Recently in Fishing Report Category

Anyone who thinks a guide can be expected to post accurate blog entries while competing with another guide for business is probably not familiar with Ed Zern's wonderful observation: "Fishermen are born honest, but they get over it." Still, it's a step up from word-of-mouth. Adam Edwards describes the blogging efforts of two River Tay keepers, Jock Monteith and Bob White, in the U.K. Telegraph. "The spin-off from this electronic competition between the two men has given those anoraks who eat, drink and sleep fly-fishing unique access, wherever they are in the world, to two short stretches of the Tay. In the past the reputation of a particular beat came from the log books and the stories that were handed down. Neither was always as accurate as it might have been."

You can find Monteith's blog here, and White's here.

If you are lucky enough to live in Michigan and can afford an extra tank of gas and an Ontario fishing license, extraordinary fishing for Atlantic salmon awaits on the St. Mary's River, which forms the border between Michigan and Canada. "'I think this year we'll be targeting Atlantics right into August, when the Chinooks arrive,' said [guide John] Giuliani, who draws clients from Europe as well as from across North America. 'They're really fat this year. The 2-year-olds are 5-10 pounds, the 3-year olds are 13-20, and we've seen 4- or 5-year-old fish that were just huge.'" Eric Sharp in the Detroit Free Press.

If more fishing reports were written like this, I think I'd actually start reading them. Rob Conery's report for Cape Cod is one of the most entertaining I've ever read. Never mind the "free boat" essay and the two-year tuna, the credits will tell you everything about the veracity of the information. "Information for this column was assembled from a variety of liars, exaggerators, mis-informants, ne'er-do-wells and roustabouts. In other words, from fishermen." In the Cape Code Times.

Last week I fished with the folks from H2O Bonefishing, who operate out of Pelican Bay Hotel in Lucaya, Grand Bahama. I was there on the invitation of Orvis, who wanted to gather "pros" and amateur anglers together to assist in the tagging and fin-clipping of bonefish for Tarpon & Bonefish Unlimited. BTU, if you didn't know, has made great strides in the past ten years in determining the spawning habits, range and species differentiation among bonefish (not to mention gathering extensive data on tarpon as well). This was Orvis's first foray into saltwater research, and during the week dozens of fish were tagged or fin-clipped so that BTU could add the fish of that area to their ever-expanding database.

I fished only two days -- just enough to stretch the line on some very nice fish and remind myself that not all bonefish want a fly stripped cautiously. In fact the fish on the northern flats of Grand Bahama chased the flies we were throwing -- mostly weighted size-4 "McKnife" patterns with toad-like yarn bodies, red eyes, orange crystal hair tails and chartreuse thread -- like barracudas.

Read more in the extended entry ...

Already, at 7AM on Wednesday, the wind was blowing over 20 knots out of the east. We drove to an oceanside flat where fish being drawn in to several channel mouths might move our way. In the low early light, all we could do to be effective was drive the pushpole in and wait. Glenn had a few shots at passing fish, then at about 8:30 a pod of happy tarpon appeared to our left, out near some crab pots. I pulled the stake and we were able to get one shot before the wind -- now 25 knots -- made pursuit impossible. Fortunately one fish ate the fly as it was being stripped back through the school, reminding me that the wind might work in our favor on a day like today. As we turned the boat, another pod of fish was coming up inside of us and we jumped a fish out of that school as well. Soon more big blobs of fish appeared far down the flat. They were deep purple-brown in the morning sun and were moving very slowly.

When the wind is gusting over 25 knots, the best a poler can do is to keep the boat in position and keep it out of the fish as the caster does what they can with the casting direction. In this case, as we moved down to the fish I pointed the stern of the skiff at the fish and poled backwards, into the wind. This enabled Glenn to get three or four shots into each school before they bounced off the boat. Since the fish were very happy, our strategy worked, and for about two hours we were constantly into hungry fish that readily ate a yellow-orange-grizzly fly. Glenn was using a stripping basket, which was a sort of silly hood ornament in a wind like this (even if he threw the line into the basket, it just blew right out), so there were plenty of line management mishaps, but there were so many fish that we just laughed when things went awry.

Though there were still fish coming through at midday, I decided to run back east to the Toilet Bowl and pole the couple of miles of small flats there. Again we started to see strings of fish and Glenn started to connect almost right away. We saw most of the fish at the end of our pole, where another guide ran in and staked out in front of us, so we just ran back up the flat and did the pole over again to end the day. By 2PM the wind had not let up, and Glenn and I were both exhausted from chasing and casting to fish. Even though there were still fish all around us, we decided to save our strength.

