Give away

I am never really sure why people like to stop me and talk to me, while I'm fishing?  I dress funny; I wear a white patterned balaclava with a white booney hat and sunglasses, along with long sleeves and long pants. It seems especially strange to me when people want me to explain why I am catching fish and they are not?  I usually have one answer; luck.  I know that's not the truth; or the answer they are looking for, but it is my stock answer.  People want to see what I'm using and what I have, along with a small dissertation of the lure.  I had this very thing happen 7 times on Saturday and 5 times on Sunday, an even dozen.  I even had two guys go out of their way, just to paddle-board up and pick my brain. I got the most questions when I was rummaging around under rocks I had flipped on shore.  I suppose it is a strange site to see someone flipping rocks, jabbing at the dirt, coming up with a crab in my pliers and cussing up a storm as I de-claw them.

I will teach people how to flip rocks and what to look for.  Oysters are sharp and if you are not paying attention to where, and how you are grabbing a rock you can end up with a stitch worthy gash.  I will also show people how to pick up crabs correctly, how to spot a female and why they need to leave her alone.  As soon as I mutter the phrase, "Fly Fishing" or "Matching the Hatch" the eyebrows go up behind everyone's sunglasses.  I immediately tell them, "I don't have all the answers, sometimes I don't have a good answer, but I will try my best to field any questions."  I usually end up giving away some of my flies or lures to people, telling them all the same thing, "now you have a lure that works, go buy a couple more and when your having a great day, give a lure or two to someone who's having a bad day and tell them why."

I usually try to get into the back-country, away from people and away from the noise.  Unfortunately the fish are not always away from the main roads and highways.  While this makes loading and unloading extremely easy.  It also opens the doors for the weekend warriors, and their bombing the water with shiny things from shore.  I enjoy this particular breed of fisherman.  They bring buckets, coolers, chairs, multiple rods, umbrellas  radios, cases of beer, and a dizzying array of lures, baits, jigs, plugs, and God knows what else?They sometimes provide me with entertainment when the bite is off.

I don't know why people are afraid of water, especially fisherman?  We all go swimming in the ocean and the Gulf right?  So why in the world are most fisherman, trying to stay dry and fishing from shore?  I mean honestly, when you fish a river you wish you could be in the middle so you can cast to either bank.  Why would you not want to walk away from shore so you can pitch to either the shore or the deep?  I watch people bring all sorts of crap with them to edge of the water, but never INTO the water.  Sure there are the few that wander around like I do, and to you few I say, "Thank you."

The places where I go you can walk nearly 1/4 of a mile, away from shore, before the flats drops off.  The drop off is a scary- scary place.  All sorts of toothy monsters lay in wait there.  At least that's what my psyche tells me and it's what I buy into when I am; chest deep, 1/4 mi from shore, it's getting dark, something just splashed behind me, and what was that against my leg?  Like I said, the drop-off is a scary-scary place, it's a total mind &*^&**^, but the waist and chest deep grass-flats before the edges are some of the most beautiful places in Florida.  Each  flat offers it's own eco-system, and it's own specific topography.  Some grass is longer, some pot-holes are bigger,or deeper, there may be mangroves, there may be oyster beds, there may be shifting sand bars, anything is possible in grass flats.

The picture above was taken with my Iphone panorama option.  I haven't figured it out quite yet, but it seems like less is more.   The entire flats area which is several miles to the left and right are cropped funny to make the picture look like it's an inlet, it's not. In the picture, about as far as you can see out, is the drop-off.  The sandy areas in front are the potholes and grass.  The initial area of grass and sand is what I like to get out beyond.  Since fish spook pretty easy, presenting a large form above them is the easiest way to spook them.  When you are looking into the sun the fish have the advantage, their vision is actually magnified and blurred so when you move, they dart.  If there is a fish cruising this initial area and he spooks, he will alert the rest of school and your prime spot is busted.

Here I am maybe 300 feet from shore and it is just over my knee's.  The sandy area is what I refer to as a pothole.  They are sandy areas in a mix of sea-grass, which serves as prime ambush points for predator fish. A (something small and shiny), swims through the sandy area unsuspectingly and POW, a predator fish nails it.  These are the first thing that need to be found during low tide, along with any other type of structure.

Here I am closer to 1,000 feet from shore and it is still at best waist deep.  The pot holes are influenced less by tidal change and moving sands so they are less defined, which means more aggressive predator fish and more active roaming of predator fish.

Here I am chest deep, about the full 1/4 mile maybe more?  Those are hotels in the distance, you can still see the bottom, all you do is pick your pot hole and cast to it. Just watch out for boats, jet skis, and thinks that can cut clean through 30 pound test.

