Fishing yesterday

Yesterday I was invited to fish with Captain Sandy Horn by Ted Margo. We took a late start due to a plan to fish into the evening.
By 11:00 we were on the water in the first spot, a backcountry area that typically holds a few giants. I had two shots at laid up fish, though neither wanted to play. Ted was up at our next spot, and had the same number of shots without a bite. The fish were being difficult, and we made the run to a far away place for some new targets.
I was up first at the next stop, and we took a few good shots at tarpon before we switched anglers. Ted also had a few before we moved on.
At our next spot we had a few tarpon swimming through, though we were unable to get any of them to commit. I had maybe three shots at fish that ducked the fly before a pair of permit showed up, travelling through. I threw my tarpon fly in front of the lead fish and played a game of keep-away with him until he was 15 feet from the bow, where he decided he’d had enough and had to find out what, exactly, this little thing was all about. He ate the fly with a head-out-of-the-water slurp which we all saw and thought was very cool. After fixing a knot on the way in that I didn’t have time to on the way out, Ted grabbed our fish and Sandy took some photos:

After this, we had a few more tarpon shots (come on, slam) but never had one eat even though we had a few great follows and tracks.

We called it a day at 7:30, happy for the permit but a little ragged from the beating we took from difficult tarpon.

Tomorrow with Ted and John, report to follow.

ncl