"Red skies at morning, sailors take warning". I couldn't help but think of that as I made my swing around the capitol city heading east. It would be a quick work morning before heading out to fish for a bit. I hoped to get it in before the rain/snow that was forecast for the day.
I have to say, I was more than confident. I surely would have one of those double digit outings. Great tide, good conditions, little wind, and my fingers weren't popping off. I fished hard and waited out the tide to really pull out. Little flies, medium flies, hell even a bigger fly. Nada, not even a tap. The only tap was from the bottom where I managed to hook and lose two flies. Thank goodness I was on a tear
tear this winter. I couldn't believe that I didn't catch a fish. They were there the other day in really tough and cod conditions and not today. This spot is so juicy I should have at least got a tap from a dumb fish.
So the now frosted striper tank sat empty. I talked with Leif whop suggested a Mequires product that could help clear the tank up. I'll need to get some of that and a buffer wheel and give it a shot. So after nearly three hours including when the outgoing was ripping I called it a day. As I started my drive I had to think to myself, "What the hell just happened?". With some approaching weather I thought it could be good. Coming off the Worm Moon I thought it could be good. Was it one of those barometric pressure things?
I'm no weather guy and don't know much about barometer stuff. Barometric pressure is simply atmospheric pressure. The normal mean is 29.92, with a range of 29.6-30.2. I caught this quick video
from Lander's Fishing, HERE, which breaks it down, and now it makes sense to me. It's not the number you chase, it's the direction and speed. The pressure affects the fish, higher causes them to retreat to deeper waters, lower allegedly puts them on the feed and into shallower water. So I had a good pressure yesterday of 29.88, which is falling, and should have been good. I guess when you're all jazzed up and think you have it in the bag reality sets in and confirms we don't know nothing about nothing.
So spot #2. Same dropping tide, but just less water. Bunch of guys out, heard of a few fish caught. Thought I'd throw my hat, well fly, in the ring. I tied on the below fly, forgot my glasses which is
always a hoot, and let me say, it looks funky above, but boy does it come together nicely in the water. It's really soft bucktail so it undulates very nicely. I wish it didn't look so weird but who cares. It was
basically walking the ankle sucking mud banks looking for fish set up on the ebb tide. It's definitely not a setting you will see on the cover of your favorite fly fishing destination magazine, but the fish are there.
It looks like we are settling into a normal routine spring, even though we had a very mild winter. We'll see what the weather does in the next few weeks, but it looks like it might to start to warm up by middle next week.