Last Saturday (November 4) I had my fly fishing class at Brevard Community College. Although the sun was out, the wind was blowing about 20 mph, just awful for fly casting lessons. None the less, I had all six students tossing fairly tight loops by the time we were done. I think that emphasizing that it was a real life situation may have helped! Anyway, I hope it's less windy this coming Saturday.
Sunday afternoon I drove to Fort Myers and met up with Bob Stearns. Monday morning we met up with Capt. Rick DePaiva for a day's redfishing. That wind from my fly fishing class on Saturday followed us down to Pine Island Sound. It really was a real life situation! It was howling all day long. Still, the fish tailed for us all day long, and we had numerous great shots with the fly right in front of singles or small pods of fish. We did not get a bite, nor of course did we catch a fish.
We tried again on Tuesday morning. The fish were still tailing. The wind had dropped off, but now we had heavy overcast and intermittent light rain. We got three fish and missed a few strikes, but the pictures didn't come out very well. That happens with gray skies.
Wednesday John Thompson joined me for five hours of fishing on the Mosquito Lagoon. He was tossing a Johnson Minnow. He missed the first few bites, then caught a slot red. Then he got another. But for as many fish as we saw the number of bites was pretty low. They weren't eating very well. So he ended up with two fish.
Thursday Joe Mattiello joined me, this time on the Indian River Lagoon, again for five hours. We tossed lures for a while, and although we saw a reasonable number of redfish we didn't get a strike. We visited the power plant. The ladies were there in force and we put a few in the live well. Then we went redfishing again, this time tossing pork chops instead of hardware. The fish liked that better, and we boated two slot fish before Joe had to leave.
Friday Joe and Mike Hughes, a father and son team, joined me for a six hour day on the Mosquito Lagoon. We started seeing fish right away but they wouldn't touch the hardware. Mike didn't have polarized glasses, which didn't help. Finally Joe got one on a DOA CAL jerkbait. I gave Mike some pork chops from the previous day's ladyfish. They matched each other roughly fish for fish for a while, and we ended up with eight or nine reds, all in the slot, all released.
Saturday I took son Maxx out in the canoe, out of River Breeze. We saw the first tailing fish long before we were ready, and by the time we got ready the fish was gone. Maxx wasn't terribly sharp, not having been fly fishing in four or five months, but the fish weren't very cooperative, either. He had some great shots, and had the fly in the right place several times, but he only got a single fish. It clouded up and we couldn't see any more, so we decided to bail out.
Yesterday I fished Kent and Desiree Richardson, a father and daughter team, again on the Mosquito Lagoon. It was overcast with drizzle at first, and then the front blew through and the sun and wind came out. We saw a few fish early, right next to the boat, while it was still gray. Once the front came through, and in spite of looking in a variety of different places, we didn't see another fish and again, we didn't get one. Ouch. We quit two hours early.
Remember- life is short. GO FISHING!
Life is great and I love my work!!
John Kumiski |
