Saturday, April 3, 2010

The Old Man and the Sea


The folks came for a visit this past week. It was the first time I'd seen them in 7 months. We spent the week enjoying each other's company, relaxing on a few beaches, touring the island, and eating some good food. It was also my father's first opportunity to fly fish in salt water.
He doesn't hit the water was much as he would like, and his technique was a little rusty. After a few minutes, muscle memory took over and he was laying them out there.

We fished at a few of the spots that I've known to hold bonefish and tarpon. As per the usual lately, we didn't land any of those. To say the fishing has been slow over the past few months would be a huge understatement. Hence the lack of saltwater blog posts since about January.

Regardless, it is great to get out there and take advantage of one of the opportunities that living here provides; fly fishing.

We worked the front yard on the first day. The swell was up and the baitball had moved elsewhere, taking the tarpon with it. We didn't catch anything.

The next day, we hit up a nearby turtle grass flat. Save for a shark, we saw surprisingly little cruising the skinny water. As we worked the drop-off, I landed two very small yellow-tail snappers. From a distance, my dad landed what looked like another yellow-tail. I caught his patented landing technique in a photo.

Finally, we moved near the edge of a marina. Walking towards the water, we noticed a white form below the surface that looked like a whale. It was the hull of a capsized and sunken mono-hull sailboat. On the shore, half buried in the shifting sands, was a rusted and decaying tugboat. In between the two decrepit vessels was a shoal of tiny baitfish. Blue Runners harassed them from all angles as my dad laid perfect cast after perfect cast into the roiling ball of bait. No takes. wtf.

The tug had seen better days.

Sunken hull just off shore.

I caught this weird one near the old tug boat. Here it is, next to some sand grains for a sense of scale.
Neon Highlights

Although we didn't even see a bonefish or hook up with a tarpon, it was great spending time with my parents and walking the flats with my dad.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice report. The tugboat shot is lovely. I also really like the carp in the header. Thanks.

Matt said...

Thanks! The tug has some nice holding water around it.