| I took off a little early from work to try and make it down to Sugarloaf by dinner time, and meet up with Capt. Dave. Everything was smooth until I hit the 7 mile bridge. Traffic was locked up for nearly 2 hours, as a truck/trailer and a motorcycle collided. This is where I learned that if you're gonna be traveling through the Keys, always have some sort of bait with you. At least I could have jigged something up off one of the pilings. I made it to the lodge around 10pm, and met up with Dave. We hammered a couple sandwiches and uncorked a bottle of Pyrat Rum. The next morning, with the wind howling would be a tough one. We jumped around on the oceanside looking for tarpon, which took awhile to show up. The wind was howling all weekend, making things way too much fun with fly rods. No action on day 1, but we did see some fish roll in the channel. Had a pretty good fish sandwich for dinner, and only had a beer or two, still feeling the sting of the rum from the night before. Awoke the next morning to thunderstorms moving through the Keys. We waited for the worst of it to push through and headed back out to the 'creek'. As we poled into position, a fat school of bonefish which were mudding spooked off as I pushed a little too close to them. The wind had the upper hand. We staked off on the edge and watched quite a few tarpon roll, but no takes on fly. There was a couple good shots at fish cruising the edge of the flat, but again were snubbed. At some point we decided to try to get a hookup, and tossed out a live crab. 5 minutes later I was hooked up. Had a quick fight, photo, and good release of a 45 or so pounder. We gave the fly another chance, but for some reason it just wasn't happening. Maybe it should've been an omen when Andy Mill was at the dock rigging up a spinning rod... It was a great weekend anyhow, and look forward to doing it again next year. Dave had charters from out of town the rest of the week, and they did get some nice action on fly in the backcountry. Scott Baker 5/2010 |