Save to del.icio.us

Shark & Snook Video

My mother came to the French west indies for two weeks to greeting’s us and see how things are going. I had some free time during that time so I brought her twice into the mangrove as she wanted to learn to fly fish. I must say that the first fly rod I have seen belong to her was a Scott rod, I think for small stream fishing. Unfortunately for her she never had really the time to practice. So the rod collected dust for years in our garage and finally had been stolen. Here we are, I'm polling and she's the gunner on my bow. For a first timer she was pretty good and after half an hour or so of tips and advice regarding her casting "skills" she managed to land the fly almost properly every fifth cast. We headed to a mangrove river for baby tarpon. As I pole she was prospecting each spot … on the right, on the left. "Strike Mom, Strike ... missed, ok that was a poon" and it went like that three more times. It was really fun and we laughed a lot about her misses and her surprise each time a fish grabbed the fly. She hooked and kept one on the line for 3 seconds, her record that day. We went back four days later with Jessica too and headed to another area to see if migrating poon's started arriving. I did see some big fish swirl but the place was the deepest of the spot, about 7 to 10 feet and it was kind of an overcast and rainy morning that made sighting hard with a dark bottom. I assume there were tarpon but didn't see any backs or dorsal fins. I lost a popper fly on a big barracuda. I suddenly figure out that Mom and Jess were looking at me casting on the bow under the rain and I decide to

move before they get bored waiting under the rain for something to happen. A short ride to an inlet for lunch and as I pull the boat on the beach, the area was worked by 6 or 7 baby black tip sharks. I rigged up with 40 lb shock tippet and kinda "green cookie" flies. I land two of them and lost 3 others. These were great little sharks to fight, very strong and jumpy battles. We left the place to go back into the mangroves for one hour. I wanted mom to get her first tarpon. It was already 4 pm but the tide is low, perfect for that spot. Once again she missed 3 poons "trout setting" the hook. Just before we left the place a nice cast from her under the mangrove ..."strike mom" Bang!You should have seen that down and dirty strike...any fish would have been hooked. This time, it's a very small snook. A first fish on the fly has no price. What a great day, her first fish on the fly and my first sharks. Mom will be heading to Madagascar, an island close to Mozambique, south east of Africa to run a resort. This place has a nice fishery and Mom has been hooked since the time she released the snook. She intended to buy a saltwater outfit to fish there...hopefully this time she will have the time to practice and use it like that she can show me the good spots when I go there for holidays.