A lot of the reason we seem to get in on such wonderful fishing,
no matter what we go after, is because we "cherry pick" the weather,
the tides and anything else we can to insure the fishing should be perfect.
Being retired from most structured endeavors makes that possible.
We rely on many sources for making good decisions. At least three
weather web sites, the TV, countless calls to guides and the tide charts
all come into play. Then, sometimes you just have to fish when things
are not perfect. This fishing trip was just one of the times you had to
suck it up as one of the fishermen is still working. Ron, the working
stiff, has a money burn rate that might make him work forever. Unk,
my guide partner, and I do like to fish with Ron… so we sucked
it up.
The big bull reds have just come on the flats of Louisiana and the
three of us really wanted to fish them. There were no guides
available and no matter how you looked at the weather sources,
it just did not look like success was going to happen, but we went
anyway. If you closed one eye when checking the weather it looked
only half as bad; Cloudy with 50 percent thunderstorm chance
the first day and the second day was going to be worse. Off we
went to stay at The Woodlands Plantation guiding ourselves with
my boat.
Ron drove eight hours and arrived after Unk and I had already
consumed two bottles of wine lamenting problems to be faced
the next day. Ron helped with the third bottle and then Foster,
the lodge owner, passed a bottle of some super new kind of rum
over the bar for us to try. We did a good test of that before
leaving for bed. The rum testing was not a good idea. Walking
to the sleeping quarters it was noted the stars were twinkling brightly
but we knew it was going to turn to crap in the next few hours. Few
was the operative word as there were only a couple of hours until 0600.
Not a cloud in the sky at sun-up. "Whoopee," I shouted but
noted immediately that noise was not going to help my throbbing
head. A nice breakfast was followed by a crystal clear low wind
thirty minute run to the fishing venue. Thousands of white pelicans
whirled around us as we set up for our first hunt for the big boys.
With me Unk poling and Ron in the front end the boat it took all
of four minutes before Ron had his eyes watered by a four foot
long redfish twenty feet away rushing at the boat. Ron has never
caught a "bull" before and the combination of the size and speed
of the cruising fish had all three of his shots landing too close to the
nose of the fish and not getting down to the eye level in time. We
were in two feet of clear water and a fish with a head six to eight
inches thick can appear to be right on the top when he is really
down on the bottom. I tied a heavier fly on his line after that one
so it would sink faster for his next shot. It was not long and a
second bull appeared again coming straight out of the glare. It
was still pretty early and the low sun was making for late pickups.
Ron missed this one too. The third one he got the fish to take the
fly but it came unbuttoned in a few headshakes. "Might have been
a poor strip set," 'fessed up Ron. The fourth one he hooked
but it was not a monster. It was just a standard little eight pound
fish some how sandwiched in among the big guys.
Ron offered me the front tower and I accepted before he took
back the offer. We were ready to let him stay up until he got
a bull, our only objective of the trip. I was not up for a minute
and out of the gloom charged a nice nine pounder that ate my
first cast. As it got released a big one showed up twenty feet
off the nose and I nailed him in one cast too. I was using both
eyes too. But, like Ron's third shot, this one came loose too. I
am perfect…it must have been the fish's fault. That was
the last good shot we had for twenty more minutes of this spot
and we moved on.
We moved about a mile and started down another run that
should have been dynamite but a dredge was clanging along
about a half mile away and I think that chased the fish off. The
flags indicating where this monster digging machine was heading
indicated it was going to really screw up the fishing in this area for
along time. The oil companies have all this area leased and they
work like beavers full time screwing up our fishing to make it
possible to do their job of running around in crew boats full time.
