A report from SteveL for mikescatchreport.com
It's been lousy weather for the last past month--super windy and rainy. In fact it's been so windy, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps Jin was in town.
Last week, in spite of the cool and windy weather, I managed to hook and tag a 4.5 pound bonefish fly fishing off the point. I even hooked a tako (octopus) but made the mistake of reaching for my net instead of grabbing it and it settled to the bottom and latched on to a rock and I lost it.
This week the weather wasn't any better. On Saturday I went out to try out my Redington CPX 8 weight switch rod. Nice action but not the rod to take on the flats in high wind although I still managed some nice 100 foot casts. It was still windy on Sunday so I took my Redington SS (single hand rod).
All my usual spots were occupied by fishermen and divers - so I headed west to avoid them. But there some fishermen there too so I had to walk halfway down the beach before wading out to the outer flats.
It was super shallow as I walked out but within a couple of hours the tide was rising one and a half feet. I found some nice spots to fish about a hundred yards from the breaker line.
Although I'm blind casting, I have a general idea of where the fish will be and the kind of bottom terrain to look for. The night before I tied some tan flies and used one of them to work the area for an hour. I got a subtle grab and at first I didn't think it was very big and started to strip the line in. The fish pulls back and starts stripping the loose coils of line out of my basket and starts a steady run towards the breakers. No matter what I do it doesn't stop. At around 80 yards out I decide to lean on the rod to see if the fish will turn. I can feel a slight "give" and then it was gone. The worst part of this was after the fish unhooked, the fly gets stuck in the reef and I have to wade close to 90 yards to retrieve all my line.
So all I have from the action
are the before and after shots of my fly. The
fish bent my hook. only the big ones do
that.