FISHY COMPETITION FOR A FLY

May 25, Lemon Bay, Florida


    My wife and I just returned from a month's vacation in Englewood, Florida, fishing Lemon Bay and the area around Gasparilla. The weather here in Maine has been cold and wet and we were really looking forward to some warm, sunny weather and some good fishing, of any kind. After taking a few days to clean up the place and get some yard work done, we headed out to Lemon Bay to try our luck.

    As usual, when we first go out we don't have a particular plan. We just relax, check out what's going on with the tides, the wind and the weather and try fishing various places, different depths and using different flies. We left the dock around 8 AM. The weather was pretty hot for May - in the low to mid 90's every day - with a Southeast to Southwest wind blowing about 10-15. We fished the first of the incoming tide in the morning, in a couple of usually good locations, but moved on after an hour or so of nothing, not even any fish moving around that we could see. Just those *(#@* mullet everywhere! After a couple of other non-productive spots, since it was getting pretty hot, we decided to take a break and take a swim in Ski Alley.

   Ski Alley is a gorgeous deep, narrow channel, about 100' wide, behind Stump Pass Beach State Park and a bunch of mangrove islands where there are plenty of sandy areas to pull into and swim. There are also some great sandbars at low tide where the locals swim, party and bring their dogs for a little beach time.
Anyway, we had seen some big snook there before, right along the park edge of the channel, just hanging out in the current and thought it might be worth a look to see if anything was happening. We moved along slowly with the trolling motor, peering into the water up near shore. Sure enough, we could see a few big fish lazily swimming, going into the current, in about 3 - 5' of water, within about 10' from shore. The tide was about 1/2 way in, but the current wasn't too quick. We were pretty excited to see them and were getting ready to toss a couple of flies in, but then my wife turned to look up off the bow and shouted, "Oh my God! Look at the fish! There's a whole highway of them up ahead!" Sure enough, the water was dark with what looked like a river of fish coming right down the pike and under the bow of the boat! There must have been hundreds, all swimming in a pretty narrow band of maybe 8' wide, swimming into the current and not in any particular hurry. Well, obviously we got out our flyrods in a hurry and began casting. We tried a white on white Clouser and a black/white Clouser and got a few fish to follow, but no takes. They would follow the fly, make a rush at it, take a good look at it and then turn away. So, maybe something else? Was this frustrating or what? The fish kept coming, although they were starting to decrease in numbers, but still plenty of them left and BIG! They ranged in size all the way up to what looked like about 3-4'!

    I changed my fly to a grey Glass Minnow, size 4. Once again, follows but no takes. However, all of a sudden I had 3 fish rush the fly at once. They had followed the fly a long way until they were only about 15' from the boat and the leader was practically in the tiptop. "Come on, come on", I thought, "someone take it!" Then, strip, strike!, and the fight was on. The fish put on a strong first run, heading right for the mangroves and a fallen tree. I had all I could do with my 8 weight rod to keep him out of that mess, and the fish actually towed the boat in towards shore. He put up a good fight, but after a few minutes we netted the fish and released him back, none the worse for wear. It was a beautiful, heavy, healthy fish, about 9 or 10 lbs. and measuring 30". Gorgeous. What a thrill! Well, you better believe we checked this area out several more times but never saw anything like that again.

    The lesson here is an interesting one, and that is to be persistent and patient and have confidence in your fly. Sometimes we spend too much precious time changing the fly when the fish don't seem interested in what we have to offer. The fish can disappear just as fast as they appear and the chance could be a fleeting one. Just because there are a lot of fish around doesn't mean the fishing will be easy. Most of the fish were interested in our flies, but just weren't taking anything, and maybe no fly would have worked any better than what we had on offer. I think the reason I finally got hooked up is that the game became interesting for them when there was competition for the fly among the three fish, and probably the fly itself was somewhat irrelevant. They were just afraid of losing dinner to their buddies. So sometimes sticking with what you've got is better than wasting a lot of time diddling around with your tackle!

Tight lines!

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