Dry Flies, Rivers, Trout & Tarpon.: Skinny

A different animal today. Bright and sunny, and it stays this way. I go to look for one of my big old friends from yesterday below Pelican Shoal. No answer. Can't even spook one. Its been 3 hours since my 10:30 start, and nobody's been home except for the mass of ducks and geese I had to usher downstream, out of the area. It's dead. With no change in any forecast, I think its time to move on. I've been here 7 days on this visit. It doesn't seem like it. But the days are shorter now, and they pass quickly. There's so much water, yet I've barely touched it. I Haven't even fished the gravel pits, Wood Road, the Box, Osborne, The Channels, town, Bonefish, . . . Sheesh. But I feel a change of scenery, and fish, and bugs, and everything else that comes with the 'ole 2-3 hour move in any direction from this place, that star that's still the center of the universe. (Old post!)

From the grassy bank, I'm 20 steps and 20 seconds away from the road back to the parking lot. But in the river, right out in the aptly-named Straightaway, just below the old hitching post, I see a head. What the hell, I've already walked a mile or two, might as well catch it and then get the hell out of here. He ate it, a decent fish. Gone in one second. Across the straightaway, there's another one. This one I serve upstream, and he eats it. Never touch him. Better fish. Hmmm. I go upstream a ways, look back down, and he's up in the same spot, now 15 minutes later. How about a Mole? Yep, eats it down and across. Gone in one second. Fuck. Down to the back channel re-entry, and there's one. Eats it, decent. OK. Now I see something happening. Whoa, the water is dropping! Pretty quick. Is this why there's a few eating now?

I can't recall a quick 30 percent drop in flow making the fish eat, but this isn't an ordinary drop. Its going from 400 to 280 and exposing a ton of weed beds. The river becomes a series of little channels, some just over knee deep. Those hold fish, now rising fish. The mahoganies have been here since early afternoon, ignored, and there's a few little olives around too. Now its happening all of a sudden. Deciding to stay, I fish up and down this 100 yard stretch and stay entertained with an eat here and a tight line there. Big bugs are working. The skinny water is saving the afternoon. I still feel the urge to move on, as the windows are short like the fading season. Its just such a hard place to leave when the water is low, crowds are light, and there's Mahoganies flying.