# Flyin' Flounder - Inshore 4/13/08



## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

With the late afternoon sun beating down on my neck, and my right shoulder aching like I’d just pitched a nine inning shutout







, I couldn’t help but take pride in what I’d accomplished while still lamenting what I hadn’t yet achieved







. I also gave thanks that my tiller and fly-casting arms were not one and the same, as my left arm also gave a twinge of protest when the Gheenoe raced around a particularly sharp bend that would lead me back to the ICW and home.









It was after 6PM when I finally fired up the old Mercury and began to work my way out of the winding creeks.







It was hard to believe that over eleven hours had drifted by,







while I was preoccupied with false casts, tight loops, hauling and stripping. That’s not to say I didn’t break out the spinning gear when it became absolutely necessary.









My first stop that morning had been at a spot I knew would produce during the tide transition from incoming back to outgoing,







so I setup in such a way that I thought would compensate for the shorter casts I’d be making with the long rod. Despite all the practice, I knew my best fly casts would only cover a bit more than half the distance of my regular rod and reel







. Tying on one of my own creations







, I made a few casts downwind and I actually got a strike within ten minutes or so







. After that, a grueling hour went by without another hit, despite changing flies a couple times. It was tough work, given the windy, rainy, overcast conditions. Fan casting with a fly rod wasn’t proving to be the most effective fish finding method.

















Eventually, I got annoyed because I knew there had to be fish there, and I broke out a spinning rod with a penny Gulp shrimp.  







I am not joking when I say my first cast with the Gulp produced an 18” trout.







 Nor am I kidding when I mention that my second Gulp cast came back with a 19” red attached.







 My third cast came back empty, but four, five and six gave me a couple more trout and another red.  







Obviously, the fly rod wasn’t cutting it, mostly likely due to operator error.

















































Another uneventful half hour passed, before my lure got hit hard by what I thought was a red, but it came unstuck.  







Casting back two or three more times was enough to get whatever it was to strike again, and what a fun battle that turned out to be.  







I was thinking big redfish the whole fight, until I finally got it close enough to get a glimpse. I definitely laughed out loud when I saw it was a really good sized jack.

















After releasing the fish, I got another strike almost immediately and it turned out to be a smaller version of the same species.  







Thinking there might be a school of them around, I grabbed the fly rod again and gave it a try…nothing, not even a nibble.

















Once I’d released the second jack, the bite seemed to dry up, so I began trolling and drifting my way to and through a few more locations I thought might hold fish. As I progressed I alternated between rods, choosing the fly rod when I had room to cast and the spinning gear when I didn’t.

There was very little action over the next couple of hours.  







It rained a few times and it was so dark that I had a hard time sighting fish, but I had one or two missed strikes on both rods while blind casting.  







Then around noon the clouds thinned a bit, the sky brightened enough that I could use my glasses and another couple of trout got the afternoon started off right.

















Dropping anchor in a spot where I planned to have lunch, I tossed out a Gulp shrimp with the intention of dead sticking it in the rod holder while I ate. However, before I could even put the rod down, I felt that never-familiar-enough yank and hauled in another red, along with a big wad of roots that he’d gotten himself wrapped up in.

















Forgoing lunch for the moment, I retied and re-casted, which quickly rewarded me with another little red.  







Then I went for the fly rod, hoping there were others hanging about.









It took me roughly twenty minutes trying varying retrieves before I finally got a strike on a bonefish slider. Whatever it was, it felt like dead weight and didn’t stay hooked up.  







I checked the fly and tried again. A few casts later and I felt a resounding thump on the line. This time I actually had a fight on my hands!  







Not wanting to risk loosing it, I stripped it in and again laughed aloud when I saw a good-sized flounder on the end of my line.







 

















My first saltwater fish on fly, and it was a flattie!  







Certainly not what I’d expected to catch, but then a lot of people say I have a knack for finding flounder, so I suppose it was fitting.  







Unlike any of the other fish I’d caught, the flounder got an honorary spot in the cooler and would later be invited to a celebratory feast.









Once I was certain there were no more fish willing to play tug-of-war with me, I had lunch and watched as a hint of blue grew steadily on the northern horizon, until the tail end of the passing weather front finally passed by.







 My new Frogg Toggs, which had kept me warm and dry all day, quickly heated up in the bright sun and had to be stowed away for my next rainy fishing trip.









So, now that the sun was out, I was thinking about sighting reds and getting one on fly. I figured if I could see them, I wouldn’t have to wear myself out blind casting. However, that was easier said than done, although I did catch a couple more puny trout.







Without going into detail on every redfish sighting, I’ll just say that I couldn’t put it together today. I saw a lot of them. A few times they saw me first, but not usually. I made some good casts and even had two on the line with the fly rod, plus two on a Gulp jerk shad, but somehow each time I managed to botch what should have been a no-brainer.







After I lost that fourth one, I was so wound up that I could feel my heart pounding and my legs shaking. It was time to call it quits. I’d done what I set out to do, and that was to catch a saltwater fish on fly.







Everything else was just icing…

Tally for the day;
8 Trout – 9” to 18”
5 Redfish – 17” to 19”
1 Flounder – 18”
2 Jacks – Didn’t measure

Check out this little hawk that was hanging around for awhile. I thought it was a neat shot with the moon in the background…


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## St._Sophie_Girl (Dec 13, 2006)

Wow!!!  Awesome day!!!


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## phishphood (Dec 15, 2006)

Dang, I knew I should have been fishing. I played golf through all that weather.

Nice pictures and fish too. I need to find some of those flatties down this way.


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## tojo (Dec 12, 2006)

Dang good job...its just like fishin with Jason...only with fish 

What areas do you fish regularly???


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## tom_in_orl (Dec 9, 2006)

Great day on the water. Enjoyed reading it.


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## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

> Wow!!!    Awesome day!!!


Thanks!  



> Dang, I knew I should have been fishing. I played golf through all that weather. Nice pictures and fish too. I need to find some of those flatties down this way.


Golf?  :-?  ;D Thanks for the kind words.   Flounder have been a lot tougher to find this year. I think the redtide that came through late last year hit them much harder than some of the other species.



> Dang good job...its just like fishin with Jason...only with fish  What areas do you fish regularly???


Bwaaahahahaaaa.... ;D My Noe sits on a lift in Palm Coast, so that's where I fish. I may trailer it down your way this summer though...



> Great day on the water. Enjoyed reading it.


Thanks man...glad you liked it.


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## phishphood (Dec 15, 2006)

> Dang good job...its just like fishin with Jason...only with fish


It's on now. Can you say photoshop time?


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## deerfly (Mar 10, 2007)

cool report, I love seeing guys slug it out with the weather. If I had paid heed to the NOAA reports all the time I would have missed out on some of the best trips. Fish gotta eat whether we're comfy or not. 

Congrats on the flattie too, especially on the fly.  

Also, if you want to get some of those jacks on a fly get or build yourself a few bright colored poppers, white, yellow or chartruse, etc. #1 - 2/0 hook, 1/2" to 3/4" face. 4-6 saddle hackle tail with a little flash of some kind too, palmer a hackle or two where the body meets the tail. Work them loud and pretty fast, blurp blurp, 1/2 sec pause, blurp blurp 1/2 sec pause, etc. If they hit and miss keep it moving, after you piss them off enough one will smash it. The little 3-5lb'rs are an absolute blast on 6-8wt outfits, much bigger and they become real work though.  Saved many a slow day for me, but I would fish for them all day if I could find enough concentrations of them. Aside from bonito and tuna they're some of the toughest fighting fish around.


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