Flood Tide Fly Fishing A Challenge

I wrapped up a flood tide week of fly fishing today with Rick Klann, fishing out of the Sawpit Creek boat ramp. The tide was low and coming in so we ran straight to Broward Island to fish the downed logs. Rick was making excellent casts to the bank, to the logs, and to the creek mouths, but he had no takers even though the conditions were absolutely perfect to be fishing this spot.

We move back down the Nassau River and fished some shell banks, tossing an intermediate line with a shrimpy fly and this did the trick. As Rick let his fly bounce down the bottom he picked up a small but hungry Seatrout.  We moved around the corner, switched to a small gurgler pattern and fished the edges of some grass islands and exposed oysters, to no avail.

Our next stop was back toward the bridge, still in Nassau and again, Rick picked up another, larger Seatrout letting his line sweep down through the water column.

The tide was up and the grass was flooding so we switched to some floating line and began to poke around in the spartina grass. I think we had hit one or two spots and maybe the third as we eased up into the grass, Rick spotted a tailing Red! Whoooeee! He's was just out of range so I gave Rick three options: 1) Try to hit 'em with a long cast 2) Get out and wade to him or 3) Wait and see if he comes towards us.   We didn't have to decide because within seconds we could tell the fish was moving closer to us!  Rick made some excellent casts with a Dupree Spoon fly but the fly was having trouble getting down through the grass and the fished moved on and soon disappeared, darn it!

We bounced around again, hit a few spots and again, as we eased up to nice flat: Tailing Redfish. I had switched the fly to sinking black Troy James Fly  and this definitely got down thru the grass. But again the fish moved on and disappeared.

We moved up and down the Nassau, then ran thru Horsehead and around to the mouth of Jackstaff and poked the bow into a couple of the flats. The tide was up pretty high now but we had one final shot at a tailing fish, this one a Sheepshead. I thought Rick made one of his best casts of the day, putting the fly right on the fish's nose, but it snubbed it, moved on, and disappeared.

At some point Rick had commented, "this is a little more challenging than I expected" and that nailed it. When flood tide fishing for Reds all the stars have to align. The tide has to be right, the water and wind conditions need to be right, the fly has to be right, the cast has to be right, the fish has to see the fly and eat it....it's a challenge, but well worth it when you get that hook up! At any rate, we had a great time fishing the flats here at Amelia Island, Florida.