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Walter & Group...
[GH] I will be away for the next few days. New topic when we return.
Hopefully, this series of 3 messages in this short time won't overload your mailboxes.
Gordy
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[GH] From Jim Hund:
Dr. Hill:
Thanks for your insight. Just got back from Keys. Fished fri, sat and sun (until front hit at 11). Fished in back country north of big pine. Amazed at number of tarpon that are already around. I had my wife so we stayed in key west.
Thanks again for time and effort on this blog. It has made me realize how much i don't know and has done so in a way to make me work at becoming a better caster and instructor.
Jim Hund
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[GH] Jim,
I was fighting a tarpon alone in my skiff when that weather front struck ! Tough slogging to say the least. Lost the fish and beat my back to the dock in rough seas, rain and howling winds.
Gordy
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[GH] From Paul Arden :
Hi Gordy,
There are many messages here and I may have missed it mentioned but one thing I've found very useful for flats fishing is floating running line. This gives much greater flexibility than intermediate line which sinks and is swept under coral clumps at the most inconvenient moments.
I do a lot of quick shot fishing for lake trout in particular. But saltwater shots are often incredibly short opportunities.
Great fun!!
Cheers, Paul
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[GH] Paul,
Right you are.
For quick pickup when a second presentation is needed with no delay, you can't beat a floater !
Problem is that nervous permit will spook as floating fly line is moved on the water surface.
Learning the finesse of a smmmooooooooth pickup is casting "art" as well as application of pure physics, as you well know. Being quick as well as smooth, adds another dimension. Many anglers try to make that pickup with the rod tip so high that they have to take up slack and then snatch the line which provides such water disturbance that it spooks the fish. Hard to get them to start with the rod tip right down at the water and and the slack taken up by stripping before making the pickup move !
On an exam, Tom White would flunk a PULD done by starting with the rod tip to high and a rough pickup. I do, too. * I have always agreed with you that the PULD really should be an MCI casting task. Done properly, it can set the stage for learning smooth application of force.
When a rapid pickup is needed after a presentation to a close target, however, a skillful caster can do it well even with a full intermediate line. As the pickup distance increases, however, the floater always trumps the sinkers or even the intermediate tip lines for that move.
There are a few times when I fish permit, that I'll sacrifice my ability to make a rapid pickup and a second presentation. One example is when I have a school of fish approaching on a clean white sand flat.
The idea is to present my crab fly way in advance of the approaching permit. I place the sinking crab fly beyond the anticipated path and let it and the intermediate line sink to the bottom. Then I place my rod tip in the water and right down on the sand. As the fish approach, I take up all slack and VERY SLOWLY CRAWL the fly ... the way a real crab would move on the bottom.
With that set-up and circumstance, I'll often get a take.
One reason this works so well is that when doing this, my fly stays tight to my line hand through the rod tip/rod guide system with absolutely no slack anywhere.
This helps solve an important problem when permit fishing ..... the permit picking up the fly and dropping it in a split second with no hook-up due to even a tiny bit of slack in the system.
That bit of slack is the PRIME reason most anglers fail to get a hook-up !!!! The fish will "tip up" on the fly and then move off. The fisherman doesn't even know the permit took his fly even though he can see this happening in clear shallow water.
When I present to permit and the fly gets stuck in the long grass on the flat, as the fish approaches, I just "bump" the fly a few times. It wiggles the grass. I've had the permit nose down into the grass and with tail up actually pull my fly from the grass ! I think that movement makes the permit react because that is what a live crab might do.
I don't pretend to know what the dickens a permit is "thinking" when he reacts to a fly dropped almost right on his head.... but many times, the fish will instinctively grab it.
* PULD = Pick Up & Lay Down.
Gordy
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[GH] From Frank Harford :
Hi Gordy
Another "salt water hatch" is the cinder worm hatch in the northeast . I was only lucky enough to experience this once , but it was memorable .
Frank
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[GH] Even these cinder worms are not "hatching" in the sense that they are newborn creatures. It is a sudden appearance of mating adults. * I've fished these events at Martha's Vineyard and at Montauk.
Each year, we experience what is called "the worm hatch" in the Florida Keys, Tarpon gorge themselves on them. the fish behave "like cats in catnip". This is really the emergence of sexual gametes formed as broken off ends of the tails of the Palolo worms which live in holes in the coral. Scientists call these active "worms", epitokes. **
These "hatches" occur in many tropical ocean areas. In American Samoa, they are eaten by the people and considered a delicacy.
We tie flies to match the size, color, and shape of them for tarpon fishing during these periods.
In my opinion, Gordon Baggett (Bahia Honda Sporting Club) has developed a worm pattern which is more like the real thing than any others. He even incorporates the snell knot between the shock tippet and the hook in the head of the fly for a more natural appearance. ***
One trick is to cast in the direction from which the worms are coming and then retrieve to make the fly "swim" as the worms do.
During some worm "hatches" the tarpon get locked onto the natural worms and won't hit a fly. At other times they strike well.
**
***
Gordy
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