Catching up….

The longer Del Brown report pushed me back a bit on the timeline, and while I had a few tough days of fishing after the tournament with Ian I’m oddly grateful that I don’t have loads to report from them. Basically, we had two days that were without many shots and certainly without a capture. I have a few memories of the days, however, and one of them involves a large tailing fish that I wish I had to do over again. Mostly we worked hard in the face of some unfair treatment by the local permit population, and kept with it until the sun started to set. I also made it out with Lenny Leonard for a late afternoon peek for some permit, and Lenny had a few shots before we both got out of the boat and decided to wade. In a few hours of fishing I’d say we had a small number of low quality shots, and that was the last of the dry permit spell until I went out with Ian to run the new skiff.

I really don’t intend to gloss over the slow days–part of these reports is that I’m not trying to talk about the successes more than the failures, but I’m pressed for time to get current and I need to get to the days with Chad and John and Ian. Trust me, in those days there is plenty of sadness that will make up for the brief discussion of the tough fishing leading up to them.

I’ve recently purchased Thane Morgan’s old Chittum that Dustin was running in the tarpon tournaments, and as soon as Dustin drove it down Ian and I headed out to stretch its 150 horsepower legs. We ran around for a while, trying to dial in the power, but after a few spots became a little more interested in permit fishing. Ian spotted a wake and I waded out to the first fish on the new boat, a decent permit hooked while wading:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With that we considered the new skiff happy in its new home and went in. I had a group of three days with Chad Huff as my guest the following week, and our intention was to throw 2 pound tippet at permit with John O’Hearn.

That report I’m working on, and will be posted soon.

 

Nat