Fishing with John O’Hearn/The Great Windy April

Earlier in the week I had the pleasure of fishing with John O’Hearn on our first scheduled day of fishing since the March Merkin. We’ve shifted gears at this point to tarpon with the upcoming tournaments, and hoped these days would give us a chance to work on our fishing for the giant leaping herring.

Sadly, we were instead only able to work on team building in the wind and fishless chop of yet another early spring cold front. We kept our spirits light in spite of the conditions, even spending a few hours permit fishing on the first day to keep things moving. We never found a permit shot, and only a few more tarpon shots than that towards the end of the day. I fed one in the last few hours, never coming tight but enjoying at least a thin slice of what it feels like to come tight to a tarpon before we headed to the dock.

The following day we decided to commit our efforts to tarpon fully, not wanting to get sidetracked with the permit fishing as we had on the day prior. We made a hard run at catching a tarpon, though despite this effort we only came tight briefly to a single large laid up fish before we timed out. We did spend a pair of hours on the ocean, hoping to find a few early strings, and saw a few pass by us in the glare. I fell off the boat, which was a fitting way to end an incredibly hard pair of days on the water, and with that our time was graciously up.

As always I’d like to thank John for fishing me even though it left us with a pretty severe itch, though I’m sure it will get scratched soon enough.

On Thursday I fished with Trevor Luce and Wes Smith, in search of permit. We looked hard and found a few shots for our efforts. I hooked a tarpon from a large rolling school nearby the edge of the flat we were atop in our permit pursuit, but the thing we were after eluded us. I had a great time despite the tough treatment from the fish, and I was impressed with the number of shots Trevor was able to get us despite the fact that the permit are, allegedly, mating and posing for Instagram full-time offshore (provided they can avoid the sharks).

Tomorrow and the next I’m with Ian Slater, and the weather finally looks good. Another small front moved in on Friday, but things have settled already and I have high hopes for our fishing the next two days. Either way it will be fun and a report will follow.

Sincerely,

 

A Blogger That Needs More Fish to Make This Thing Worth Reading.