This has been a very interesting last three days at Doc's:
Picture schools of 10 to 20 fish moving fairly quickly down the beach about
100 yards with the tide, turning around and heading back up again - back
and forth for about an hour or so. Picture the rise forms to be the same as
midging trout, sometimes 10 feet off the beach and sometimes 60 feet out.
Picture the current pulling your fly when you know a dead drift is what's
needed, particularly when the salmon totally ignore a small and sparse #16
krill/amphipod tie. Picture the reward when you make a long cast, downtide,
well ahead of the approaching school, and you've timed the swing just right
when current pulls the fly into the lead fish of the school just as drag
sets in. It only worked this way twice saturday and twice today. I lost
both fish saturday and lost one and landed one today.
Here's the crazy part of it all. On friday morning, the beach was dead calm
an hour before the low slack with no fish showing anywhere until the
change. The schools showed up as if by magic. On saturday - nothing at all
until about two hours into the flood. Then they hung around until we had no
more beach for our backcasts. Today, they were in the fog one hour before
the low slack and disappeared two hours after the turn.
My theory is that they are not the same fish showing up time and again for
their euphasid meals, but rather, schools that are passing through at the
tide changes and if they find food, they stay. If not, or when they've
depleted the source, they move on.
Another thing is that they are really skittish when they are in close. If
you can reach them when they are further out, they seem more likely to
take. It may be that they feel the safety of deeper water.
Also, on friday, I was fishing a slimeline and on saturday and sunday, I
switched to a dryline and a 15' leader with a 4x tippet and the same #16
fly. The reason was that on friday, I crouched down into the water as a
school passed and I saw that they were taking the feed in the top three to
four inches of water. Since you would spook the school if you didn't cast
well ahead of their approach, the intermediate sinker was too deep when the
fish passed over the fly. The unweighted fly on a dryline was just the
ticket. I cast straight out, 50' ahead of the approaching school (you must
be uptide), and let the current swing the fly down to the fish with NO
RETRIEVE. I found that if the fly swung through the school, I had no takes.
And believe me, when I tell you that I learned this well. I had to laugh
out loud as that scene was played over and over again. It was maddening.
Anyway, I hope this helps those of you who have been doing the dance at
Doc's. I will be leaving for my first bonefish trip next friday. Maybe the
Narrows' fish will be on REAL FOOD when I return.
Leland.