That run abandoned, I pushed along a wall where little fish played,
the five to seven pound ones, but it was too shallow for the big guys
until later in the run. Unk got the front and almost immediately got
a fish and then another. Ron got back up and missed a couple but
finally got one near the end of the run. They put me back up front
and I hooked up three nice five pound sheepsheads in three casts
and then a monster was sighted out of range leaving a spot at an
end of an island in front of us. When we got near that spot Ron,
sitting down, spotted a big tail the other side of the island. Easing
up, a leviathan slid past the nose and I got a shot out in front of him,
but not far enough for the speed my fly would sink. I recast as he
was sliding deeper and was just about right but felt I might get one
more shot so started to pull the fly out of the water just as the monster
tried to suck it in. I managed to get it out of the way in time and lost
sight of the bull. Big fish like that don't move much to eat, they just
open their cave like mouths and suck in all the water within a foot of
their nose with the target food in it. If my fly had not had a line on it
so I could save it, I think this 30 plus pound fish would have made my
day.
I cried a little and let Ron back up as we turned into some more of
the flat near this deep water. He fussed with a couple of sheepsheads
and was looking at another when I, sitting down, caught sight of a big
water movement right in front of the boat. I pointed this out and Ron
did not say a word, just manically cast to the big fish passing the nose
twenty feet out. One strip and all hell broke loose. It was a nice big
fresh bull red. Ron got reminded to really set this one good so it did
not get away and the fish dragged line out about fifty feet toward a
really shallow area. Ron huffed and puffed for about five minutes to
get it near the boat while I got the camera ready. My net was not big
enough but with the nose in the net and a grip on the tail the fish got
landed and high fives were preformed all around. Ron's first bull was
just a little over twenty pounds but it was a long skinny fish that would
easily add ten more pounds on that frame with this season's feasting.
Ron put so much pressure on this one that the hook, a big 3/0, was
bent almost straight. The barb was in a tough boney area of the jaw
or the fish would have been lost. I had tied that fly on this new hook
brand and will not use it again.
We managed a few more fish as the tide rushed in making it too deep
for the area. We tried to work inland to keep up with the rising water.
Shallow is always better when sight fishing. The tide beat us to the
closer in spots and we did not get any more fish. This surprisingly
pretty day ended with us a happy crew. The weatherman had blown
the call. The front that was supposed to come over us and sit there
stopped fifty miles north of us.
The Plantation's dinner was five courses of epic quality. Foster outdid
himself again but the party ended early. I think we were asleep before
9 PM. There was a bunch of neat folks from Texas staying with us in
the big house but their party did not cause us any problem with dropping
off.
Before 5 AM all three of us had slept all we could and started
rummaging around ending up on the front porch as the day
brightened. The weatherman had both days as really crappy
and this one might really be that way. The day kept on brightening,
but the sun did not rise. With the light and a few other hints we
could see it was overcast and humid. Perhaps "cloudy" would
really mean cloudy this day. We bothered Amanda, the lady
cooking breakfast for us until she fed us early. As we finished
up the "brightening" continued but all we could see what the how
bright the stained glass windows in the Spirit House was glowing.
We thought "sun" but walking out was zero-zero with fog. The
sun was showing through in the east and the moon was showing
through in the west. It was not overcast, just foggy…and
there was a breeze kicking in. Along a river out in the ocean this
means the fog was caused by the river and it was going to blow
away if we were lucky. "Launch," was the order of the day and
we got to it.
Navigation through the maze in this marsh is not easy in clear weather
and with a few yards of visibility, completely impossible except for the
fact that our routes through the marsh are all on the boat's GPS.
Mariners know how to do this as well as pilots. We had two coast
guard captains of the three pilots on board so using this magic is not
all that hard. Besides, the rules say to go slow, honk your fog horn
or ring your ship's bell at certain intervals and listen for others. Of
course, we did not use the whistle (no horns or bells) and ran in few
shipping lanes (main canals) leaving only a few moments when we were
at risk. These we handled by going fast and closing our eyes. It was
better to wait on the flats for the fog to burn off than on the beach
wondering if is was clear fifteen miles away where the fish were.
We picked a flat that was supposed to be good with an outgoing tide
and low water. The fog made seeing fish possible out to twenty feet.
