My friend Phil & I had the good fortune of fly fishing a couple days at Boca Grande over the Memorial Day holiday. We had a new moon both nights and found quite a few fish on each day’s incoming tides. The wind was a little fickle in that it was from the southeast on Monday and southwest on Tuesday.
We found most of the fish near the Boca Grande pass. Fish approached from both directions toward the Pass. Phil was the first up to fish. He was the host of the trip after all. His fly of choice was the Chartreuse Toad. His Toad was tied on a 3/0 Gamakatsu SC 15 hook. Phil and I met Andy Mill at a Backcountry Flyfishing Association special event in 2007. Wow. He gave us each a fly to model future models against.
Phil did a great job with his Toad imitation. On the second cast he placed a fly so perfectly that the lone approaching Tarpon only had to open her mouth to eat. No other movement was required. Just like that he was hooked up; and just that fast the fish lunged away and broke the class tippet. I think he put just a little too much pressure on the fish as the drove the hook home.
Both of us cast at pod after pod the rest of the day. No more takers. We saw 3 other fly anglers hook up in sight of our skiff. The tarpon were hungry. I can only surmise that the other casts were not as perfect. I think that the Phil’s hook up was of a fish high in the water column. Most of the other fish were lower in the water.
We did take notice of this as we cast at the pods of Tarpon. I always bring along fly-tying sissors and was continually trimming the fly to get it into the zone. We had the fly close many times; none were rejected and we had no more hookups.
Tuesday gave us a strong off shore wind. It made fishing the beach tough. It was my turn to mess up. I hope the video shows you what we found. We were in the middle of 50 to 100 daisy chaining Tarpon. Phil started the video recording after I messed up my Tarpon moment by pulling the fly out of a fish’s mouth with only a chaffed leader and bath tub swirl as consolation prize. The toad strikes again; this time in Black and Purple. See you there later this summer, bring along a Toad or two.
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