Flattery from a Fisherman

Went fishing with Jed; got a late start, my fault, he was ready.  This guy Jed is an amazing guide.  He positioned us on a channel feeding the flats; fish were coming onto the flats in singles, doubles & triples.  Tough day for fly fishing; wind was blowing 10 to 20 knots, did not get a good shot at the fish, they were moving fast.  Hadn’t fly fished in over 15 years. We probably saw 10 to 15 fish.  We moved to a small creek; on the way to the creek probably saw 5 – 10 more bone fish.  Got to the creek and Jed put me onto a school; probably 100 fish.  I was still having a tough time with my fly rod.  The bonefish were flashing.  Jed said he feels they were in a pre-spawning or spawning mode which means that feeding was not their first priority.  Wind was still blowing hard; couldn’t get a good presentation to the fish.  

When I did get a good presentation, they ignored the fly. It might have been due to the pre-spawning or spawning mode.  The fish moved up the creek and passed us.  We left & I told Jed that I didn’t want to miss any more fish so I moved to a spinning outfit.  He got some live crabs and we fished the smoke for about 20 minutes and caught about 10 fish; 2 or 3 were in the 2-3 lb range.  We moved from there to back on the flats and immediately encountered a big school of 100+ fish.  Again the fish were flashing.  First couple of presentations they ignored; had a jig with a piece of crab but we did get to the point where we hooked a number of fish in the 3.5 to 7.5 lb category.  We had lots of fun, lots of long runs, then the sharks showed up.  We landed a few more then moved on.  For the day we sighted well over 250 fish and we did all of this in less than 4 hours.  It was a great fishing day; Jed was awesome, the boat operated flawlessly.  Looking forward to the next trip. 

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