Do you believe in good omens? Well I do. Let me explain about the latest one I had. Up until the last two weeks I had only caught one snook the entire year and that was up in the Tamoka River. In the past two weeks I have caught a total of three snook here in Flagler County. These were not big snook. As a matter of fact the largest was about six inches and the smallest about three inches and all of them were caught on a fly. Now I’d have to consider this a good omen for things to come for our snook fishery next year.
You might ask yourself how I can get excited about catching fish so small? Snook are ferocious feeders. When they are small it amazes me to see them try to eat something almost as big as they are. Also, any fish I catch while flyfishing is a good fish. Snook just happens to be one of my favorite fish to catch on a fly, or for that matter, any other type rod and reel.
Steve Carl and I had planned a trip to fish the Indian River on Saturday but due to the weather report (high winds) we decided to stay locally. Steve wanted to try out a fly rod he was thinking of purchasing from me so we went to one of my favorite canals to be out of the wind. Steve put the rod to the test by catching trout and bluefish. When the wind finally made us give up on flyfishing our total was 15 trout, 5 bluefish, a snook and a redfish.
We then headed to the area around Highbridge to fish another canal. With the wind I decided to operate the trolling motor and let Steve fish. Working the canal produced a 15” flounder caught on Berkley Gulp bait. With the wind howling we decided to venture into a flat and give it a try. On entering the flat we spooked a couple of reds and saw another bust up on bait. Not being dressed properly for the conditions we thought we’d give it ago anyway but the stronger the wind got the colder we got and the harder it became to fish. We were about to turn around when Steve cast his Gulp up to the point of a small island. As soon as the bait hit the water a redfish exploded on it and the battle was on. We landed the fish and it measured out at 23”. It was then time to head to the barn and it was a very cold ride up the river into the wind.