The day had highlighted two lessons for windy-day fishing. One, the wind can be your friend. Even though we didn't always have the best casting positions many of our eats came with flies being stripped across or even back through the fish as they moved off. The fish were coming much closer to the boat, and sticking around longer, than they would have on a calm day. And two, stripping baskets are fine up until the point at which the wind blows over 20 knots. Then they can become an impediment, especially if you are trained to strip line into a basket that you are standing next to. In a humping wind, better to throw line into the wide recess of the boat deck behind you, even if that means stepping down with one foot to the deck as you strip.

A few days ago Glenn Pittard and I hauled my skiff down to Key West for three days of tarpon fishing, timing our arrival with the weaker tides of the month, which I like because it takes the tarpon longer to do what they are going to do with less water flow. If that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, you might want to think of it this way: tarpon are very tide-sensitive and highly predictable unless they are in full-on migration mode.

We got to the lower Keys just after the passage of a weak cold front, and day one started with a light northeast breeze and no humidity. We'd have good light all day, but I was worried about the effect of the northern slant to the wind, especially since we had heard from several guides that the fish were hard to feed ("as usual"). I headed to the backcountry to a network of channels that feed a small basin, looking for wind and tide moving the same direction, which tends to slick the surface and make tarpon more likely to roll. We saw only one fish, which rolled as he felt the boat push toward him on the shoulder of a channel.

With so few fish in this location, which is a kind of "indicator spot" for backcountry fish, we abandoned the Gulf side and ran to Butterfly Basin near the ocean. There were plenty of big tarpon there, most of them high in the water, and even at 8AM we could see laid-up fish as we moved into casting range. Unfortunately these fish were very picky, and after 20 or 30 casts and the arrival of a few more boats I decided to head west.

We fished the Jewelry Store for laid-up fish and found only a couple of pairs of fish but didn't connect. Then we ran to the Toilet Bowl on the ocean side and had a couple of quick shots before we got our first fish to eat; it was a big fish, and turned and ran back to the fly after it swam under the leader. "That's the kind of fish we're looking for," I said to Glenn. We had a couple more shots and a few fish eat the fly on the ocean, then I wanted to show Glenn some more laid-up fish so we headed to an interior basin. We began to pole a rather nondescript deep grass flat and almost immediately began to see the dim purple-gray backs of fish lying immobile in water. These fish required a lighter-colored fly, so we tied on a Coker Smoker and Glenn began throwing at groups of fish stacked like pickup sticks about 6 feet down in the water column. The first throw got an eat, then the second, and third, and fourth. We kept that up for a while, then decided to give those fish a rest, hoping they'd be there for another day or two.

After running to the end of the Lakes, we pulled in to a point not far from where some of the filming for the 1973 film "Tarpon" was done. Almost as soon as we stopped the boat I saw a school of about 80 daisy chaining tarpon about 200 yards down the flat. It was a gorgeous sight. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the fish -- who were very happy and floating around in a large counter-clockwise circle -- had their tails sticking out of the water and seemed to be actually shuddering with excitement. These were obviously new fish, fresh out of the ocean, and Glenn's first cast confirmed it. He jumped a nice fish out of this school, and played it for a while before the hook pulled. I chased the school down again and he hooked another red-hot fish, which he fought to the boat. I could still see the school, which was about 1/4 mile away, so I poled after them again and Glenn jumped another fish. We could have kept following them and jumping fish but I thought we had put them through enough.

We ended the day by running back to an oceanside channel where we could watch for fish on the high incoming. By 5:15 we decided to call it a day even though the visibility was still spectacular. The bright day and the fish had left us giddy and worn. I switched on the radio and we listened to the forecast for the next day: 15-25 knots out of the east. We slid off the flat and planed up for Garrison Bight. The thrumming of light seas against the hull reminded us of what a good day it had been.

The other day I was fishing with Tommy Locke and George Anderson for laid-up tarpon. The conditions weren't perfect, but we found fish -- some quite high in the water and black from months in the tannic basins of southwest Florida -- so the targets were obvious. We made plenty of good presentations that were refused by the fish. We also made some bad casts and like any honest tarpon fishermen we shrugged and laughed those off. But one wide, dark fish that we saw coming from 300 feet out gave me a perfect opportunity, and I waited patiently, then nailed the cast. The only problem was that just before the fly landed, the line shooting off of the deck wrapped around the back of my flip flop and the only way I could get it free was to kick the flip flop off. It landed in the water. More laughter as six feet of fish swam under my rod tip. "Maybe you guys will bring your A game tomorrow," Tommy said.

