06.11.25 MV Day 6

     For a day that we had pretty much wrote off due to the weather it turned out to be pretty dam good. We took a slow roll west and headed back to my happy place. The day called for wind, fog, and heavy rains, it was just a matter of when and where it would all hit. 

 

     I was like the third wheel with the two buds in the front, and they are buds. At one point yesterday I was on the other side of the pond and could hear their excitement as a fish passed by. Theirs is a deep friendship that goes back decades. As hey talked I opened a fly box that was in the rear seat and became really intrigued by what I saw. I'm not a Flatwing guy, but should I be? 

     The title of today's post should be ,"Be like the Joe's", well rather "Fish like the Joe's". Why? Because they just get it done. No running, no panic, just stand there and fish, well Flatwing Joe may move from time to time, but you know Big Joe, stand and deliver. 

     And where was I for all of this? Well no matter how hard I tried to stand still and just cast I couldn't do it. Well I could have but started off the day a little sideways. Joe C. had shared a nice Clouser he had tied up and I figured if he said this would work then I'm in. I walked out into the just start of the dropping tide higher water and gave it a go. On my third cast I saw the fish flash and I went tight. I was thrilled, and then I was off. Broke off a beast? No. Rubbed on the rocks.? No. Chaffed leader? No. It was a bad knot at the fly that I had hurriedly tied to get the day going. Very The Average Amateur Angler. 

     I swung around the pond to check out a flat that has a sandy bottom and it easier to spot fish. While this wasn't the sight fishing day, and again we were lucky to get anything in, I was still determined to find that shallow cruiser to chuck a fly at. There was a mix of sand, sod banks, and deeper water to look around but I didn't find any life. 

     I swung back around, of course, and fished near the guys, blind casting into the foggy air, but it was killing me. I heard the boys talking about calling it a morning and I was relieved because I was done. Just as we got in Flatwing Joe's truck the heavens opened up and the day was done, maybe. 

    While the two professional fly tyers brought just about everything with them there was still a few items they needed to help match the hatch. We stopped by Coop's and looked for some 

small hooks and extra tiny lead eyes, hopefully I'd get another donated fly and tie it on properly the next time we were out. Coop didn't disappoint with a few stories, one great one about Bobby, and some thoughts, predictions, and insight on maybe where and when to fish. 

      By the time we got home the heavens had poured about a million gallons of water down from the sky. We were developing a plan of going to a local tavern that was having trivia night but got the word Up-Island that the weather was clearing up. Hey, we were here to fish, aren't that smart to win at trivia, so we decided to fish. While the rain formed a moat around the house inside Joe 

and I sat down untied up some flies for the evening. After that it was a quick snooze because, I have to be honest, I'm relatively beat up from spending the last six days in waders walking around and thought the waters I'm fishing. It's been late nights and early mornings.

     Before we left Joe gave me a copy of his book, Colors In The Current, and I look forward to spending some time learning amount a new method in tying flies. These flutings are really a thing of beauty when you hold one and flip through the feathers.

    As I write this this morning I'm going back between a great conversation with the two Joe's and Abe who stopped by and stayed overnight. So, all the details of the evening will be short and sweet. We went. We fished. Joe didn't move. And we caught. 

     It was another shad fest but before that there were bass in front of us and Big Joe didn't let the opportunity got to waste. It was really nice as there was no rain, a little N wind, and lots of life, bait and predator fish in front of us. 

     By 10 pm I had spent the day bassless with only a dozen shad to my credit and a good fish lost on a bad knot early in the day. I switched up my offerings to a combination of a tiny sand eel fly followed by an even tinier one off the back. I was glad to have finally landed a bass for the day. Today things look real good and it could be a banner day, a day of a million steps, hours on the rungs of the ladder, and not a day of million casts of course. Today is s sight fishing day.