Showing the subtle waves that will alert a spooky fish to your presence.  Hard to believe that ripples like this in clear, smooth water will give a fish pause.

I enjoy looking back toward shore from my extreme distances.  I get to take it all in, all 360 degrees of it.  It's where I get lost for a while and forget to think.  I had the pleasure this weekend of watching this one guy throw an entire tackle box worth of lures at the water.  I don't know what he had, but every couple of casts he would be sitting back down tying and something else on, it was comical.  I felt bad that he had invested what seemed to me, a considerable amount of money and had no luck, but then again that's why they call it fishing.

That's what is great about wading out into the blue.  You have a complete circle to cast from, and if you choose a direction to walk, every 50-75 feet you have an entirely new area to fish.  It doesn't matter the type of of lure you are using this time of year, as long as it is either a Silver or Gold Spoon.  The only exceptions to this rule is when you match the hatch.  I did that over the weekend, but I timed the waters incorrectly to work it to my advantage.  The winds picked up creating a pretty bad chop, along with a steady, 5-knot, Southeast wind, which caused the bite to end at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.  It was a stellar Flounder bite from 7:30-10:00, on the fiddler crabs I caught on Saturday. I caught a dozen legal Flounder, some where over 24 inches and bent the shit out of my rod.

I Matched the Hatch, but failed to judge the tides and barometric pressure. The wind and chop churned up everything on the flats, causing all the fish to head for cover.  I was going to do the same but decided to try to my luck at the drop-off.  I had 2 more large, angry crabs and several hours until I had to be home, so I figured leaving good bait behind was bad fishing etiquette.  I'm an idiot.

I judged the current in front of me, around the drop-off,  to be running at maybe 1-2 knots, and was about 18 feet deep.  Anyone can do this with Google Earth and a topo map by the way.  Find your position, research the tidal flows, and research the current flows.  It's all  on-line and readily available.  So casting toward the 10 o'clock position and allowing the crab to free line and sink with the current, should afford me a pretty good fish and the hook-set would more than likely be directly in front of me.  With all the chop, wind, waves, grass, and muck, all I wanted to do was catch something before I left.

The drop-off is where boats and jet-ski's run, so standing against the wakes they kick up is a big pain in the ass.  Dealing with the reality that something is capable of cutting my 30 pound leader clean off, with out too much of a tug on the pole, is a whole other pain in the ass.  Thirty pound Sufix Superior has the ability to hold a piano to your roof, or you can pull a car out of a ditch with it.  What I'm saying is the stuff doesn't just break.  I had a pretty quick realization, that "Oh Shit" moment, where you are really grateful your not reeling a 30 inch Redfish, to your nearly submerged body.  Here I was again; looking around, wondering what else I was sharing my grounds with, but I really didn't care as I backed away from there.  Being so far from shore and realizing your an idiot is right up there with, well I don't know but it is one of those moments that you just wish would be over quickly.  One-thousand-three-hundred-twenty feet is a long ways to ponder the stupidity of fishing alone, at dusk, even if the cell phone is waterproof and there is reception.

Once I got into waist deep water I felt better.  I was cold though from being out of the water.  I didn't realize how bad the wind was blowing until I got out.  Trudging toward those guys on shore, I could just feel their stares and questions looming large.  I tried my best to walk around them but as I got closer I could see some of them reeling their stuff in and waving.  Waving back sealed my fate and committed me to telling at least one story.  Seeing beach contractors with all their do-dads and gadgets give me pause, but I realize not everyone is a minimalist.  Their eyes scan and bore into me looking for more paraphernalia besides a pair of hemo's, clipped to my shirt.  When they pose the inevitable questions of, :what are you using"; I point to my chest and tap my shirt pocket to make my spoons jingle.  People just don't seem grasp the idea of less is more.

After showing off my wares, showing what's under rocks around shore, and giving a small lesson about matching the hatch.  I head home before noon, cold, tired and hungry.  I learned a pretty valuable lesson about the wind, but because I didn't go to the other side of the bay, or the leeward side, I didn't really learn enough.  I would like to take my canoe or kayak out to the ledge with some steel leader to see what's hungry.  I have been drug around before by giant fish, and it's almost that time of year again!  November brings the migration of giant bull Redfish into the bays and estuaries around Tampa Bay.  This is my favorite time of year to fish, some areas will have schools of Redfish in the hundreds.  Being prepared, aware and knowledge about what is natural to the area will allow for incredible success.

Next weekend is my yearly retreat back to Cape Coral to take my nephew fishing.  I got him hooked on Bass a couple years back and he has never looked back.  I got to turn another person onto my favorite past time.  He enjoyed it so much he wrote a little book about it.  It was the coolest Christmas present  last year.