"Blowing In The Wind"
Posted: September 30th, 2007, 8:17 am
Great Greedy Grady, what a east wind blow yesterday for TallyFly and I as we fly fished out of Mashes Sands. Since neither of us were in a hurry to face those stiff easterly winds yesterday, we started off our morning trip with a stop for some breakfast at Savannah's Restaurant about 7:30 and then on to Mashes Sands landing (which has been greatly improved I might add). As soon as we arrived at the landing I began to sing that old song from the 60's, "the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind..." and a few other choice words that hurt my partner's ears, sorry. The tide was already going way out when we arrived so we headed over to an area near Big Chaires Creek, where I had put my soldier on some redfish during the Big Bend Classic. We anchored in a "good" spot and commenced to practice our fly casting. That proved to be extremely challenging in a 15-20 MPH wind! The water was very "stained" and the surface temperature read 80 on Gerald's depth finder. Gerald was casting his 8# Reddington outfit while I played with my new 7# Sage rig. Our casting was pretty darn good considering the conditions. Too bad, so sad, we could find any fish to taste our flies.
Next, we ventured over to Little Chaires Creek, where we continued to "practice our casting" and very soon became stuck on a sand bar.
After a few minutes of pushing and motor grinding, we got off the bar. With the wind pushing us ever closer to shore and realizing we could get stuck again for the remainder of the tide (probably about 6 hours given the windy conditions and high tide coming in about 3 pm) we peeled out across the bay towards the "Sea Wall" area, near the piers and docks, to hide from the wind and promptly became stuck on another sand bar. 
Of course, after many hours of pronounced casting, changing flies often, I went through at least 7 flies yesterday, "no runs, no hits, and only two errors" transpired. Gerald touched me only once with a wind blown fly, but I cracked the *&%$* dickens out of my right ears using one of my ties, Dark Passage (a weighted 1/0 Deep Clouser Minnow).
That woke me up and caused a mild release of bad language! You know, sometimes in fly fishing, it is all about the casting, not the catching. Yesterday was one of those days when every fly fisherman was tasked to practice the cast, not catching a fish. Neither one of us had a strike all day. Gerald is quite the gentleman, never a naughty word, never a complaint, and a grand fly caster. I was proud to share his boat with him yesterday. It really was great to get out upon the waters with him and fly fish, no matter what the weather conditions. We are looking forward to fishing the tournament next Saturday - but not in the Ocklockonee Bay...maybe Lanark Village, wind or no wind.
