Red Spread

Deserted old flat bed in a North Carolina marsh flat

Last Wednesday I was netting the 18 inch rainbow in Western North Carolina after one of the best fights I've encountered with a trout.  This week, I really understood what kind of power a fish can put out while landing my first redfish on a fly on the other end of our great state.  North Carolina is truly unbelievable.

Red Fish pull. Period. After at least 7 short outings in Charleston, I was surprised to land my first red on a North Carolina marsh flat where no one in the area seemed to talk about fishing flats, much less know anyone who fly fished. Essentially, most of this experienced played out far different than I ever imagined, while other parts where spot on.  I knew I had two limited chances to chase reds on our family vacation, and my first outing was mostly wandering through the marsh trying to figure out where to concentrate my efforts.  It turned out to be super windy at this 5.0 high tide, and when a found a tailing red, I blew two cast in the wind, had two decent casts, then had a third cast wrap around spartina grass right on top of the tailer. Fail.

The following day seemed to be to much of a Drake article set up to expect to catch a fish. A last-chance-for-who-knows-how-long kind of scenario.  Here is a list of ways it went different than I had invisioned while day dreaming about red fish.

1. Red fish fight way harder then any one has ever told me.  Way harder. Stinkin' awesome.

2. I was convinced all the waked and fin tips I was seeing on this day were mullet, and didn't even cast at them until this guy ate my fly. The fins looked gray, not orange.  I think the cloud cover kept the fins from lighting up "red."Later I realized all the "mullet" I let swim through the trough I was watching were all decent sized reds.

3. I didn't see a single tailing fish. Saw some fins pushing through the shallow trough to get into the flat, but no tailors.

4. I lead a wake with a good fly, and strip directly back to me when I got the eat.

5. I don't even remember thinking about the hook set. I just happened.

6. If it took me four minutes to land the fish, than three minutes and 50 seconds were spent wondering if it was a red fish.  Some one had told me bonnet sharks can get in the flat and chase bait, and I was thinking it was probably a bonnet. When it was at my feet, I finally realized I had caught a good red fish.

7. I didn't get any epic pics of my first red fish. Standing knee deep in a marsh, no dry land near by, with an i-phone, fish, and fly rod in hand is the equivalent of texting and flossing while driving a stick shift; it's awkward and you need another arm or two.

thought i had the whole fish in the frame

Beautiful spot tail (way out of focus)

Some other things went as hoped, invisioned, and planned.

1. My cyber scouting with google maps was great. FOund access and flats from satellites.

2. I had always wanted to take my first red on a more traditional pattern, and not a spoon fly. After some calls, I decided to go with a copper head variant. Got 'em.

3.  The tide was supposed to be around 5.5 on this day, which should lead to more fish in the flat, and it did. They cam piling through about 45 minutes before high tide (i just thought they were big mullet).

4. Without the wind from the day before, I was able to watch for wakes in the smooth water much better, and here crashing and splashing in the spartina grass far easier.

5.  I caught one in the bottom of the 9th. Thats how it happens in the story books, and thats how it happened this time.  It had been 2 years since my last shot, and I hoped that would have been a walk off home run situation.  But I left empty handed after four attempts int he Charleston marsh.

I think my carp fishing earlier this summer helped with my presentation for reds, but red fight way harder than carp. The tug is the drug, and reds pull hard and fast. I walked out of the spartina that day a little early. There was an impending storm, but even with the chance of catching more, my first red had me walking light and grinnin' like a fool.

sunset over the inter coastal waterway

An Essay: Redfishing

Raccoons swim out of a marsh near Charleston, SC

Wound in the Salt

The marsh takes two deep breaths a day, and as it slowly begins to exhale its water back to the ocean, my hopes of hooking my first redfish trickle away with the tide.  Two hours earlier, my head was on a swivel, turning to tailing fish on my left then to   violent slashes of water on my right, chasing sight and sound.  This Charleston area grass flat is the only place I’ve ever fly cast to a red, and in this, my 6^th attempt, the conditions are ripe.  As I wade in my first glimpse over the spartina grass reveals the shimmering orange, exposed body of a red fish rolling. 

My grandfathers old sixty percent poly Dickies make excellent wading pants, and the thin head of surface film rests just below the permanently pleated knee. The sun is high and slightly to my back, allowing me to see otherwise stealthy fish cruising the eighteen inches of water, nearly wakeless and undetectable from any other angle.  As one swims by 10 feet in front of me, I cast five feet ahead of its path, and it swims right by my pulsing metallic fly like it was a perfectly camouflaged, odorless fiddler crab, safely buried in the mud.  Moments later I see a large fish, tailing well out of range.  Do I move? What if I spook a fish near me that I haven’t seen?  Then the surface of the water rips and breaks behind my back.  Is it a school of mullet, or is it a red fish?  A small wake pushes my way, and a well placed fly is ignored again.  Desperate, I put on a spoon fly. No feathers, no fur.  Just mylar, metal and epoxy.  The unmistakable wake of a redfish meanders my way, then changes directions and stays out of range.  I begin to blind cast, stripping the spoon, pushing past ideals, exercising moral flexibility, feeling like a spin fisherman disguised as a fly guy.  I glance to the left, and silently and suddenly like a ghost, a tail slips out of the water 6 feet from me.  I notice that I’m shaking again, and the fly drops a foot from the tailing fish.  No wake. No spook. No take. 

I’m baffled, and I’m reminded of my teenage and college years when I was dependent on fly shop conversations to gain knowledge to improve my fishing skills on the trout streams of North Carolina.  It makes for a slow learning curve when you have more fishing knowledge than your buddies, you can’t afford a guide, and its trial and error on the stream.  The marsh is no stream, and I begin to wonder if my fresh water fly fishing even holds an ounce of transferable experience for chasing reds in shallow water.

The spartina snails cling to their pale masts as the grass silently stirs, pushed by a slight breeze.  The only sounds are fiddler crabs searching for high ground, the soft trickle of the rising tide, and the muted whir of traffic crossing the drawbridge. The rotting odor of marsh mud hangs heavy, laced with sweetness.  Frustrated, intrigued, and yet hopeful, I begin to cruise through marsh grass like a red fish; alert, looking and listening, with a heightened anticipation.  It’s a slow, stalking hunt. Time passes and the only bend my rod has felt is from a loading line.  The fish elude me, seemingly safe under the now thigh deep water that covers tails and masks wakes.  I taste the salt on my lips.  Four raccoons appear swimming out of the vastness of the marsh towards land, looking at me, wondering why I’m dumb enough to linger. I sigh with the marsh.

This is not the story of a trophy or the makings of a film.  It is, however, a common story. The fruitless hunt, that shapes and hones our senses, drawing us that much closer to a hook up next time. It’s the suicide sprint in basketball practice, or the humbling defeat on the field that sends you home looking for answers. It’s the effort that will make my first redfish to hand all the more sweet, rewarding, and exhilarating. Maybe it will be tomorrow. Yes. It will be tomorrow.