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Champion Fly Angler Writes International Legal Thriller

What if a champion fly angler with an obsession for fly fishing all over the globe and who has practiced international law in Japan commits to writing an international legal thriller?

L.M. Weeks published his book “Bottled Lighting,”- an international legal thriller that follows a top global technology lawyer, Tornait Sagara, and his client as they embark on a wild ride from the board rooms of Tokyo to the wilds of Russia. The client, Saya Brooks, has made an amazing technological discovery that could completely render conventional energy sources obsolete and would solve the threat of climate change. They soon discover that commercializing this invention may not be welcomed by everyone, especially those who profit from the status quo. Before they know it, they’re under attack, and it is now up to Tornait to find the truth in all of this…

I recently had the pleasure to ask the author of “Bottled Lightning” a couple of questions in regards to his career as an angler, his future endeavors as an angler, and about his book:

- Can you tell me about where your passion for sports (fly) fishing started and to what career highs this passion has taken you?

One of my first memories is fishing with a bobber and worm while sitting on a lake dock with my dad. He was a fly fisherman, as was my grandfather, but my father focused on helping us catch fish until we were old enough to fly fish.  I started fly fishing at seven and haven’t done much bait or lure fishing since then. I fly-fished mostly for trout while growing up in Idaho.

After graduating from law school in New York, I started fly fishing in the salt around Long Island and New York City for stripers, bluefish, and false albacore. Some of my best memories from living in New York involve fishing. As an aside, New York has some of the most diverse fishing in the country; you can catch everything from trout to bass to striped bass to tuna to salmon and steelhead. Eventually, like a drug, my fly fishing passion escalated to flats fishing for tarpon, bonefish, permit, and giant trevally and blue water fly fishing for billfish. I’m stuck in stage 4: trying to catch fish that are seemingly impossible to catch.

Fly fishing has also taken me all over the world, including Japan, the Russian Far East, Malaysia, Australia, the Florida Keys and Everglades, Guatemala, Gabon, the Seychelles, Costa Rica, Montana, Belize, Mexico, Panama, etc. I am blessed with too many memorable catches and experiences to count. Still, the tarpon fly fishing tournament wins and world record catches are some of my most memorable because of all the hard work involved, which eventually paid off with successes beyond my dreams.

As any angler will tell you, however, the memories burned most deeply in my heart are those of losing giant and/or rare fish, including a giant taimen (perhaps over 100 pounds) on 16lb tippet, a tarpon around 200 lbs on 16lb tippet, and a blue marlin over 300 pounds on 20lb tippet, that I likely may never have another opportunity to catch. Those lost fish are what keep me up at night. I guess I’m blessed that its giant fish that gives me insomnia!

The author has traveled all over the world in pursuit of exotic species like this Humphead Parrotfish
The author has traveled all over the world in pursuit of exotic species like this Humphead Parrotfish

- What are your future endeavors as an angler? Are there bucketlist species you'd like to tick off? Any particular dream sports fishing locations you'd like to visit?

I want to win the Gold Cup Invitational Tarpon Fly Fishing Tournament, which was started by baseball great Ted Williams and is about to celebrate its 60th year, catch a marlin record and catch a tarpon record. There are also several species that I would like to catch, including tigerfish, Nile perch, golden dorado, a giant yellowfin tuna, and milkfish. And when “I grow up,” I’d like to catch an Atlantic salmon and fish in Alaska and Canada.

- Could you tell me how your experience on the water has motivated you to become an author and to write this book "Bottled Lighting?"

I have read all of Zane Grey’s books on fishing. They’re all wonderful. He was a very passionate and innovative angler. I know he financed his fishing exploits by writing numerous best-selling novels, many of which were made into movies, but I haven’t read any of his westerns (which I should). I have read his biography, however, and found it inspiring. He was a very diligent writer and yet lived a jet-setting rock-star life before there were either jets or rock stars. I’d always wanted to write a novel and decided to do it after reading Zane Grey’s biography.

I got the idea for the protagonist for Bottled Lightning while running the Tokyo office of a global law firm. And while the idea for the book didn’t come from fishing, the idea for the bleeding edge lightning-on-demand technology in the book came to me while crouching on the bottom of a skiff as a thunderstorm that overtook us in the Florida Everglades unleashed a torrent of lightning bolts all around us. Also, when I am stumped on a writing issue, I find that going fishing helps me achieve breakthroughs. They don’t typically come while fishing, but once the fishing is over, I’ll have an epiphany on the way back to the dock or the drive home. Fly fishing, for me, is a complete mind wipe. The complete focus on finding and catching fish and everything involved, including rigging, empties the mind of everything else, enabling you to see anew and, more objectively, the issues you’re struggling with in day-to-day life.

Sailfish on fly; a dream of many fly anglers
Sailfish on fly; a dream of many fly anglers

- Do you think your book "Bottled Lighting" will have a special appeal to fellow anglers, since the book is written by an angler?

I hope so! Anglers, particularly traveling anglers and those who push the envelope to catch new species, develop new techniques, and/or win tournaments and catch records, are by nature adventuresome. And anglers understand that none of us are perfect and that we all fail—often. Yet, we keep at it and “fail better” the next time until we finally succeed. Bottled Lightning is a high-risk story involving international intrigue and a flawed but hard-working and talented main character who succeeds notwithstanding his mostly self-inflicted personal problems. Everyone wishing to achieve what others have not or cannot or otherwise achieve their personal best should be able to relate to that.

- What can we expect from you as an author in the future? Are you planning on committing to writing more books? And if so, what topics would you write about?

I am currently working on a novel about tournament fly fishing, which has a long history. There has been A LOT of drama involving anglers, guides, their significant others, the fish, other animals, the environment, conservation, water usage, development, population growth, the weather, etc.,  both on and off the water. My biggest issue is how to get it all into one book! And yes, I intend to write as many books and fish as much as possible in the time I have left. If the last thing I see on this earth is the bill of a world record marlin coming at me while I’m fighting it with a fly rod, I’ll exit stage right a happy man, and it will make a hell of a story!

If you’d like to learn more about the book and the author himself, visit LM Weeks

Or, to get a copy of his book “Bottled Lighting,” click here.

The author of "Bottled Lightning" with a tarpon to remember
The author of "Bottled Lightning" with a tarpon to remember
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