Sometimes the absurdity of situations like this, where your inadequacies as an angler are bared to the world (which in this case consists of your guide and partner), incites the mind to become quite agile in its desperation. After a few minutes I said, "You know, I've been fishing for tarpon a long time, as you guys have too. I've seen a lot of flies thrown at tarpon. And you know what I'm about to say is true: It's got nothing to do with presentation." I let this sink in. "It is all about the fly."

There is plenty of time to pause in a boat conversation, and Tommy and George, who had spent a good part of the morning hashing over fly choices, just waited. "You make a perfect cast, the fish doesn't eat it. You throw a fly twenty feet behind the fish, he turns around and runs back to it. You know what I'm saying, and I'm right. It's all about the fly." Tommy was the first to laugh.

The fish began eating after that.

The bugs are just as happy with high water as with low, but on the Ausable and Pere Marquette, anglers are finding the conditions a bit too challenging. "'We came up to fish the Au Sable Friday, and it was so high you couldn't even get in to wade the Upper Trout Unlimited water' downstream from Grayling, said Roger Warren, a self-described 'trout fanatic' from Bowling Green, Ohio, who came with two friends." Eric Sharp in the Detroit Free Press.

Imagine, if you will, riding bareback across a sea of grass hunting for herds of migrating buffalo. The wind is light, the sun bright, your horse young and well-fed. You walk and canter hundreds of miles over three days, sometimes riding just to cool off. You eat well, sleep well, attend carefully to your horse and your gear, and find it easy to get up each morning before sunrise and start again.

After three days, in the later afternoon, you take aim at an animal, and you miss. That night after a long starlight ride home, aching and sore, you give your horse a thankful pat and crawl to bed. You begin dreaming of the hunt again before you are even asleep.

That's as good a description of the past three days permit fishing as I can summon after five hours of sleep. Jonathan Ain, who organizes the March Merkin permit tournament in Key West, had a handful of shots over three days -- there just weren't many fish around and my guess is that the herds were fat from grazing and hunkered down out of sight. The fish we did find were spooking at 70-foot casts, or not eating flies. (We were covered up by bonefish -- pronghorns of the flats -- from sunup to sundown, but couldn't muster enthusiasm for more than a few slappy casts.) Finally, we had a permit eat the fly eagerly yesterday, but he came unbuttoned. Even David Dalu, who joined us for day three, couldn't make the fish eat ... though he did prove that 12-foot casts are the hardest ones to make.

And we thought that the reason why fly shops shorten their hours and fewer reports appear in the fall is that fishing has slowed. No, it's because the staff is finally getting their yah-yahs out -- during the best fishing of the year. "You might have noticed that most fly shops have let the fishing reports on their Web sites slide into disrepair. With few exceptions, the reports are stuck in time: It's July or April. We should take a clue from the shop owners and fishing guides, who are all out fishing." Ed Dentry on fall Rocky Mountain trout fishing in the Denver Post.

"I tied on a Straw Man, tied by master fly tyer Doug Mawhinney of Mexico, cast it across the current, let it drift, then swing, then hang. About three seconds into the hang, a fish nailed it. Big fish. Felt big. Then it jumped, and I could see it wasn't just a big fish but an ohmygod fish. What follows could be a long story." Virtual Angler Nick Mills gathers his courage and his wits and figures out how to land the big ones on his 4-weight -- with some help from the audience. On MaineToday.com.

This week we are out fishing at the Crescent H Ranch in Jackson, Wyoming. Yesterday we woke to frost and perfect sunshine and after a big breakfast in the main lodge headed off to fish the Ranch's private sping creek waters for native cutthroat. The fish, as could be predicted given the bluebird skies and absence of wind, were hunkered down in the small waters of the creeks. We watched and waited, mostly for a fish to open his mouth and take in a nymph or two and let us know that he was feeding. Fishing only dries, the catch rate would not excite many fish counters, but man, were those native cuts that did eat our little BWOs gorgeous. The challenges seemed fitting. I didn't want to quit.

