Operation Catchfish: A Day At Saddam's Lake

[mrmoshe]

OPERATION CATCHFISH: A DAY AT SADDAM'S LAKE

U.S. soldiers' new Iraq mission: Goin' fishing in Saddam's private lakes

Ray Combs thought he'd witnessed the wildest fishing action that the world had to offer.

But that was before the Orlando videographer hopped a military cargo plane to Baghdad. There, as Black Hawk helicopters flew overhead, he watched soldiers cast lines into a man-made lake near where Saddam Hussein reputedly kept his harem.

"I have been on boats shooting video as an 18-foot hammerhead ate a 200-pound tarpon mere feet away from me," said Combs, 32. "But . . . it doesn't compare to the surreal feeling of watching soldiers fish while holding their rifle in one hand and a spinning reel in the other.

Combs, creative director of Reel Time Productions, recently took a small crew to Iraq to film for television a morale-boosting tournament called Operation Catchfish. He wanted to explore the odd juxtaposition of fishing in a war zone.

"Nobody thinks of fishing in Iraq," he said. "You think of desert, you think of the war; but you don't think of fishing.

"It's the one thing that ties everyone together," said Combs, who returned recently from the 10-day trip. "No matter where you are, where you're from, it's something kind of primordial, catching fish out of the water. It's something that's been done as long as man's been around."

The soldiers likely wouldn't be fishing if not for Saddam, who ordered the digging of several lakes that he stocked with fish as part of a private hunting reserve. After the invasion, it didn't take long for the occupation forces to figure out where the fish were biting. Soon they were casting with tackle donated from back home.

"People need an escape, and for those who love the outdoors, this is the perfect avenue," U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joel Stewart, 42, of Great Falls, Mont., said in an e-mail from his current post in San Diego. He founded the informal Baghdad School of Fly Fishing in 2005 after soldiers constantly begged him for tips.

He and his several hundred students fished several lakes that dot the Camp Victory compound, outside the International Zone, also called the "Green Zone."

But it's nothing like the fishing holes back home, Stewart said, with the sounds of war all around and exotic, often unrecognizable Asian species dangling at the ends of their hooks.

The idea of the fishing tournament came from Joe Mercurio, organizer and host of the made-for-television Professional Tarpon Tournament Series, who also arranged for Combs' trip.

Combs went to Iraq armed with more than videotape, taking along $10,000 in donations that included T-shirts, hats, bait and 300 rod-and-reel sets.

Operation Catchfish was staged on Lake Z, a massive man-made body of water named for its shape at Camp Victory, about 15 minutes from downtown Baghdad. The tourney drew 357 entrants, including servicemen and women from the U.S., South Korea, Tonga, Australia and Great Britain.

U.S. Army Sgt. Jason Blackmon, who fished the tourney using the same bass techniques as back home in Shreveport, La., told Combs' crew that fishing in a war zone is a way "to connect with other fishermen, a place to relax, decompress, to get your mind off events" going on around them.

"It allows you just to relax and have fun," he said.

Soldiers often were creative with bait, Combs said. Whole bagels. Sausage. Breakfast burritos from MRE rations. Dates. The local stone-baked flatbread. Some regular fishermen prefer Froot Loops.

For four hours, contestants went at it. Four weigh stations were set up around the lake, each with a scale and tape measure to note the longest, largest and heaviest fish.

Stewart said all the fish are warm-water species native to Asia and Europe, including a variety of carp, asp, and shaboot, barbell, grass carp and stinging catfish, and soldiers often can't identify them.

The biggest catch of the tourney was a 14-pounder, a species dubbed the Saddam Bass, which Combs said Saddam had bred and "looks a like a cross between a snook, trout, and a ladyfish. But it sure is freaky."

In the end, Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer Bobby Carter Jr., of Smith, Ala., caught the winning fish using a rattletrap tipped with pizza crust. His prize was a $600 watch.

Combs shot 40 hours of footage, including segments to air on ESPN and other fishing shows in coming months. He hopes a full-length documentary will be ready for release by September.

For the soldiers in Iraq, fishing is "a chance to get out in the air and sit around the lake, and at that point, they could have been anywhere in the world," Combs said. "They could have been in Ohio fishing on the banks of the river. It's just a little bit of normalcy for them in a place that is anything but normal."

[The Iceman]

The aussies have been at it as well

Ian Baker an aussie soldier fishing in Bagdad sometime last year

pics pilferred from another site

[jewgaffer]

Interesting story Pete and I don't think I would fry up one of those fish out of that lake Andrew, the old Chemical Ali may well have been involved in the program, the old delayed guts ache and the hair fall out trick ay?

Cheers

jewgaffer

[spirit_fall88]

i wonder what kind of chemicals are in that lake. LOL dioxin levels anyone?