Tuesday, September 3, 2013

A couple firsts

The last couple trips for me have been landmark trips, for both me and the wife. This particular friday mid-morning trip to the salt started off a bit slooooow. There were plenty of fish being seen on the flats, but none were wiling to play with our offerings. I had told the wife to work this dock while I tried a nearby rock point. I was on my third cast when I heard behind me, "Honey I got a nice one, " it's really pulling. I paddled over to find out that she had pulled up a purdy pup aka. redfish. This was her first redfish ever, and also her PB fish from the yak. She was really excited  to finally catch something other than a croaker or spot.
Soon after the wife's release of her red, I slowly creeped back to the spot where she had fished to see if there were any others around that wanted to play. I soon  heard a, NO SIR MISTER, GET OUT OF MY SPOT!!! I turned, and looked at the misses, smiled, and said sorry, thats just the fisherman in me LOL. Needless to say there were no more to be had at that spot. I decided to work the nearby grass flat near the channel edge, and that seemed to be where they were holding. The surface of the water was hectic with baitfish and the reds weren't far behind them. I was working weedless 4/O 1/8th ounce jig heads paired with Saltwater assassin  paddle tails.



The following day me and the wife had volunteered to work a Heroes on the Water event in Smithfield. I have been doing some video work for HOW, and had recently completed a video project for them from past outings http://vimeo.com/72968462 so this time I volunteered to shoot some pictures for them, to showcase the days events. In the mean time while waiting for the vet to show up, we had some free time to kill, so what better way to spend it then fishing. Tom Vanderheiden the HOW chapter director brought along his fly rod and was doing a little bream fishing. I purchased a fly rod back in january myself but had yet to catch a fish with one yet, partly because I snapped the rod during rigging one day due to a nasty high stick LOL. Anyway after observing Tom catch a couple bream, I asked him if he'd mind if I gave it a whirl. My first couple cast yielded a snag in the surrounding brush, and a few ugly cast. I soon got the hang of it (sorta) and began to work a small trout fly near some underwater brush. I could see the little guys interest in the fly soon as it hit the water. A few short twitches later BOOM, fish on, a palm size bream. these little guys were small, but fun on the fly. This was my first ever fish on the fly and hopefully not my last.The rest of the day yielded a few more bream and time well spent with a wonderful organization like HOW