Super fun day. I truly needed it.
Ride out got a annoying in the morning, but that was expected given our direction. Turned out to be a beautiful day.
Flies were leading the charge out there today. Everyone was finding some fish but we found something a lot better. Both our other 29, as well as the 42' boat came to use. We had a good chuckle watching the "bait" comes come to the flies
Troll bite was solid, and we did well casting while stopped. The fish were sticking with us for long periods while stopped but the longer we floated they'd sort of settle in and become difficult to get to eat artificial stuff. I'm becoming increasingly more convinced that when this attitude adjustment starts to happen it is important that the fly is tracking perfectly, at the right pace at the right time, not missing an eyeball etc etc. I feel like any visual flaw becomes very obvious to the fish. I was watching them casually eat dead chovies while rejecting flies and at that point it has to be something visual. Every fly we threw caught fish. I caught a couple casting my standard Seahawk colored half and half.
The first several minutes after we were stopped they were super aggressive and everyone hooked up multiple times. Then it would progressively get tougher. I lost a third fish that still frustrates me. I watched it streak up and eat right at the start of my next strip, and I managed the best strip set of my life but still lost it a few seconds later lol.
I kept telling Chance and Ian that if they came in there and fished live bait they'd do well. Chance did, finally finding what we saw and he loaded up. Ian never did a whole lot with it and ended up with 21 fish for the day, and only then because they grabbed a few right at the end of the day. But that was fishing 6 people with bait, so for our scores and the fact that we were fly fishing we still win
Fish were definitely eating some squid, but no squid flies were deployed that I'm aware of. Chance did catch some fish with his stupid daisy chains and squid like stuff, but that's because Chance has an obsession with that nonsense and that's what he fishes every day regardless lol.
Highlight of the day for me was watching Phil on the bow basically a tease an albacore to the surface as he ran out of line stripping his cast in. The fish kinda lazily came up and kept nipping at the back of the fly from behind but coming up short. As Phil ran out of line he basically just twitched it towards the surface with the fish right behind it. As the fly broke the surface I watched that fish stick it's head out of the water as it attempted to eat the fly. Never did hook it, but it's one of the coolest things I've ever witnessed albacore fishing
This season has been a grind like I've never seen. I needed a fun day doing what I love the most. Yesterday was perfect. Thanks guys.
