Humble Pie

Of course the Top Choice Lodge hosted us all comfortably, filling our bellies, helping to coordinate and supply guide services as requested, and assisting logistics for the DIY wading and kayaking day trips. They could use a new sign out front. The current one seems to display a yellow perch. 

The Getaway crew is stellar, overflowing with good humor, buckets of bone fishing tactics and Acklins strategies. They are youngsters (my perspective) but are fishing veterans. The hardworking and compassionate Morton led the trip, ably assisted by Andreas and chronicled by Mad Max (who I think is too young to shave but does a yeoman's job crafting promotional vids - he puts some Hollywood camera operators I know to shame). Really. I love these guys. They craft a quality experience. 

I came to this having practiced my ass off on the grass but catching my share of bones was a different matter. I’m pretty happy with my casting abilities, but most all of these other fellows had better guide-eyes, spotting fish farther away than I could and many that I missed entirely. They were all, hosts and clients, advanced casters and line handlers. They all fish a lot.  It was an impressive show. 

Conditions were not great. A strong cold front blew in Tuesday, the waters cooled and winds never dropped much below 20 mph. Passing cumulus were frequent - the lights often turned on and off continually. Wind pushed water hard, occasionally overwhelming the tides. The larger schools abandoned the mangrove adjacent flats pretty much leaving fewer but somewhat larger fish. We mostly found singles and  doubles. I saw a few foursomes. Setting up on a highway of marching groups was not an option so we walked miles, searching. Everyone caught fish but it was tough. My feet hurt. 

Last week, I wrote of my dissatisfaction with my Orvis Flats Booties. I understated their inadequacy. They are engines of torture. I hate them. They are NOT suitable for serious wading and are def not approach boots. I’m crossing my fingers hoping to keep all my toes. 

My most important lesson came late and like most of my epiphanies may be illusory. I asked Gemini and was advised to soften and widen my gaze when looking for fish, employing the proverbial thousand-yard stare. The unsourced article argued that motion is best detected by peripheral vision. That staring directly at a suspicious object is ineffective. I polled my hosts and fellow fishers about this and they seemed to agree - seemed to. 

My roommate Christi told me that he scans mostly 60’ out but both he and Morton frequently spotted single fish and small groups well over a hundred feet away. Sometimes way over. So I’m unsure. Jeff said that if you see an object and wonder if it’s a fish, it isn’t. I’m going to fish a bit in Hawaii in a couple of weeks but the flats there are deeper so the method may not work there. Dunno. Maybe soft focus works everywhere. It does feel a little risky but worked well for me over the last two days. 

BTW many of these guys were familiar with, and readers of Sexyloops and admirers of Paul and the HT rods. So there. My brother Joe also reads my FPs but only for the non-fishing content. So here it is. The US and Israel just started an optional war. I can imagine a beneficial outcome but I think, given the cast of characters, it’s unlikely. I believe it’s more likely that people will suffer and chaos will persist. I’m disappointed with the lukewarm response of the UK and EU but then I have a bad case of the derangement syndrome. Also, as Netflix bows out of the bidding for Warner Bros, the independent press in the US is pretty much gone. Again, I don’t see how this ends well. 

Cheers?

David Siskind

POD Spencer, Christi, Jeff, Max, Ward, Andreas, me, Morton, Frank, Tobias