The Crescent H's main buildings were constructed in the late 20s as a ranch lodge, A Chicago family bought the ranch -- at that time 1200 acres-- in the 40s and ran it through the 60s, after which it changed hands a couple more times and subdvision reduced the the total size of the ranch proper to 350 acres. (Through some recent purchases the ranch is back to about 450 acres.) Leigh Perkins and Vern Bressler were wowed by the property, and the Ranch earned fame in the earily 80s as the inspiration for Orvis's concept of an "endorsed lodge," a location that met Orvis's standards for quaility of service and fishing. But in the the 1990s the owners began shifting the lodge away from angling as its raison d'etre. The current owner bought the ranch at the end of 2002 and hired Reynolds Pomeroy, who had for 18 years operated the well-known Westbank Anglers in Jackson Hole and had removed himself to New Zealand for a long-term vacation with his wife. Wise move. Now the ranch's extraordinary fishing opportunities are back in focus. The lodge prides itself on stewardship of its native fish populations -- the fine-spotted cutthroat, and if you want to fish for cutthroats in classic, but uncrowded spring creek conditions and spend your evenings in a top-of-line lodge atmosphere (frankly, we've never been at a nicer lodge), this is the place. You can get more info on the lodge at their Web site at www.crescenthranch.com.

Today we're off to float the Snake. The forecast is for inclement weather. We'll let you know how it goes.

"Try stripping wooly buggers and streamers across pools and runs, or, if you can find a larger pool or run that's open, swing a soft hackle fly or a spey fly down and across the current flow. In late fall and early winter, when fish are less active, you can turn to dead drift presentations exclusively." Guide John Nagy gives advice for those tapping into the unusually early steelhead runs out of Lake Erie. Article by Deborah Weisberg in the Pttsburgh Post-Gazette.

While waiting for the arrival of chinooks, anglers cast 'green weenies" and soft-hackle bead-head flies to pink salmon in the famed runs of the St. Mary's. "In 1938, noted fisherman Ray Bergman gave the St. Marys legendary status in his classic book, Trout. He wrote about the fabulous steelhead fishing in the rapids, which in those days were virtually uncontrolled and were fished from a canoe with an Indian guide who was an expert whitewater paddler." Eric Sharp in the Detroit Free Press.

As my friends are well aware, I fish less than I would like to. Many of us can -- and do -- probably say the same thing, but it has been one of my greater personal challenges to move from a life of fishing 300 days a year to "the great alternative:" raising kids, taking care of parents, and working for The Man.

That's why when I wake up early enough to finish the daily news by 5 AM and get to the boat ramp in time to be on my way long before sunup, the air smells a bit sweeter. Yesterday I ran 20 minutees into my local waters, shut down the engine, poled 200 feet, and was surrounded by 100-pound tarpon lolly-gagging and slurping threadfin herring and pinfish. There were so many fish that I expected the next roller to hit the bottom of the skiff as he came up for air. Fish that would become tentative as the sky brightened ate the fly well. Frantic, it was.

An hour later the guides and the rest of the solo artists showed up with their electric motors a'hummin'. The fish fell silent. I poled upwind for a couple of hundred yards, idled out and went home.

Tom Behrens covers the South Platte, Arkansas, and the Colorado Rivers in this annual review of prospects for Colorado anglers in Rocky Mountain Game & Fish magazine. "Habitat improvement has coaxed cutbows to make spawning runs upriver from Elevenmile Reservoir. 'Twelve- to 18-inch cutbows used to run up the river in a spawning run. Whether or not they were very successful at spawning -- probably not -- they were thinking they were going to do that.'"

"As openers go, the weather was decent. A dash of snow. A splattering of rain. A kiss of mist. But mostly clouds, with temperatures up to about 40. The river was low and a little cloudy - very fishable. Snow in the woods was about a foot deep and soft." As Sam Cook notes in this article describing the scene on the Brule river, it ain't just about catching. On Mercury News.com.

Mike Bleech describes all the special regulations and stocking activities by region in Pennsylvania in Pennsylvania Game & Fish magazine.

Ed Dentry gives a Colorado update in the Rocky Mountain News, including some anecdotal evidence that rainbow trout are in full-bore pre-spawn mode. "'They're getting out of the Toilet Bowl and looking for love,' said Tim Heng of the Taylor Creek Fly Shop in Basalt."

"Any time from mid-February to mid-April, you can expect a decent run of big spawners, if only Denver Water would raise the flow to 100 cfs or more." Ed Dentry laments the current affect of low water flows on the rainbows that want to move out of Colorado's Elevenmile reservoir and into the "Dream Stream." In the Rocky Mountain News.

