The term “Marsh Madness” is just about worn out, so this is just a note to say I am headed to the marsh and will soon be “Marsh Mellow”. Hopefully I will have some fish pics to post soon.
The fish will be small and spooky so I’m taking my light landing, deer hair imitation of the bait and spin favorite, the H&H Cocahoe Minnow. Other flies I intend to use will be spoons and Black “Lefleur” style Charlies.
Postscript!
Well it was a very tough day, overcast and the wind was 20-25. Had very few shots but I did manage the fish in the photo below, held by our guide. I sight casted him at about 30 feet directly in front of the boat. There was no sun of course, but I was lucky enough to see the fish’s dark shape move as he turned. The boat was moving toward him and I had little time so I threw a saltwater quick cast, shot line into my backcast once and again on the forward cast. The spoon fly landed about six inches in front of his nose. He co-operated by following the spoon to within about twenty feet of the boat and then flared his gills. Love it! About twenty more like that would have been fine with me.
By the way, I took the photo from the casting platform by shoving the rod in the holder which allowed me to have two hands to grab my phone and take the pic. The SS is about catching fish, but the conveniences of it shouldn’t be ignored.
The spoon fly was an just an old one of mine, not pretty, and somewhat beat up from previous fish. In grass a spoon fly is hard to beat because it is more weedless and the best thing is, in the heat of battle if you get grass on the fly you can give it a hard stop back cast and usually the comes grass off, allowing you to make another cast. Soft body flies just won’t do that.
I also took the photo below of my buddy’s feet on the casting platform. I heard him mutter at least once something about “should have brought my stripping bucket”. On a super windy day you can’t just throw your line down on a casting mat because the wind will blow it back. A fly fisher on the casting platform needs some help from his buddy to even get it in the fingers of the mat because it won’t just drop onto the deck in the wind. Even when the line is in the mat the wind is going to play havoc with it. No such issues with a stripping bucket.
Although I am building new buckets all the time, I still use my old original bucket just to see how much use I can get out of it. The old bucket, the one on the right, has been around for a couple of years and shows the use.
"Samurai" Fly Shop 