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Albie Video

The world of fly fishing is very small. Last season, I was fly fishing for albies in Rhode Island with my friends Boz and Alex when Ryan showed up on the scene with fly rod in hand. Both Alex and Boz almost simultaneously said, “Hey Ryan, What’s up man?’ I was too amped up on the albies at the moment to pay much attention, but later came to realize that Both Alex and Boz knew Ryan from separate encounters. Boz had guided Ryan and his wife on a whitewater rafting trip in Maine and Alex had met Ryan several years ago while fly fishing for Salmon. Since that time, I kept crossing paths with Ryan online and on the water. I would see an article on some fly fishing website or in some magazine about Ryan Sansoucie and his "Hush Fly Fishing Company"and the stuff he does and then the next day we would pass each other on the flats or on the reefs. I knew that Ryan does a bit of a different gig than most guides in Rhode Island and that interested me. Ryan poles the many beautiful flats of Rhode Island in his flats boat sight casting to big and sometimes frustratingly tough to catch stripers. So, I was looking forward to having Ryan sight some fish for me and pole me along some of the flats where the Stripers had refused everything I had thrown at them. I had spent many days this season wading crystal clear flats and sight casting to big stripers, only to have them refuse everything in my box. I was dumb founded as to what I was doing wrong. Was it my fly, presentation or what? Either way, I was hoping that Ryan might be the answer to helping me seal the deal with one of these elusive, big and spooky stripers on the flats. In the past several years, I have acquired my own theory about flats fishing for any species. It may be wrong, but it's

what I believe. It goes something like this, “it’s not necessarily the species that are “tricky” it’s the environment." I came to this personal realization when I noticed how species such as permit are “easy” to catch when they are off the flats. In fact they will take "almost anything" when they are in deeper water and not on the flats. But, they get on the flats and they are super spooky and certainly not "easy". The same is true for Stripers. When stripers are eating in the deeper water off of the flats they can be relatively “easy” to catch. However, when a solo 40-50 inch striper is feeding in very shallow and crystal clear water it can be a very different experience. The stripers on the flats tend to be very spooky and often very picky. If they are feeding on micro baitfish and you are throwing a crab pattern, well … good luck. So anyway, I was looking forward to a flats fly fishing experience with Ryan but then the Albies showed up, big time. We decided to fly fish for Albies in the morning and pole the flats for stripers in the late morning when the tide was best and the sun was high. But, the Albie fishing was just too good and before we knew it the wind kicked up, the weather took a turn for the worse and we were still chasing Albies. I suppose their could be bigger problems, much bigger. So, I still am looking forward to fly fishing the flats with Ryan and hopefully sealing the deal with the big flats striper that has eluded me this season. The season ain’t over yet.