Restart...

So I spend my day typically designing ships. Big ones. I like my job and most days, I stay pretty busy. The problem with a job where you spend your whole day designing big things that operate in the ocean is that when you are fish crazy, you tend to digress.

Well today, one of my digressions led my roommate and coworker, who's currently in the slow process of moving out, to ask me, "How come you stopped posting on your blog?"

I didn't have a very good answer. This was my opportunity to show my friends, family, and anybody else who might be interested in the kind of fishing we do on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to get a taste of how lucky I am. I was even more surprised when he stated that the blog he currently is very active on writing used to have a link to my blog. He must have liked my posts, they must not have been crap.

Needless to say this inspired me.  Why don't I post anymore?  Good question. I haven't stopped fishing, and I even have my own personal notebook where I record my fishing trips. You know the technical stuff like tides, temperature, location fish, etc.

Anyways, this is my return since I believe it's important to showcase the outdoors and the activities that I love so much. Even more, my closest fishing buddy and roommate is moving out and getting married and suddenly I realize, it's not going to be as easy for him to just grab his kayak and go fishing whenever we want to like it has been the last year and a half. Now he'll have to ask permission to go fishing, and for that reason I think posting on a blog is something that will allow us to share stories when we're not fishing together.  It's weird how blogging about fishing connects you to so many other people around the world. Anyways...

I'll REstart off by talking about a secret spot.  It's a special spot.  A spot of wonders. A spot of miracles. It's the spot I hit with my room mate a short while back.  He offered to take me and I promised I would only use my fly rod.

This blog started off as a blog about fly fishing and the major reason I hated writing on it was that I wasn't catching fish fly fishing. And by in large, fly fishing has been amazingly difficult and frustrating for me. This trip restored my faith and my understanding of why catching a tailing redfish in the bayou on a fly rod is magical.

Brian and I put our kayaks in and paddled through the winding bayou. I was amazed that as we entered the mouth, a crab boat with an outboard cut up and into the bayou, a peculiar choice for a deep draft outboard boat.  Leave it to the locals though, they know these bayous better than anyone.

As we paddled the bayou opened up into a pond (local expression that confuses me to this day, in Michigan, a pond is a huge mud puddle, this is just a bayou marsh). As we entered, Brian and I parted ways. I couldn't help but notice the similarities to two hunters parting ways for their remote deer stand or turkey blind. He was soon out of sight and out of mind. The sun was barely over the tree tops. As I paddled, I suddenly realized Brian had found in this spot what I had been hoping to see since I picked up my fly rod.

TAILS.....EVERYWHERE.

There must have been a dozen redfish tails sticking out of the water out in front of me.  I began to shake, similar to when a big flock of geese circle around in response to your calling.  I stopped breathing and prepared my fly rod to cast. Lift...backcast....crap.  I'm was so excited that i tangled my leader on the first cast.  I spent the next 15 minutes untangling my leader, while explosions of feeding redfish seemed to concentrate in the area directly around my kayak.

I paddled and caught back up to my roommate who was concentrating on a fish of his own. He motioned with his hands the size of the fish he just missed with his gurgler and continued to cast.  Suddenly, a golden back appeared a short distance ahead of Brian.  I positioned my kayak and made a false cast at that golden back that I knew belonged to a redfish with an Ultra Shrimp I had tied the night before.  The shaking had subsided and given way to urgency and determination.  I got the fly airborne and managed to get it to him in three false casts. This is not a typical feat for me. I take 4 or 5.  The fly landed just in front of his head.  One strip, Two Strip...BOIL. HE SAW IT. HE FOLLOWED. The take was epic.  Success. 

He made two beautiful runs, causing my drag to whine and my blood to rush.  Their strength is so impressive.  A largemouth this size would not pull like him.  After a tug of war lasting approximately 15 minutes, I was able to successfully land him for my trophy pic. 

This isn't a big redfish. I don't claim it to be.  But, sometimes the littlest fish can restore your enthusiasm and give you hope and motivation that yes, one day, you could actually be half way decent at something so difficult as fly fishing. Notice the fish hitting in the background of the last picture. There were more in the bayou and after a few more hours, I managed to get one more follow on a topwater popper.  Lesson learned there, redfish are clumsy and foolish surface feeders.  I amazingly hooked two lady fish whose wild acrobatics resulted in spit hooks both times.  It was a good day though, because sometimes a guy needs to be reminded why he loves what he loves.

I caught this fish and then my roommate had to go and trump me...

Showoff.

Either way, starting this blog was a good idea a year and a half ago. I shouldn't have stopped. I already feel better knowing this article will be posted for everybody shortly. I'll try not to wait a year and a half to post again.