Success is a cool concept. No matter where you find it, success brings a smile and happiness. Tim sent me these photos of Dave – the junior fly tier from my Part 4 Post – fighting and landing a tasty Rainbow that he caught on one of the creations he came up with while behind my vice. He’s now begging for a kit for his birthday! Haha! Love it!

Today I planned to spend the push on the flats and chase a few more Grunter. I arrived just before the dead low and immediately saw a brace of fish on the edge of a channel. There was no reaction to the fly, they didn’t seem to be feeding and swam happily into the depths after two more presentations. A thin layer of high altitude cloud had moved in which, when coupled with a light breeze, reduces visible area on the flats around you. I felt like I was hacking – I saw two more individual fish but both saw me first.

And then I found a dead grunter. Its gills and guts had been torn out.

This typical behaviour of the resident Cape Fur Seal in the lagoon. He’s lazy and it’s not the first time we’ve seen his handiwork. My folks once saw him catch and gut seven big grunter in 15 minutes up at the Red Bridge. Damn seal, it was nice grunt too!

Then, out in the channel, all hell erupted! A Garrick tore into a shoal of mullet. And then again. And again. I tried in vain to reach them a cast. No ways! They were too far out and I was in peril of flooding my waders. So begrudgingly I grabbed my light spinning rod (which is carried for times like these) and tossed out a surface walker. Boom! Fish on.

Over the next two hours I landed 9 Garrick and lost a several more – one of which totally smoked me!

So, as Pete said later, I am now – 9 Garrick on fly for this trip. Well, actually – 8, counting the one a couple of days ago. So I’ve delayed my trip back to CT by a morning and hopefully I can get that number down a bit!