We had a good predicted tide yesterday evening, and of course as it got close we ended up with a wicked storm. It poured for about an hour with thunder and lightning and gusty winds. I waited and about an hour before high tide the wind died down, the rain went from a downpour to just a steady rain, and the amount of lighning decreased a little and got a little farther away.
I got onto the flat about 715pm. It was still raining steady and right away saw fish. I cast to the first fish several times with no luck getting the fish to see the fly. He ended up disappearing into the deeper water. That is when I decided to finally pay attention and saw that the water was a muddy brown color…how about that discolored water after a major downpour. On the next fish, now that I had stopped being a knucklehead and started paying attention, I put the fly on his head and he hammered it. It was a nice 20 inch fish.
In the meantime my friend Nick was casting to fish, but couldn’t quite get the fly on top of the fish. I saw another big tail, worked my way over and put it on his head. He nailed it, and I fought him for several minutes when I thought he spit the fly. I get my line in and it has some grass on the fly. I went to clean the grass off, and there was no fly. He must have dragged me across an oyster shell because the line got slack just like when a fish spits a fly, and the line was cut clean. I saw another fish about 70 yards away, so I tied another fly on and worked my way over. It took several casts because the fish was rooting hard and changing directions rapidly, but I finally dropped on his nose and he nialed it. This was a bigger fish. I had to tighten my drag about three times, and finally got the fish in. It was a solid 28inch fish.
My friend didn’t manage to catch one, but was able to cast to two or three other fish. This was his first time fishing for redfish with a fly, and his first time on a flat. All told we had to have seen about a dozen fish, and they were tailing pretty go