This article on the recent Islamorada Invitational Flyrod Sailfish Tournament is notable for two reasons: one, it proves that it is still possible to catch sails on fly in Florida (note the difference in catch rates between the fly and non-fly tournies though: about 100 to 1); and two, it was an opportunity for noted Key guide Tim Klein and his brother Robert to prove that they know more about fishing than how to push a skiff around. (Thanks to reader David Dalu for this link.)

"The unofficial start of the winter steelhead fishery in many Western Washington rivers was spotty this week, but there were enough fish around to keep it interesting." Mark Yuasa in The Seattle (Washington) Times.

"Sometimes the walk pays off, sometimes it doesn't. One of my walks paid off, and I'm not publicizing it any more than I'd set someone else up on a date with my wife." Wally Zimmer chooses "intermittently crappy" as the best forecast for hunting up brookies in Wyoming. In the Jackson Hole Star Tribune.

That's not a description of the standard Thanksgiving food-induced coma, but rather Bill Lynch's explanation for why the trout weren't feeding on the blizzard of caddis in the upper Sacramento river this week. "This is the time of the year when the caddis ( sedge) flies come out of their little cases at the bottom of the stream, swim to the surface, and pop forth as full-fledged fliers. Caddis come in all sizes, but there is one particular species that is nearly as big as a humming bird." On SonomaNews.com.

During the recent spate of tournaments in the upper Florida Keys two outsized bonefish were caught by the winners -- one a potential women's 12-pound tippet world record. Mary Holt of Carbondale, Colorado caught a 13.9-pound fish during the Women's World Invitational Fly Championship that ended October 7. Read more about the tournament results in Bill Sargeant's article on FloridaToday.com.

Dave Sherwood reports that the stripers are now marauding alewives in the Kennebec River, a sea change from two decades ago when no baitfish entered the river at all. "At any one time, somewhere on the river, thousands and thousands of tiny, two to four inch long river herring -- alewives, blueback herring or shad -- are being corralled by striped bass into dead end coves and getting eaten alive." On MaineToday.com.

The most impressive thing about the results of this past weekend's Mercury Southernmost Light-Tackle Anglers Masters was the number of permit seen. "[Tournament director Gary] Ellis said teams reported schools of up to 100 permit roving the flats. Bill Cullen caught and released six. Two anglers on Capt. Tom Roland's skiff caught eight between them." John Geiger in the Florida Keys Keynoter. (Thanks to reader David Dalu for this link.)

"It's a hatch unlike any other in Montana. The Pteronarcys Californica stonefly — the real name for the salmonfly — is a biggie. It can be fully as long and as big around as your little finger. And in big hatch years, it comes out in clouds." Mark Henckel in the Billings (Montana) Gazette.

Eric Sharp offers a bit of biology and reports that the big annual Hex hatch is on the verge of happening in northern Michigan. "There are about 15 Hexagenia species across the continent, four of them found in Michigan. Most important to anglers is the biggest, Hexagenia limbata, a creature that spends 99.999 % of its two-year life cycle in a U-shaped burrow in the mud of a lake or river. Then it emerges to mate, reproduce and die in a single day between the second week of June and the first week in July." In the Detroit Free Press.

"An 8-weight fly rod rigged with floating line and a 12-foot-long leader with 10-pound-test Maxima tippet was perfect for reds at Cottonwood Hole. A No. 6 Sockeye Orange -- a silver-bodied, sparsely-tied salmon fly with orange hackle and a wisp of black calf tail for a wing -- with a single 3/0 split shot crimped 18 inches above took a limit of salmon within 45 minutes." Ken Marsh notes that the huge run of Russian River-bound red salmon has prompted wildlife officials to open the season one month early on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. In the Anchorage Daily News.

We were lucky enough to spend a few days in Key West this week and pole after tarpon, which arrived in a premeditated frenzy along the ocean side of the Keys and actually ate flies, if that can be believed. Steve Abel, Andy Mill, Steve Walburn (editor of Saltwater Fly Fishing magazine) and a host of other notables were there doing a lot of fishing on just a little sleep. It was, truth be told, a bit like the old days, with gobs of fish arriving out of the ocean and rolling calmly within 10 feet of the skiff.

Better yet, there weren't that many boats. Apparently the horrible weather of last year left a bad taste in the mouths of many anglers, and a lot of guides have decided that real estate is a much more predictable line of work.

It does seem that most fly fishers are choosing 60- or 70-pound fluorocarbon for shock leaders this year, opting for more bites over long fights. Owner's Aki (2/0 and 1/0) is typically the hook of choice. But otherwise things haven't changed much in the past 10 or 20 years. You still get 2 glorious days of weather out of 7, and if you want to catch a lot of fish you must be able to cast over the boat and deal with wind, even over your casting shoulder. Oh yes: and fish with a good guide.

