As a
saltwater fly fishing guide I have had the pleasure of giving
many seasoned freshwater fly anglers their very first taste
of the salt. Casting issues aside, my number one piece of
saltwater fly fishing advice for anyone facing the salt
for the first time is to never abandon what you already
know. Experiences and skills gleaned from the trout stream
or salmon river can carry you a long way in the salt and
are based on the fact that all fish, no matter where they
are located, behave very similarly.
Indeed,
the very heart of convincing a fish to eat a fly comes down
to the angler's ability to take into account the movement
of the water when presenting his or her fly and making sure
that fly acts as close as possible to what it is supposed
to emulate. Any freshwater trout angler worth his "salt"
is very effective at these two skills and put in certain
saltwater fly fishing situations, that selfsame trout angler
will not only feel at home, but find him or herself hooking
saltwater fish using the very same freshwater tactics. One
of those saltwater fly fishing situations happens to be
one of my favorite wintertime diversions: casting a fly
to snook beneath a lighted dock.
In the
winter, snook move into deeper urban canals seeking warmer,
more stable water temperatures. In areas like Cape Coral
where there are literally hundreds of miles of canals and
countless, dark-bottomed boat basins, snook find an ideal
winter sanctuary with plenty of warm water, current, and
an endless supply of tiny baitfish, shrimp, crabs, and worms.
Being nocturnal feeders, another boon snook find in the
canals are shadow lines. Whenever a light casts a line of
shadow across moving water, snook have the perfect place
to feed. Hanging in the current, a snook needs only to gaze
into the lighted water before him and wait. Sooner or later,
a tiny creature will find itself in the spotlight, performing
a one act tragedy to an audience of hungry snook.
I have
spent a lot of time studying these fish and how they behave
beneath a light and I am always in awe of how similar they
act to freshwater trout. I have even caught them on various
trout flies over the years, sometimes dead drifting a fly
in the current. I have caught them on parachute emergers,
nymphs, and even San Juan worms and although I know there
are no mayflies or caddis present in a salt water Florida
canal, there are enough tiny creatures of similar form to
make these flies appealing enough to be considered food
for the scrutinizing snook.
What
is truly important about the whole picture I have painted
above is that we have fish holding in a current, facing
upstream, and actively feeding on various food items that
are conveyed to them by the flow of water. There is no hunting
on the part of the fish and rarely much effort is exerted
in pursuing the prey. We could just as easily be talking
about rainbows sipping blue-winged olives in a stream as
we could about snook picking off tiny shrimp swept by a
tide. Obviously your freshwater trout tackle and especially
your leaders and tippet are not much use when snook fishing,
but the trout fishing tactics are very much the same.
Just
as on a trout stream, your position in relation to the fish
has to do with what type of food source you are emulating.
For dead drifting a shrimp, crab, or worm pattern, you want
to be just slightly up current of the fish. This way, any
manipulation of the fly will not cause it to drag in the
current and look unrealistic. I will often do a reach cast
in this situation to give my fly a longer, controlled drift.
A reach cast is simply reaching the rod upstream on your
forward cast after you stop the rod, yet before the line
lays out on the water. It is a standard cast on a trout
stream and a very useful tool in the saltwater fly angler's
arsenal.
In extreme
situations, I will sometime position the boat so that I
am casting up current and over the fishes' backs. Throwing
a large mend before the line hits the water can make it
so only the fly and tippet cross their feeding zone. This,
however, can make for some tricky hook sets due to the tremendous
amount of slack created by your line rushing toward you
in the current, so absolute attention must be paid if you
want even a chance at hooking up. If the snook are facing
a dock or some other structure, this is sometimes your only
shot so calling up some of the line mending skills gained
from time spent trout fishing can truly save the day. In
this situation I will almost always choose either a crab,
worm, or shrimp pattern over a baitfish pattern and to find
out why, you need only read on.
Probably
the most common food source emulated by the fly angler fishing
a snook light would have to be the glass minnow. It is also
the one that is most often incorrectly presented to the
fish. First of all, a tiny fish swimming in a strong current
is never going to swim with its head facing down stream,
nor is it going to have the ability to shoot across the
current in giant powerful movements as its tail is only
about an eighth of an inch long. Positioning the boat far
up current of the fish is critical and will allow you to
swing the fly in the current so that its tail enticingly
brushes the noses of the snook. How you strip the fly during
this swing is of equal importance. Again, a tiny glass minnow
has a tiny tail and a movement of that tail will only propel
the fish a tiny distance. I always tell my anglers to strip
the fly as fast as they can by only using their fingers
and wrist. The shoulder, elbow, and forearm must remain
stationary. If it hurts your doing it right.
As more
and more people cast flies to snook under lighted docks,
snook will become smarter and, in my opinion, the fishing
will get better. Soon, we who pursue snook on a cool winter
night with a fly rod may find ourselves netting tiny crustaceans,
worms, and fish larva for study and arguing with fellow
anglers over when the next hatch is coming off. We already
speak of worm and crab hatches when the talk turns to stripers
or tarpon and dead drifting techniques are standard procedure
in the these areas of the salt. Simply opening any book
cataloguing the multitudes of trout and salmon flies will
key you into the fact that saltwater fly fishing is still
in its formative years and for those of us who fish the
salt with a fly, it may be time we took a second look at
all the knowledge and technique that has been in use for
centuries by our freshwater brethren.