The fish were supposed to be big and the water clear as gin, so off we
polled very quietly in our own white balloon of misty silence. I kept the
boat within twenty yards of shore so we did not get lost and it took about
five minutes before a big fish made Ron jump and miss it three times from
ten feet in front of the boat until it reached twenty feet aft. It was not hard
to see as its' back was almost out of the one foot deep water. It
happened again shortly thereafter and he missed again. The third
one was passing off the left and his first cast stopped the fish and
gave him a side shot. He got it right in front of the nose and the fish
ate it. Ron thought it was going to take off and go around the rear
of the boat so he tried to get the line over me on the tower instead
of getting good strip set. The fish did the head shake thing and came
unbuttoned. All of these fish were really big ones. Ron stayed up for
another ten minutes and finally found and solidly hooked a nice red.
After a short battle he had a fourteen pounder weighed, flash burned,
revived and released. Unk took the nose.
Keeping the averages the same, Unk missed the first two fish that
appeared. The darkness and the size of the fish somehow made
both of the guys throw too close to the fish and the fly got down
too late to be seen by the fish. If they were really unlucky the fly
would touch the fish on the back and scare them off making the
last cast a long over the shoulder panic shot. None of those
worked today. The tide had stopped and was starting back in
without delaying at all. The sky cleared and showed clear blue
with just a few small clouds flailing along. The dreaded front that
was supposed to be over us for the both of these days was lying
north of us where it had stalled. Unk picked up a couple of big
black hulks out front of us and hooked up a big black drum on
the first cast. He fought it to the boat and landed a thirty pound
plus gray/black drum. They get whiter as they get older and this
one might have been as old as forty years. The "plus" part of the
weight was because my Boga scale only goes to thirty pounds. It
topped out the scale but just barely.
That fish done we moved and started to look for big fish in a place
we found them yesterday. Turning the corner to blast out there, we
spotted another boat sliding through the flat. In all the times I have
been on the water out in this area, this is the second boat I have ever
seen…and that is over almost eight years of fishing here. And,
this one is the only one on a spot I wanted to use. We turned and
went to another nearby flat and I finally got to the front end. It was
about noon already and the cloud bank of the front was moving down
from the north, finally. I had about fifteen minutes of light with a bright
cloud background which does not help with the glare hiding the fish.
We pushed along looking for fish as the sun slipped away behind big
dark clouds. Unk spotted two fish and I tossed and caught a sheepsheads.
Unhooking him, Unk said the red that was with that fish was still sitting
there waiting and I got him hooked in the second cast. All of us had a
fish for the day as the prospects dimmed for much more fun.
The clouds got funny bumps on their bottom side and we
discussed making this day short as the rain started plinking
down on the water. We bundled up and ran for home. We
did drive out from under the rain and tried two more spots
with the little sun showing between passing clouds. The only
thing we had worth mentioning was the poling lesson Ron got.
Unk talked to him about how to do it during the run and we
gave him the pole and rear tower position for a turn around a
short side canal with a oil platform at the end of it. The trip
down to the platform was with a slight breeze behind us. No
problems noted; no fish but good poling. Ron was even looking
around for fish while working the propulsion system. At the end
of the canal I casually mentioned we needed to miss the platform
on the upwind side. Ron had hoped to slip behind and this small
change required him to turn up wind. The forces working for him
turned the casual lesson to a white knuckled effort. He missed the
tower, barely, and then we got blown into the bank when he tried
to go upwind, all ten MPH of it. Unk suggested the fishing was
not all that compelling here, in the grass, and he would start the
motor if Ron would get us clear of the bank. Much effort ensued
and finally we moved to deeper water. When Ron gave up the pole
it was hot to the touch and had clear finger indentions in it. The first
lesson was in the can and Ron now knows for certain that the simple
sliding down a flat upwind is completely impossible.
The day might have been short but we all caught fish and experienced
the surreal period with large fish passing in the fog. The weatherman's
predictions of bad weather for the whole two days only happened in
the last two hours of the stay. In this case, we were really happy the
science of weather prediction is just an art form. Perhaps they should
call it the "practice of weather prediction" like doctors call their art.
Nov 2008 ~ Captain Scud Yates
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