Fishing yesterday

Yesterday I fished with Aaron Snell, and we have the next two days booked as well.
We were in pursuit of the 6, and as such knew we were making a concession of quantity for a (hopeful) increase in quality.
Our first four spots didn’t produce but a handful of shots, and most of those were to fish too small to be interested in.
After moving to a little backcountry deep-dish, we found what we were looking for: a few fish that appeared to be over 100 pounds. We had shot after shot at sliders, and the fish moved on the fly and elevated, but they wouldn’t open their mouths. After three fly changes and a decreasing amount of fish, we moved on to another depression.
There, even after another fly change, we encountered the same behavior: fish that would see the fly, elevate, track, but just not open their mouths. Frustrating, especially since the hardest part of big-fish fishing in June should be simply finding the animals.
We moved back to our first spot, and after throwing another loser at the fish made a last fly change. Next shot we hooked one that appeared around 80, and as such not a contender for the 6. We broke him off. Our tide was dead, our fish scattered, and satisfied that we had found the fly for Monday and Tuesday (as well as located the large creatures) moved to the ocean for some shot trading.
I was up first, and within 10 minutes had a school slide past and put one up. A decent fish, and we got some photos.

Aaron was up next, and he fooled the lead fish of a pair (a nice fish; it looked to be around 100 lbs). I was too busy with driving and poling to photograph, but suffice to say Aaron did it like a boss.
Next I had a shot that I took prematurely at a large school of fish. As I stripped the fly back to the boat for shot #2, we watched a little fish nearly jump out of its skin to eat the fly; my second presentation to the school was ignored due to a fouled fly. No matter, since there was now another school passing behind us and Aaron had me there in short order. One ate, and we dried off another fish around 60 lbs. We brought it close to the boat for some photos before the hook opened up:

Aaron was up for a while and had a shot at a single, which didn’t eat on account of another fouled fly.
We watched as a storm approached from the East, and decided to get out of the area before it arrived. Everyone else did the same, except for this guy, who wanted to see if his outriggers would attract lightning:

With that we left, and are ready for the next two days. Hopefully, John O’Hearn will join us tomorrow.

Regards,

ncl