Trip report: Florida -- "This is fishing"

[Miles]

Sometimes when no customers are in the Orvis shop, we turn up the sound on the videos that are constantly playing. One of the videos is about a guy named Itu, who is learning to be a bonefish guide, and at one point after a frustrating day of no fish, the instructor says Itu needs to learn that 'this is fishing'.

So on Monday when I was knee deep in the surf at Canaveral National Seashore, punching a 7 wt. 11' switch rod into 15 kt. onshore winds, I kept saying to myself, 'this is fishing', even though it was really kind of miserable and pointless. Not a single bite.

I spent four days in Florida, ostensibly visiting family, and managed to fish three of those days. On Tuesday, day 2, I took my dad to the Saint Sebastian River and had him paddle me around in his canoe while I pounded the mangroves with a Helios 909. I got three snook -- my first snook ever -- one catfish, and struck but did not hook what I guess was a 20 lb. tarpon at least (could have been 50, 100, 500 -- who can really say?). The picture is of one of my smaller snook -- the largest was 15-18 inches.

We paddled downriver against a headwind, and told ourselves it would be a tailwind on the way back, but instead the wind shifted 180 degrees and we had a headwind coming back, too. We got back to the launch about thirty minutes before a heavy thunderstorm rolled through. I was expecting more of an epic day, but told myself 'this is fishing'.

On day three, I went to visit cousins on the west coast of Florida. We went to Honeymoon Island for a few hours and fished into the surf. Once again, a headwind -- this time only 8 kts or so, and the switch rod was doing reasonably well. I caught a ladyfish on my third cast -- my first fish on the switch rod and my first fly-caught fish in the surf. Then some yokel swam out to right where I was casting, and I had to wander looking for a yokel-less place to catch.

Around 5pm, I started noticing a lot of bird activity in the place where I had started fishing (before the yokel), so I walked back down and waded out. I was standing in a field of limestone rubble, about knee to thigh deep, and all around my legs a school of glass minnows was stacked up in the rocks. I could see ladyfish streaking in from deeper water to eat the minnows, so I tied on a smallish bait pattern and cast directly out. Every cast from that spot got a strike, and in the next thirty minutes or so I landed three ladyfish and jumped about a half dozen more, plus caught a large pinfish. It was, for a change, just about epic fishing.

And then my nonfishing companion decided it was time to go. I begged for time to catch one more fish, which ended up being on the small side, plus it was foul hooked, but it counted so we had to leave. Oh well -- that was fishing. The photograph is of that last fish.

Miles

[Vic Velasco]

Awesome!!!  Nice work!  Can you let us in on what flies you used (and what type of line)?  

[Miles]

Floating line all around, although at one point on Wednesday I was using a clear intermediate polyleader. It didn't turn over well enough into the wind, so I just went with a 20 lb. Orvis AR leader that worked a lot better.

I'm attaching a picture of the main flies I used -- left column is as tied, right column after fishing. The bottom fly is called a Deer Hair Deceiver -- it's basically a Deceiver, except with a spun deer hair head instead of a bucktail collar. It pushes more water and has a bit more action than a regular Deceiver; usually chartreuse is the best color for me, but this time I fished mostly with the mullet grey. I think one snook and a couple of the ladyfish were on the DHDs. Umpqua sells a pattern called the Olson Slider; back before the Internet, I met Olson, he described his fly to me -- "it's basically a deer hair deceiver" -- and this is what I tied from his description. Mine ended up a slightly different from Olson's, and I still tie it the same as I did back then.

The other four flies are something I've been playing around with -- basically a bulked-up Clouser Minnow. There's a full dress version with chenille and  hackles and so on, but for these I just tied in some ice dub or laser dub to add heft to the body and head. The idea is the same as the DHD -- push a little more water than the original, give it a little more bulk for turbid or stained water. It seems to work: most of the ladyfish, a couple of the snook, the cat, and the tarpon were hooked on one or the other of these flies, especially the chartreuse and white that lost most of its dubbing -- what I get for not bothering to whip finish. Since these are mostly Clousers, I added a couple letters from my last name to rebrand it the Clownser Minnow.

All of the pictured flies were tied on Gamakatsu #4 Stinger hooks, which turns out to not be a saltwater hook. Not sure why I thought it was, but all of the unused flies are going into my bass box for freshwater. I'll have to tie some new ones on proper saltwater hooks.

I also fished some poppers, spoon flies, and a regular Clouser (on Monday) that didn't get any bites. I think any number of small bait patterns would have worked on the ladyfish -- Clownsers were just what I had handy.

If you want more detailed instructions on tying these patterns, I should be at the Beer Tie on Monday. Or shoot me an email.

Miles