The 54th- 59th Days of Fly Fishing – October, 2023
Two weeks have passed since I returned from the Everglades, at our latest Three Amigos outing, hanging with my fishing pals Reid and Mel. The weather was beautiful with a daytime high of about 80 degrees, little rain and only a couple windy days. And we fished our butts off! We were up early, on the water by sunrise as you can see in the picture above. These were long days and everyday, Reid made us turkey sandwiches for lunch on the skiff. We worked the mangroves hard, in search of snook or a random baby tarpon. I didn’t have a problem with the numbers of snook we caught, but few taped out bigger than 20 inches, and low 20’s at that. My favorite part about the snook fishing was when we switched to surface poppers. Specifically, we went with the white gurgler. It makes lots of noise as you skip it across the surface. When a snook hits a surface popper, it is violent. Further, at times they don’t hook-up on the first eat. You have to strip set every eat and keep stripping in case there is a second or third attempt and I fell prey to this, sometimes stopping after the first strip. Also, more so than trout fishing, your casting accuracy and distance are pushed to the limit. Most dry fly casts in trout fishing are 20-30 feet, occasionally 40. We were using the trolling motor and running the mangrove line, which is extremely irregular and full of dead fall. I’d say 50 foot casts were the norm, trying to land a fly 6 inches from the edge of the mangrove bush. Needless to say we all improved over the five straight days of fishing. I also had the opportunity to let loose. I had a few casts at 80+ feet! That 9 weight Meridian really loads well!
At one point Mel and I found the perfect oyster bar with an active current flowing over it. Given the fact that I am mostly a trout fisherman, this was structure and this structure felt like a riffle in a river, bringing food and oxygen right at the mouth of the fish. There was a drop off to the left of the bar, where the current lost some speed. This would be the “seam” and sure enough, there were several trout lying there, spotted sea trout that is. I got several eats where the fish was gone before I could set. Eventually I was able to hook two and bring them to the boat. Nice fish! Also a couple of snook below.
The tarpon were elusive. Although Mel and I encountered them on three different occasions, each time something wasn’t quite right. For one thing, tarpon aren’t always eating. Also, they tend to come and go. The first day we found them it was actually Reid who spotted them rolling early one unusually calm morning. Reid callled us over and there was room for two boats to work this bay. Reid worked the west side, we took the east side and total there were probably ten fish rolling. I took a couple of shots at a fish rolling within casting range of the boat, trying to estimate the direction the fish was swimming and leading the fish the appropriate amount. Before long, all of the fish disappeared. Mel knew of a creek that the smaller tarpon just loved! We checked it out a few times and once in particular, probably becasue the tide was right, we found a quite a few fish feeding, ambushing baitfish and critters flowing in on a strong incoming tide. Mel put me in the perfect position and I made great casts and we changed flies often, but after 5 fly changes and no eats, we were really perplexed. Then, magically, the fish disappeared.
The third time happened on a day when we decided to go outside. Being outside, just means you are out of the mangroves and in the gulf waters with exposure to the open sea. Luckily the winds were extremely mild that day, so we went outside. We began working the shoreline in an area Mel was expecting redfish. We went quite a long ways without a bite and without seeing a fish, as the water on the outside is pretty darn clear. I saw some bait being worked and asked if I could make some casts into the bait balls. We eventually came to the realization that is was ladyfish working the bait balls after I caught a couple of them. Ladyfish can be fun, but these were small and we quickly came to realize a predator was around to prey on the ladyfish and that would be tarpon. We had one rolling right by the boat. Mel got me rigged with the big boy tarpon rod, and I began casting near the rolling fish. I had several good shots, but no eats, and once again the tarpon stopped rolling.
Tarpon fishing takes skill, persistence and a whole lotta luck! I liken it to “feeling worthy”. Similar to catching a big rainbow at the Ranch in Idaho. Part of it is “right place, right time”. The other part is developing the skills and techniques needed to be successful. Hey, I’m not giving up! Back to the BVI’s with my bro and friends in February!
