Fly Fishing In The Bayou With Chris Walser
Capt. Butch Rickey
June 26, 2014
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Report for the week ending 6/14/14.........
It's summer, and things have slowed down, and so has the fishing. I'll be closing up shop for July and August, as it's just too hot to fish, and the fishing really suffers in the dog days of summer. The weather is also hyper-active.
I had one trip on Monday, with a great guy and avid fly angler, Chris Walser, of Caldwell, Idaho. Chris is a professor of biology, and a Western North American Naturalist. He first contacted me about a backcountry trip for snook and redfish. Before it was over he had decided he'd like to do a beach snook sightfishing trip. I suggested we do both, and could easily do so from Clam Bayou. The plan was to launch the boats and go straight to where the old cut used to open to the gulf, maybe a mile from Blind Pass. We could do the beach snook early, and if the fish weren't cooperating, or we got half way through the morning, then we would go back to the boats and finish the day fishing snook and reds in the very scenic Clam Bayou. Chris agreed, and that was our plan.
We needed to get an early start, and I met Chris at the Circle K at 5:30 AM. We headed out to Bowman's Beach to launch. It was around 7 AM when we got to the beach to fish. We left the boats out of sight and and got started. It was a beautiful morning, the water was calm, but the visibility wasn't quite good enough to sight fish. So, we settled for blind casting, mostly fairly close in.
The snook were tough. All day. I failed to make my trip notes because there's been so much going on lately, but I'm pretty sure that Chris got one snook, and had several follows, and we both caught some jacks, and a ladyfish. Chris did see one very nice fish cruising the beach later in the morning, but it wasn't interested in eating. I think we were out there about two and a half hours before we headed into Clam Bayou in the Ultimates.
Things continued to be slow. It took most of the rest of the day for me to catch a couple of redfish. I believe Chris wound up with a couple of small snook on fly before he was done. We were only two days away from the full moon, and that was surely a big part of the lack of interest from the fish. But, we still had lots of fun, and Chris got to do both in one day. It was a good day.
Target Species:
Snook and redfish
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