then yesterday, i got my first chance to fish the salt in 2014 and a
tougher day i could not have chosen. the
weather was okay. it bombed rain all around us but only drizzled for a little
while where we were. when we got out the
tide was not good for the area we fished and the wind blew from the north
almost the entire time (never a good thing around here). the upside, which i really liked, was that we
had the entire joint to ourselves. i’ll
take poor fishing and solitude on the water over epic fishing with everybody
and their grandmother any day.
i decided
to open the 2014 bonefishing year with the sage
691-4 method and abel
classic hoping that the hot rod would break the the fish losing streak i
ended 2013 on. i had lost the last seven
bones i have hooked. as with all slumps,
sh_t like that happens in our game and you just gotta fish through’em. looking out on the barren flat before me, i
thought i may not even get to the point of losing a fish today because you
can’t lose them if you don’t hook them first.
it would be difficult at best, but the fish gods work in mysterious
ways.
i played
the hand i was dealt, fished hard, and finally got bit. the bone did it’s bone thing and ran. i stopped it and gained some line before
it ran again. then the line went
limp. crap.
a few
more hours of fishing hard with nothing before i hook a small whitey
(trevally). the little guy fought well
on the six weight doing its broadside dogging thang. i got the best of it and was about to land
it happily thinking that at least i would have a picture to show for
this day. while digging for my camera
the fish wrapped itself around my wading staff.
i looked down and saw that it was barely hooked the instant before it
gave a shake and came free. i watched
the fish (and my picture) cruise happily off the flat into the deep.
more
fruitless fishing before i hooked a larger whitey. this one spared me the suspense, bolted into
the deep and parted company a few head shakes later. the streak was now
up to eight bones and two trevally.
what's going on?!? lost in all of this fish losing business was the mere
presence of trevally in january. not a
common thing for this largely summertime fish.
later in the day i did manage to end the fish
losing streak. i caught the next whitey
that bit and a few small rats. a bit of
an anticlimactic ending to this fish story, i know, but that’s how slumps end. you don’t catch or you lose fish seemingly
over and over and then, for no reason, you catch... until the next slump. i’ll see you on the water.