Picked up a new stick and ahead of a trip to Cancun, I thought I should get out to a local lake and learn how to cast the heavy thing. Here's a nice "practice" pike on the fly;
In Cancun, we fished the lagoon side a bit, because the night before while looking from the deck at Senior Frog's there were young Tarpon everywhere (5-12 lbs.). I didn't get any action the next day from the Tarpon, but I did get scores of needle fish following the fly, roiling the surface, and trying unsuccssfully to bite it.
This guy was probably doing much better....
On another evening we took a walk down the beach to a point of rocks, where we heard the fishing can be decent and we ran into a guy that was collecting tropicals for sale, he would catch them by hand :shock: .
We gave 'er a short go as the daylight was fading fast;
Weapon of choice;
My wife booked a snorkel/shopping trip to a nearby island, transportation would be a 30 minute catamaran ride. I packed the rod, you know, just in case... :roll: . Once we got going (and going we were--fast!), I asked the crew of three if I could fish from the back of the boat. They said "where's your bait?" I answered " I don't have any bait, I'm going to try my luck with flies." They rolled their eyes (gave me the you don't have a chance look) and said "yeah, sure go ahead." I asked them how deep it was and they told me 15-25 feet, so I tied on 15 foot section of fast sink line ahead of my leader and gave it a whirl. It was about ten minutes later, after catching a fish so small that they got a really good laugh out of, I had my first good hit.
Fish on!
After an inspired little battle, my first Barracuda on the fly was landed; felt good.
The Mexican crew of the ship were out of their minds when they saw me handle this fish, all three of them woudn't get any where near it, from fear of the teeth. I didn't even think twice about it, I mean we have pike....
Fearsome predator;