room there is for the rigid orthodoxies that separate the dry fly purist from the heaver of hardware and the slinger of baits. You do what the fish require.

In making the transition from a doctrinaire flyrodder to an all-around big fish hunter on all kinds of tackle, Trevor Gowdy, became the compleatest (Izaak Walton’s rendering) angler I know.

Having good bloodlines helped.

His father was the sportscaster Curt Gowdy, best known as the voice of the Boston Red Sox but revered by the outdoors community as the voice and onscreen presence of “The American Sportsman,” the pioneering fishing and hunting show that took viewers on fantasy journeys to the best fishing and hunting at the best times in the best places in the world. Curt Gowdy bequeathed his passion, particularly flyfishing, to his sons Trevor and Curt Jr. on the marvelous trout streams of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

“Dad started us when we were 7 years old on a small creek outside of Laramie, Wyo.,” Trevor said. “We never called that creek by name because I don’t think it had one. It was 10 to 20 feet wide with thick brush on both sides, so we became proficient at roll casting. The trout were huge — three to five pounds — and pretty much always busted you off. Dad loved it because it was challenging.”

In his career as a producer and host of hunting and fishing shows for cable television, Trevor Gowdy has tangled with a wide range of trophy game fish, including 1,000-pound hammerheads in the Florida Keys, giant stingrays off the coast of Thailand and razor-toothed payara below Venezuela’s Uraima Falls.

Though the flyrod remains Gowdy’s preference, the best way to characterize his angling style these days is: whatever it takes to get the big ones, an approach he attributes to a chance encounter 10 years ago in a Chinese restaurant near his home at the time in North Andover, Mass.

“I knew there were smallmouth in the Merrimack River, but had no idea about the striped bass fishery,” he said. “This guy came in with a 30-pound striper. ‘Where did you catch him,’ I asked. And to my surprise, he told me. It was right out back in the Merrimack.”

Gowdy asked the man what he used to catch them.

“ ‘Live herring,’ he said, and that was all I needed to hear,” Gowdy said. “I bought some herring darts, put my boat in the river below the dam in the old factory town of Lowell, Mass., and proceeded to catch striper after striper, averaging 42 inches.”

A striper on herring offers an explosive top-water take, every bit as visually satisfying as a big trout taking a dry fly. On the audio side, the accompanying commotion is a booming tympani to the trout’s soft shoe.

“When the herring came up the river each year, the bass follow and gorge themselves,” Gowdy said. “Normally, at the peak of the run I’ll fish a one-mile stretch and pull out a 20- to 30-pound fish on every 100-yard drift.”

This year’s run was strong when I visited Gowdy recently. But there is a moratorium on herring fishing, largely because commercial netters have depleted the stock. Consequently, we had to use artificials. Gowdy’s lure of choice is the Slug-Go, a seductively wiggly eel and herring imitation that he customizes by inserting a 20-penny nail along its longitudinal axis and slitting the tail.

“The weight lets it run a little deeper, and gives it a good dipping action,” he said. Splitting the tail further enhances the attention-grabbing movement of the lure. Such erratic motion by baitfish can provoke a strike.

We hit the water at 5:30 a.m. The river was running very low. After a half-hour’s voyage, he cut the engines. “There’s a drop-off here,” he said. “They usually feed for about 45 minutes on the turn of the tide.”

With a quick, powerful flick of his spinning rod, he tossed a Slug-Go 40 yards and began a rapid retrieve, twitching the rod tip. On the second cast a huge striper crashed his lure, bending the rod nearly double. While he was occupied, another striper seized my bait with force and invigorating authority.

After a prolonged battle, we netted the fish: 40 inches and 41 inches, respectively. Before the action slowed about an hour later, as predicted by Gowdy, we had three more catches of similar length, all with fat bellies, heavy with herring.

Gowdy apologized for the “meager” pickings relative to the action one can expect with live bait. I pointed out that most bass fisherman go whole seasons without hooking a striper of equal size. It was quite clear to me that when the reward is such satisfying angling, the relative merits of fly and bait seem unimportant.

“Do what the fish want,” Gowdy said, summing up his philosophy and our morning on the water, “not what you want them to want.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/spo ... f=othersports&oref=slogin