What he say.
Sorry Paul. Sorry Charlie. This is exactly what happened at dusk
Saturday. And it was an awesome sight indeed. Alas, Charlie, 15
minutes after you left, the monster pods moved in. Mainly out of reach;
just. But occassionally, when the back eddy formed, nice and strong
just off the beach in front of Doc's, the odd fish or two, or even a small
pod, would move in. I had 4 or 5 nice pulls and even had one bust my
fly off on the strike. These were big fish, in big groups, barely creasing
the film. In spite of the herring busting the surface right off the beach,
they kept cruising back and forth, sometimes stopping to mill about
without hardly moving at all; and then back and forth, just out of range.
A guy with a spinning rod - little wisp of curled line dangling from the
end - came walking up from the south cove, saying "you guys catching
anything; they like your flies? You should go down there. They're all
over. I hooked 6", before walking on past Doc's, south toward Pt.
Fosdick.
I have a limited tolerance for this sort of thing. I clipped off my fly,
walked back to the van, and headed home.
-Wes
Date forwarded: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 09:20:38 -0700
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date sent: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 12:19:55 EDT
Subject: Re: The Narrows
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Forwarded by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> I went up to the Narrows from Olympia on Thursday. When I got there it was
> about 5:45pm. I ate a quick sandwich for dinner, rigged up and headed down
> to the water. I saw one person in the water and the tide was coming in,
> almost full high tide. Just as the one person was leaving the water, the
> fish started to show with his back to the water. When I talked with this
> guy, he said he hadn't seen a fish in 4 hours. I didn't tell him that they
> were everywhere I could see. With the tide being as high as it was, I had
> no choice but to fish right down the hill from the parking lot. In front
> of what used to be Doc's house. I couldn't make more than a thirty foot
> cast because the tide was so high that every time I tried to extend my
> cast, I would snap off my fly on a tree or black berries or something. I
> lost 6 flies in about an hour and a half. I only caught 1 fish. It was
> the only one that I even got a bite from. I had a few other problems
> beside the short casting range.
>
> First off, I could see huge pods of fish crusing in all directions. You
> had to stop and look for a little while to notice what they were because
> their porpousing in pods looked very similar to the ripple on top of the
> water due to current. The difference was that the fish ripples where
> moving toward or sometimes away from me. I could see, at times, 4 or five
> pods of fish crusing up and down the shoreline. Some of the fish were way
> out of range, maybe 200 feet or more. These were some of the biggest pods.
> As long as it took for a pod to cruse past me, there must have been
> hundreds of fish in some of them. The pods that were closer in to shore
> seemed to be smaller. Maybe 25 to 50 fish per pod. Seeing all these fish
> had my blood pumping and I had to start casting away. Wrong move. When
> the fish are there, you know it. No need to do any casting until you see
> fish and can time your cast to hit the front of the pod. If you just start
> casting, you'll inevitably have to much line out when a pod starts to get
> close, it'll take you to long to strip in enought line to start casting,
> and the pod'll be right in front of you and spook when you cast over them.
>
>
> Next problem was the type of line I was using. I started with a full sink
> cause that's what I usually use to fish Cutthroat from a boat. That didn't
> work to well. Next I went to a clear intermediate line. This line worked
> okay but only if I started my strip as soon as the line hit the water.
> Using a sinking line means that the only mending capability you have is in
> the air before the line hits the water. With that in mind, getting the
> right presentation meant picking the right fish to cast to. I had to make
> sure that my fly got to swing right in front of the pod. The only time I
> got this right and still had a fly on the end of my leader, I caught a
> fish. I would recomend either using a floating line or a floating line
> with a clear sink tip. This way you can mend your line and get better
> presentations to fish crusing in either direction.
>
> I could not believe the numbers of fish I saw. When I got to work the next
> morning, the first thing I said was, "You have got to go up there and see
> it for yourself". Don't get discouraged if you don't have this experience.
> The guys who fish the most catch the most fish.
>
> Tom Bolender
>
Wes Neuenschwander
Seattle, WA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
