I Love My Backyard!

I could of just used my camera and it would have been as good as catching fish. 1-3 feet of water, even skinnier in some places, flat calm and good light. Oh, and TAILS! Just flopping around as the fish nuzzled the sand. We got out of the boat and stalked the fish like they were bonefish, in fact, it was like we were bonefishing only there so many more stripers than I have ever seen bonefish. Tailing, swimming around. Several times while I was wading, I looked next to me only to see hefty stripers swimming along beside me. But I was focused on the tailing fish. I tried different patterns, although it was clear that sand eels were the primary bait for most of these critters, but tailing fish signaled crabs, so I tied on one of the permit flies that I take to the tropics with me every year, and then move them to my striper fly collection, just in case. Well today was "just in case" POW, one cast with the crab fly and I was hooked up to a nice fish. Yes, the fish were largely in the "schoolies" category, still most of them were between 23-27". Fun on a fly rod, and plus they were swimming next to me as I caught them. My client, a local guy with a huge grin, commented that people travel a long way for this kind of fishing.

CFR One Fly Tournament

Saturday, this lovely spring weather showed us once again its windy and rainy side. Because this type of weather is potentially quite fishy contestants in yesterday's CFR(Casting For Recovery)-Wareham One Fly Tournament began the day quite optimistically. Sadly, the wind made for some tricky casting situations and the fish were busy doing something other than showing interest in any of the three flies which tournament contestants were offering to them. I believe that only two fish were actually caught by the 25-30 contestants who fished from 8am - 4pm. There were two fish lost to pre-mature releases, and one of the kayak fishermen was rumored to have caught 2 fish, but there was some question as to whether or not he was in fact fishing within boundaries dictated by the tournament organizers. The tournament was won by a 21" striper caught by an IWFF member from NY Sam (I don't know Sam's last name) who deligently cast her spey rod from the beach not only through the lunch hour but also at least 1/2 hour past the 4pm finish of the tournament. MWFF was well represented at the contest by president Jan, vice president Candy, Brenda (CFR -Wareham leader and tournament organizer), CFR volunteers: Linda, Cindy, Jane, Evelyn, Karen and contestants: Katya and me. Honestly, I may have some of the contestants and the volunteers mixed up, I hope I didn't forget anyone (sorry if I did) and I don't know all of the last names, but anyway, there were a bunch of us there and I think I can speak for all of us and say that despite the weather and the not-so-great fishing we all had a good time. Lunch was delicious and whomever makes that amazing cole slaw, let's add that to the "recipes" section of MWFF. "Cook the Catch" may not the mantra of many of us catch and releasers, but we've all gotta eat and that cole slaw was dee-lish!


Thanks to all of you that help to make CFR the amazing organization that it is! For those of you who are not familiar with CFR, visit their website at http://www.castingforrecovery.org/


Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I forgot my camera.


Oh, and Hi again to the women that I ran into early Saturday morning at Barnstable General Store who were not part of the CFR event, but were off to do some fishing on their own aboard their sweet center console "Bird's Nest".