Fishing with Adam Tondu and Bruce Chard, yesterday with Joe Rodriguez

On Friday I was invited to fish with Adam Tondu, who had booked Bruce Chard for the day. Their fishing the day before had been decent but the light was tough, and we were excited when the morning brought with it little cloud cover and light winds–perfect conditions for tarpon fishing.
Adam was up first, and had a few shots at passing fish before it was my turn. I had a couple shots before I got lucky from a fish that, while at first swimming away from us, turned and ate the fly in great form. The fish ran off and soon was under control, enough that Bruce wanted to get some photos on the nearby flat.
Here’s what it looked like:

After that we continued on with our fishing, and Adam had a great bite from a pair of fish that resulted in a jump-off before we left for places elsewhere.
I had a few shots, Adam had a few, and when the fish stopped swimming we left for our third place. We saw a single tarpon cruising the area, and a pair of permit, though sadly I was unable to repeat the permit-on-a-tarpon-fly capture I made happen a few weeks ago with Sandy Horn. We left after a half hour, looking for some swimming tarpon in a fourth and final location.
Adam was up, and when Bruce powered down the boat we saw a large school of fish headed our way. Adam had a few short shots and a great bite that didn’t work out before he finally hooked one, at which point he kept his rod low so that I might attempt a double hook up. I had some bad angles and poor casts before I made the one that counted, just as Adam’s fish came unbuttoned. We missed the double, literally, by a few seconds. In short order my fish came off as well, and Adam fished to the remainder of the school for another 45 minutes before they made it to deeper water and got away from us.
I’d like to thank Adam for inviting me, and Bruce for putting up with me. It’s worth mentioning that Bruce and Adam fished again the next day and that Adam hooked six and caught three. Here’s a picture of the damage they inflicted:

Yesterday I fished with Joe Rodriguez in Islamorada, and we were plagued by wind and rain and clouds. After four hours putting up with it we called it a day.

More to come–the Del Brown is in a few weeks and I have some prefishing upcoming with Aaron next week.

Regards,

nathaniel