When I arrived at the ramp yesterday George Anderson already had the boat in the water. There was no place to park -- a harbinger of the situation on the water -- and we had to shuttle the trailer back to a campground a mile distant. We spent the morning on the fast circuit, chasing rolling tarpon up the beach, then south across the boats tangling the passes and down the islands and back into some laid up tarpon spots in nondescript corners of the basins.

By noon we were throwing at spooky redfish and snook many miles from the Gulf.

At 1:30 we tied up behind Tom McGuane's house and took a hot walk into the center of the island, where George proceeded to offer the local fly outfitter various types of advice, including how large his discount on flies should be (we were low on Enrico Puglisis).

Tom walked in and saved us by offering a ride back to his air-conditioned bungalow, and while George took a nap Tom and I talked about great fly fishers, great fly fishing books, and how the great Bill Schaadt used to sometimes attached his leaders to his butt section: with square knots. "Bill used to put only an egg sinker on his leader," Tom said, "and after making a long cast out over the water, he felt every steelhead as the leader bumped along downstream."

After rousing George with cappuccino (normally excessive, but George had a sinus infection), we loaded Tom's gear onto the skiff and roared back to attack the "ocean fish" ("These are 'gulf' fish, George -- you've been fishing in the Keys too long.")

The tarpon were pooling out of the pass onto the beaches, trying despite the Memorial Day weekend boaters to maintain their composure. The several pro guides in the area were already there, as were several open fishermen and cadres of bait fishermen with live bait glistening in the air like spear heads.

"What did we do to deserve this?" Tom asked.

We were in them immediately, George on his knees with the trolling motor, Tom standing behind him and I on the back casting platform, dropping large flies into daisy-chaining schools of 50 and more fish. The fish were mostly happy and rolling high and easy. Dark blotches of fish inked the water around the other boats, then melted and reformed. After a couple of follows, Tom had an eat and the fish ran off 75 yards before popping his tippet. Gear malfunction. "I fish only with gear given to me by friends," Tom noted, "so this is not my fault!" Perhaps this is why Tom offered to give me back a reel I had given him a few years ago. "There's a very specific reason I gave you that reel," I replied. "Because it needed to be fished and I knew you would fish it." Plus, I was thinking, this might lead me to have to offer to return all the cool stuff Tom had given me, including the sweetest of trout rods I will ever own, a custom-wrapped 7-weight from an old Winston blank that made me sleep through night like I was dead every time I used it.

The fishing never improved. As the sun dropped, the wind did as well. The fish seemed content to spin in their circles and drift just out of range. We were all as happy as we could be.

Finally Tom was conscripted to run the electric while George fished. "I suddenly feel like I've been demoted to the low-paid worker on the lawn service team." George, who combined with Tom had hooked and jumped obscene numbers of tarpon over the past two weeks, didn't get bit.

Running back north up the beach Tom and George conferred on strategy while I contented myself to bounce off the cooler like someone plucked from the stands at rodeo and tied to a horse. George kicked the throttle over and made a large looping reconnaisance of the beach. "He drives this thing like he stole it," Tom yelled at me.

We shut down finally in the pass and watched the night charter boats bob like christmas trees -- all red port and white anchor lights -- filling the portion of the horizon between the islands. "It is somehow beautiful," Tom said.

When the skiff sat down in the canal in the dark, Tom and George began to muse about their successes this season and at the peculiarities of guides they had fished with. Somehow it didn't sound like a "You Should Have Been Here Yesterday" story, but more like "You Ought to Be Here Tomorrow." It occurred to me that although I hadn't fish muched this year it was enough that my friends had, as long as I got to hear the telling. Handing over Tom's gear in the dark, George said "if I'm not here by 4:45, go without me."

"What did we do to deserve this?" Tom said.

The last of three days in Key West started out as well as it could for tarpon angling -- 5-knot SW wind and slightly overcast, keeping the oxygen levels low for the first couple of hours of the morning. We left the dock at 7AM and headed east again to the Pickle Barrel. The fish behaved much differently than the day previous: they had moved about 200 yards north and were highly agitated, perhaps because of the presence of sharks. We didn't get a response from any rollers out on the flat, but David D. finally got an eat from a fish rolling in one of the finger channels. Unfortunately the fish fell off. We fished the Barrel for another couple of hours until the sun got up a bit and we could begin seeing laid up fish. It was David's first peek at what a true laid-up tarpon looked like, and he seemed to like it. After a couple of dozen casts he got one of those imperceptible eats ("like trout white-mouthing a nymph," he said), but didn't come tight.

