A day without cold weather.
A day without downpours and lightning.
A day without headwinds that make casting a 6-weight rod difficult to impossible.
And most importantly:
A shift in the daily tidal cycle that allows wading the beaches during daylight hours.
And an outgoing tide that allows increasing room for a back cast.
That would be today.
And I took advantage of it by heading to Narrows Park after dropping Henry off at doggie daycare.
First day fishing is a good deal like first day of skiing in winter, or first day back on the links, or whatever:
Ensuring all the right gear has been assembled and is functional -and brought along to where headed; getting familiar again with its use; regaining the easy movement in heavier boots, waders, ski pants, or whatever one is carrying; and re-engaging muscle memory. At least with fly fishing, I had been practicing my casting in the backyard.
At the beach, the winds were blowing a bit from the southwest at 5 – 8 knots; it was enough to create a bit of surface current and small wavelets (importance discussed below).
First cast – not bad, even with the wind. I was using a SA Sonar Titan Sink tip (Type 3) and the heavier head really allowed the line to shoot. But I noticed once the line landed on the water (the floating section after the sink tip) was being pushed with the wind – creating slack. So I mended the line (i.e., lifted the line and flipped it back windward) and started stripping in line to remove any remaining slack.
My second cast landed on the water. Started to mend to remove the slack in the line and BAM! I get a firm strike (a fish was going after the fly). I started to strip in as fast as I could – but couldn’t set the hook before the fish decided it didn’t want to play. Given the feel of it, I’m guessing it was a resident Coho versus a SRC. Searun Cutthroat Trout in the Sound don’t strike that hard.
It was a second or two of excitement.
It would have wonderful to say that was the first of many. But that wouldn’t be true.
A bit further down the beach I got a second grab, this time more subtle – but there was a fish out there. There wasn’t even time to set the hook.
And then not another strike.
The rest of the time on the beach was casting practice with a wind on my casting side – good for remembering how to deal with the situation by changing the cast to more side arm.
Getting back to my car, I reviewed my gear issues.
The rod and line are a perfect match.
I remembered to bring more flies with me in case I lost the one tied on. (I wasn’t sure until I stopped for a ‘hygiene break’).
The biggest problem was the Patagonia Guidewater Hip pack. I wore it without its shoulder strap as I was trying out the Stealth Switch Pack that clips to the wader straps (it’s basically a very slim chest pack for forceps, tippet, and a few other necessities). The hip pack kept slipping no matter how much I tried to cinch it. I’ll have to experiment with using both the strap and the chest pack.
Definitely a first-world problem.
In any case, I have returned to the beach and looking for months of chasing fish at various beaches.
