Late evening memories

I often go out onto the bay in the late evening, on the day before I guide. It's a private moment in an otherwise pretty public life. So Rosie and I headed out on Thursday before three days of guiding, just to enjoy our home waters. I went to one place only, and noticed birds working in very shallow water, so I pulled over and watched them. Wow, suddenly, redfish were ripping through the shallow

water, throwing water and bait in the air. I took my rod and walked a few yards from the boat, and stood upwind of the melee. I didn't really have any ambitions, but when some wakes started heading my way, I thought, Why not? The first red that came upwind took my fly like a hungry bass, with an audible suck. It was "only" 24 inches long, and after a pretty good fight, I released it and looked downwind. A larger wake approached, so I tried to put the Clouser ahead of it. It was windy, though, and the fly flopped 18" to the side of the moving wake. There was an explosion, and the fish literally came out of the water. I thought that I'd spooked it, but apparently, it had felt the fly on its lateral line, even in the wind-churned, murky water. Suddenly, I was hooked up to a living freight train. A few minutes later, I landed a redfish that was 28+ inches long. I went back to the boat, and enjoyed watching the redfish feeding. They are hammered so much by boats running back and forth over most of the bay. It's nice to see them relatively untroubled in a back lagoon where few anglers every think of going because only a very few boats will take you there, and back home again.