gfen
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2007
- Messages
- 6,639
Well, I'm back from a week near the ocean, a week filled with salt water fishing excess... There was some surf stuff, there was some estuary stuff, and there was some bay stuff. There was even a paid charter buried in there.
From the surf, I quickly decided I didn't care enough to deal with it, and throwing a spoon with a spinning rod was way easier. Fly rod catch count: Zip! Didn't try at it long enough to even register.
From the estuaries and sod banks, I learned that not only do the banks give way, but after high tide has receded, the areas next to those creeks are essentially quick sand waiting to kill you. Verdict? Buy a kayak, or never see them again, because wandering them at night, in pitch black, is a recipie for death. A very filthy, stinky, and unpleasant one at that. Fly rod catch count: One crab, impaled through the head. I was also propositioned by some swingers, which was interesting. I think it was the dishpan around my gut that did it, who could resist a guy like that?
From the bridge lights over the bay: Man, so many freakin' peanut bunker, I thought I could walk across them, yet even working the proper tide, I just never saw the hordes of snapper blues I'd come to expect there. I'd been there multiple nights, and just never scored big, even when some maurading schoolies decided to work inside the boat launch pier one night. The solace that day is the bait and lure guys failed as bad as I did, and never really seemed much better any other night. Fly rod catch count: Meh. Over the 3 or 4 nights I plied this, I think I brought about 4 blues to hand, well pier, really. They've got teeth, so I'll just let 'em flop til they get off. The spinning guys never did much better, either.
Walking the beach in the bay: I should've done this more often, because it was productive. Fly rod catch count: Couple of sea robins (they count!), a small blue and... an actual fluke! Yow! Still, I didn't btoehr with this game til it was too late and I never got back to try it again.
ANd finally, the charter. Man, I'd waited _all year_ to do this again and.... Well, it was so bad, the captain didn't charge me. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Dead. No fish to be found, NONE. Worked several great points int he Cape May Point bay and not a single sign of life except one 14" blue he took on a popping plug of some nature. After we went down a few banks without a swirl, he grabbed it to try and see if he could at least raise a swirl and for nearly 4 hours went without. I cast a freakin' 8wt for five and a half hours, and nothing. One fish. Not anything else. He said the water was looking nasty, and suspected an algae bloom, I suspect that he just had an idiot for a client, but he never did see anything swirl on his plug. Fly rod catch count: I got a wicked blister, does that count?
Bah.
At least he complimented me on my ties, said the ones I'd used looked great in the water, that I was putting them in the right places (albeit inefficently, I cast like a small stream trout fisherman, not a bonafide, double-haulin' saltwater guy), and had a few minor corrections of my retrive style.
So, without further ado, some flies I tied:
(go, go flicker slide show)
(i took the time to carefully craft descriptions, and they don't display, damn you, flicker, damn you)
Anyways, despite allt his, I still can't wait for next year.
From the surf, I quickly decided I didn't care enough to deal with it, and throwing a spoon with a spinning rod was way easier. Fly rod catch count: Zip! Didn't try at it long enough to even register.
From the estuaries and sod banks, I learned that not only do the banks give way, but after high tide has receded, the areas next to those creeks are essentially quick sand waiting to kill you. Verdict? Buy a kayak, or never see them again, because wandering them at night, in pitch black, is a recipie for death. A very filthy, stinky, and unpleasant one at that. Fly rod catch count: One crab, impaled through the head. I was also propositioned by some swingers, which was interesting. I think it was the dishpan around my gut that did it, who could resist a guy like that?
From the bridge lights over the bay: Man, so many freakin' peanut bunker, I thought I could walk across them, yet even working the proper tide, I just never saw the hordes of snapper blues I'd come to expect there. I'd been there multiple nights, and just never scored big, even when some maurading schoolies decided to work inside the boat launch pier one night. The solace that day is the bait and lure guys failed as bad as I did, and never really seemed much better any other night. Fly rod catch count: Meh. Over the 3 or 4 nights I plied this, I think I brought about 4 blues to hand, well pier, really. They've got teeth, so I'll just let 'em flop til they get off. The spinning guys never did much better, either.
Walking the beach in the bay: I should've done this more often, because it was productive. Fly rod catch count: Couple of sea robins (they count!), a small blue and... an actual fluke! Yow! Still, I didn't btoehr with this game til it was too late and I never got back to try it again.
ANd finally, the charter. Man, I'd waited _all year_ to do this again and.... Well, it was so bad, the captain didn't charge me. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Dead. No fish to be found, NONE. Worked several great points int he Cape May Point bay and not a single sign of life except one 14" blue he took on a popping plug of some nature. After we went down a few banks without a swirl, he grabbed it to try and see if he could at least raise a swirl and for nearly 4 hours went without. I cast a freakin' 8wt for five and a half hours, and nothing. One fish. Not anything else. He said the water was looking nasty, and suspected an algae bloom, I suspect that he just had an idiot for a client, but he never did see anything swirl on his plug. Fly rod catch count: I got a wicked blister, does that count?
Bah.
At least he complimented me on my ties, said the ones I'd used looked great in the water, that I was putting them in the right places (albeit inefficently, I cast like a small stream trout fisherman, not a bonafide, double-haulin' saltwater guy), and had a few minor corrections of my retrive style.
So, without further ado, some flies I tied:
(go, go flicker slide show)
(i took the time to carefully craft descriptions, and they don't display, damn you, flicker, damn you)
Anyways, despite allt his, I still can't wait for next year.