From there we ran over to Peanut Butter Bank and found a few fish, but the water proved eponymously murky and we couldn't see into the water well enough to get on the fish.

I decided we'd better run west and catch the last of the incoming on near the northwest channel, but we stopped at the Swimming Hole on the way and cast fruitlessly at the dozens of individual fish cruising through that vast area; but without light we were really wasting our time.

We continued west and pulled in at the south end of Lost Key, where we found fish again rolling in dirty water. Then we tried to see if any fish were departing the Jewelry Store on the other side of the channel, but other than the hundreds of fish rolling in 40 feet of water didn't see any tarpon.

Finally we returned to the top of Lost Key and immediately began finding tarpon crossing the flat in a brilliant, deep afternoon light. David cast for a bit before Scott C. hooked and landed a nice 70-lb. fish that practically did a somersault trying to eat his fly, missed, then came back to make a vicious take about 15 feet from the boat. After that, Scott and David made me cast to several fish, but I couldn't make them eat.

We ended the day by doing a quick dredge on the outer edge, where David immediately hooked a 40-lb. fish that ran about 150 yds. before some toothy critter sliced his shock tippet in half. All in all a good way to end the trip.

Got a bit of a late start yesterday morning fishing with David D. and Scott C. and ran across the Northwest Channel in a nice, light southerly wind and great light. The wind was surprisingly cool, and I could see that the water temperature was still down, but we shut down at the bottom of Lost Key and I began poling north. Almost immediately 1 large school of tarpon started rolling down the flat toward us. David L. got in a decent cast or two, but the fish didn't eat; they were obviously on their way somewhere.

We ran through the Lakes and across Boca Grande channel, shutting down on the Easy Side of the Marquesas. Though the conditions were great, we saw only one tarpon roll and another small pod of fish on the bottom. I ran inside to look for fish, but it was empty. We then decided to permit fish and I poled some south side flats, but we got only two shots, one at a school of small fish, and then at a small single that we saw only when he was too close.

From there, I ran to the West side and was thinking of not stopping because of the light when Scott C. and I both saw some laid up tarpon as we were running. I shut and poled back to the fish, which were laid up on a long bar. We had a few shots before David hooked up and had a nice fish on until his shock tippet wore through. We ran from there to the northeast corner but found no fish and headed back across the channel. We ran east to Jewfish Basin and played with several small strings of tarpon but got no eats.

Today, we started early and ran back east to the Pickle Barrel, where David D. quickly launched a 120-lb. fish that was rolling in a small channel. He popped that fish off, but shortly thereafter he made a great cast to a laid-up fish that made several nice jumps before drifting back into a deep cut, where he fought pretty determinedly for about 30 minutes. David finally got him up to the boat -- a fish of about 100 lbs. -- and Scott C. cast a bit before we headed east to Asphyxiation. We saw only one fish roll there -- probably a resident fish -- and ran out to Nowhere, where we also saw one fish roll but where the water was really too dirty to fish.

We ran back west then again to catch a permit tide at the Toilet Bowl. David had 4 or 5 pretty good shots in a row. One fish tailed on the fly but didn't connect. We then ran to Stop Sign, but saw nothing, and then to Renee, where David poled me to a couple of pretty good permit shots. Between the spookiness of the fish and one flubbed cast, I never got the fly close enough to get even a tire kick.

We ended the day back at Lost Key, where there were lots of tarpon rolling in the channels, and a fair number of fish circulating onto the flat. Unfortunately, by the time the fish started to eat we had lost our light. David did have one fish try to eat his fly but miss.

The wind was forecast to be 15 knots north again yesterday, and when we ran west around the northern edge of the Cottrell Key reef I had to navigate some 4-foot rollers. We arrived at Heaven's Gate around 8:45 AM and poled west, but the temperature was quite cold (64 degrees) and I knew our chances of seeing fish in the morning were slim.

In fact we didn't see fish until moving to the oceanside at 11AM. We fished Renee Richards on the high outgoing and Jim L. had a shot at a group of three tailers. Then we moved to the back of Seamaster and had shots at several tailing permit and one pair of bonefish, but the permit were quite spooky. Based on that, I decided to run back to the deeper, silty water on the gulf side.

