One More Shot

I was staring at the water, trying with all my power to make a tarpon appear.  There was a breeze, but it was not offensive to our casting; it did however compromise our visibility.  Our guide had us positioned so that the wind came from the stern and our shots would be anywhere from 9 to 2 o'clock.  The chop and afternoon glare made spotting fish tough, but we did our best, often seeing the fish a little later than we would've liked.  It was getting late in the day and though no one had said it aloud, our time was getting short.  "One more shot," I thought to myself over and over, even after I missed one.  "Just give me one more shot."

 

It was Saturday, May 24th, the afternoon of my fifth straight day of tarpon fishing.  The month had been very difficult for fly anglers in the Keys.  A group of two anglers from work had been skunked two weeks prior, and another angler from work had been blanked the week after that.  It had been blowing like hell for most of the month, but had layed down the past few days.  Finding fish or getting shots weren't the problems; making the fish eat was.  I was with three other anglers, all talented and our stats for the week were miniscule:  seven eats between four anglers in five fishing days.  Ouch. 

 

Finally the dreaded order from the stern came:  "OK, let's reel it in."  I began false casting to clear the line, all the while looking around for one more shot.  I began to accept the fact that I had been skunked after five days of fishing and that I wouldn't have another shot at a tarpon for nearly a year.  I looked at the water, the sky and the mangroves and tried to soak as much of it in as quickly as possible.  The boat was quiet as we all processed another fishless day and began preparing to run back to the boat launch.  Then at 100 or so feet a tarpon rolled.  We all swung our heads and stared.  We saw fins, many of them.  "Hold on, get ready!" the guide yelled as he got back on the poling platform and began pushing us toward the fish.

 

At first it looked like they were cruising at us, but as we got closer we saw the school was somewhat chaotic, not cruising nor chained up.  We watched.  In a matter of seconds the school gained order and began daisy chaining.  There were around 20 of them, all following each other, around and around the went.  They were swimming clockwise so my first shot was on the right side of the chain.  No response.  Same cast, same result.  I was then instructed to cast inside the chain, laying only my leader over the fish going right-to-left in front of me, targeting the fish coming at me on the right side of the chain.  One cast, no response.  What happened next occurred over perhaps a few seconds, if that.

 

I put a cast down inside the chain, the fly landing just to the left of the fish on the right side of the chain.  I began pulling the fly away from them.  One fish then broke away from the chain and made a move on the fly.  It came up from below, and I looked down the mighty fish's throat as it opened wide to engulf my fly.  This happened twenty five feet in front of me.  I stripped to set the hook and stung the fish but the hook did not sink.  In hindsight, I certainly set too soon, pulling the fly out of the fish's mouth.  The fish was stung though and blew up instantly.  The rest of the school did the same.  I watched as the school fled and the water settled.  I then turned around to look at my boat mates.  We were all smiling in disbelief.  "Did that just happen?" I asked.  "I think so," one said. 

Miramichi Mustache Ride

We did not hook a fish.

Boom, that's done and out of the way....now the story of an epic fishing trip.

It all started this spring as Wilkie befriended a kind chap on one of Maine famous western rivers.

This kind chap and Wilkie have become good friend, and he mentioned a place on the Miramichi that he had, a fishing camp if you will. (I am sure our friend will be reading this and want to thank him too !)

Wilkie and I went to investigate this camp and see what this famous river held.

290 Miles through north eastern Maine and New Burnswick .

A few pit stops

We arrived with our first glance at the Miramichi and shortly to the Cartright's Cabin

This was the kind of camp that people dream about, awesome location, the perfect ambiance......let me show you.

1. The very fist thing I saw as we walked up the drive

2. Light switch

3. Awesome fishing signs......check

So we did what any of you would do, we fished hard.

Then we relaxed and had a cirbbage game with our host. 4:30 Martini's on the deck.

We fished it boys, every tide, early morning, late at night and had no fish. Stopped at a cool fly shop in Doaktown, NB called W.W Doak, so we thought we had the right flies. We fished about 2 miles of river as well as any solidhookups member does and nothing. It was nice to see the guys around us not catching any either. And by the way... there were some "guys around us"

32 other fisherman in this shot.

Low water and warm water temps were the issue. We did see some huge fish rolling and jumping as they made their way up stream but other than a few chubs and a 14" schoolie striper I landed Sunday morning, it was a skunk.

It was a great trip, I would do it again with anyone of you. Next time we will head up a little earlier on in the year. Thank you again to our kind 87 year old host Bob, a one of a kind man. Thank you

Does anyone...

...have the phone number for coastal cutthroat trout? I can't seem to find them around their usual haunts.

Voicemail:

"Young Mr. Robbins, this is Mr. Mitton calling. Next time you fill out a fishing guide's application, where it says, on line 17A-212, 'Have you ever been skunked,' make sure you answer it properly."

the lead fish above is probably pushing 6'. had this view more than once.

How was the fishing?

And when I walked into that bar at a quarter past midnight to meet a collection of friends who had been at it since brunch, the tones of their conversations revealing their drunkenness, they asked me, "How was the fishing?"

How do you explain an eight hour drive straight into the eye of a lake-effect storm to stand knee deep in winter water for ten hours a day while the temperature never reaches 20 degrees and the constant snow makes sure that as long as you're cold, you might as well be wet too, and you watch that indicator and that fly line float across the river all day, never going upstream or downstream or across following a fish, and you curse the weather, curse the fiftieth and fifty-first time you break the ice out of your guides and you don't talk to your best friends for hours at a time and you watch a man with one arm hook five fish in front of you and your waders are leaking but you guess it doesn't matter much because both of your feet are numb anyway and you're sure that this drift is the one and you're staring at that indicator, sending all of your power to make it stop floating downstream and tick once or twice or go under water or do something besides float and the best part of your day was when you woke up in the middle of the night and you knew you didn't have to get up yet and the only word you can think of to describe the situation is 'beatdown' and you wonder how it is that you thought you were a pretty good angler and the only time you crack a smile is when you laugh at yourself or when you watch your buddy curse after unsuccessfully un-hanging another rig and have to break it off only knowing that it'll take fifteen minutes of using his tired, frozen fingers to tie three knots and pinch on some split shot and you curse the river and the snow and when you get back to that cabin and it takes an hour for your feet to finally feel normal again you laugh and hand your friends another beer and then on the last leg of your eight hour drive home you smile because you know you'd do it all over again?

How was the fishing? How was the fishing? I'm not even sure that I know myself.