A sign of things to come

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

Do you believe in good omens? I do.

Let me explain about my latest good fortune.

Up until the last two weeks, I only caught one snook the entire year, and that was in the Tomoka River.

In the past two weeks, I have caught a total of three snook here in Flagler County.

They weren’t big snook. As a matter of fact, the largest was about six inches, and the smallest about three inches. All of them were caught on a fly.

I’d have to consider this a good omen for things to come for our snook fishery next year.

You ask yourself how I can get excited about catching fish so small? Snook are ferocious feeders. When they are small, it amazes me to see them try to eat something almost as big as they are. Also, any fish I catch while fly fishing is a good fish. Snook just happens to be one of my favorite fish to catch on a fly, or on any other type of rod and reel, for that matter.

Steve Carl and I had planned a trip to fish the Indian River last Saturday, but because of the forecast of high winds, we decided to stay around here. Steve wanted to try out a fly rod he was thinking of purchasing from me, so we went to one of my favorite canals to be out of the wind. He put the rod to the test by catching trout and bluefish. When the wind finally made us give up on fly fishing, our total was 15 trout, five bluefish, a snook and a redfish.

Next, we headed to the area around Highbridge to fish another canal. With the wind, I decided to operate the trolling motor and let Steve fish. Working the canal produced a 15-inch flounder caught on Berkley Gulp bait. With the wind howling, we decided to venture into a flat and give it a try. As we entered the flat, we spooked a couple of reds and saw another bust up on bait.

Not being dressed properly for the conditions, we thought we’d give it a go anyway, but the stronger the wind got, the colder we got and the harder it became to fish. We were about to turn around when Steve cast his Gulp up to the point of a small island. As soon as the bait hit the water, a redfish exploded on it, and the battle was on. We landed the fish, and it measured out at 23 inches.