We poled through afternoon down the 6 miles of flat stretching east from Cottrell, but didn't see fish until 3PM, down near the end of the flat, where they were feeding into the last of the outgoing. Jim had a couple of shots and finally had a fish tail on his fly, but the wind and current were pushing the boat down on the fish and he was unable to come tight.

Yesterday the wind went flat and so we ran into the Key West/ Sugarloaf backcountry to look for tarpon. We fished Asphyxiation Basin and NoWhere. The fish were highly sensitive, but clearly new fish and pretty large -- 80-120 lbs. and olive green across the back. Unfortunately they were also highly sensitive and we got a only a couple of follows. By noon, a weird frontal event happened and the wind picked up to 20 knots out of the northeast and the sky clouded over; we called it quits.

Today, we woke to a 20-knot north-northwest wind and ran west to the Seamaster flat on the oceanside about 18 miles west of Key West. I poled Jim L. into the wind for a mile or so but we didn't see anything until the tide change at 11 AM, when Jim had a good shot a 15-lb. fish. We then ran back to the gulf side and began fishing near Cottrell Key. Jim poled me to two fish. The first fish followed the fly through two or three strips and almost ate it. The second I had to cast to into the wind at about 50 feet and made a bad presentation (landed on his dorsal), but he settled back down and Jim chased him and I made a good presentation beyond and to the side, but he ignored the fly; I pulled the fly back in and found that a wind knot had fouled around the fly. Oh well.

Jim had three or four more shots fishing back to the east in the afternoon, and a couple of close calls, but all the fish turned out to be tire kickers.

We came to Key West on Thursday with the goal of catching Jim L. his first permit on fly.

Yesterday began fishing in the early morning in a 25-knot southeast wind. We ran west to the gulf side of the Lakes, shut down, and about 15 seconds later a permit tailed in front of us on one of the fingers of flat not far off the Northwest Channel. Unfortunately the fish stuck around for only one cast; you need more than one cast in a 25-knot wind. We poled a mile or so but saw no more fish there.

We then ran around Cottrell Key to fish the area west of there, but there were too many guides, so we ran back into the Lakes and fished the back side of an oceanside flat. There we had most of our shots of the day, but again the wind made things difficult. Jim L. had just a couple more shots back on the Northwest channel in later afternoon, when the wind died to around twenty, but altogether a day of challenging line management and permit that were spookier than they should have been, given the conditions.

Today, given the paucity of fish where we fished yesterday, we ran to the Marquesas after fishing a prime oceanside spot that produced no sightings. When we arrived in the Marquesas we cut through Mooney Harbor to the West side where we immediately began to see some smaller permit. Jim L. cast to a couple of fish but again they were relatively touchy and though we had a tire-kicker, we got no eats. We then ran back up the flat a mile or so, and fished another section of the West side, where we saw one nice tailing, mudding permit, about 20 lbs. Jim L. got the fly to the fish but just slightly too close, and the fish blew.

We then ran up around a "never-fished" flat that I've caught many permit on and began poling west. We didn't see much until we got about 200 yards down the flat, where Jim threw at one rather small permit, hitting himself a couple of times in the back in the process (left-hand wind with a left-handed caster); if you've never been hit in the back by a permit fly, let me tell you: it hurts. That fish refused the fly and swam off.

Two minutes later another fish began tailing about 100 feet from the channel edge. Jim had another bad wind angle and it was still blowing about 15. Though I was worried he would hesitate to cast because of the last experience, he dropped a perfect presentation about 4 feet from this fish, the fish swam over and picked up the fly and Jim brought the line tight to keep the fish from spitting it out. It all worked. Jim cleared the line and 10 minutes later had his first permit in hand, a very nice bright fish of about 12 or 13 lbs. We cast to numerous other smaller permit throughout the afternoon and hooked a bonefish. All in all a very fine day with fish visible from 300 or 400 feet and bright cloudless sky and a moderate breeze, with Jim's giddy relief making all the difficult poling seem suddenly effortless.

Of course, the day when you catch your first permit on fly cannot be made any more or less spectacular than what the fact of that catching provides.

This story about "Old Hitler" on Captain Mel Berman's site reminds me of several encounters, including one off the south side of the Marquesas, where an enormous dusky brown hammerhead two or three feet longer than my skiff surfaced beside us and inhaled a tarpon we had been fighting for 2 hours. The skiff I was fishing out of then was an 18' Hewes. I still recall the feeling of my blood rushing to my feet as I realized I was standing on a tiny platform just feet above the hammerhead's back.