Zoom, Zoom!

John Pilmer, (pictured above, traveling incognito), flew in from San Antonio Friday night, took a cab to the storage facility where he stashes his Toyota, and came to stay with me. On Saturday morning, we drove to Arroyo and picked up his Maverick HPX-T that he has stashed in a storage facility there. Yeah, fishing is that important.
As we were getting the boat ready and our stuff put on board, we noticed the clouds gathering to the north. We needed to get on the water before we lost sunlight. Why? John's passion is fly fishing in clear, shallow water and seeing the fish eat the fly. What's not to like about that? I'm all in.
The first location was way more shallow than we expected and the water was muddy. If I had shut down, I was sure we would be grounded and that would make for a very long day.
We finally ended up further south where I turned his boat out of the Intercoastal and headed east. Almost immediately the water became clear and that caused me to shut down deeper than I had intended. I decided I would pole him into more shallow water and see what happens. When we finally got to water that was about a foot deep, we started seeing trout. Some were in the 25" range and crusing in groups of 2 and 3. You just don't see that everyday.
John is one of the best fly casters I've fished with, but this was exciting stuff; and with the breeze coming from the east straight into his face, it was tough to get a fly in the right place and have the fish eat. It seemed that all the big boys were sulking straight away from the boat, whether they were at the 9:00, 12:00 or 3:00 position so any cast would be over their back. At one point, after a good cast set the fly down in the perfect spot, but was refused by a large trout, even John said his hands were shaking.
After a moment to gather our nerves, we came upon a large clearing that had 3 or 4 smaller trout sitting around, seemingly, looking at each other. A quick cast later and the smallest one, (of course), nailed the fly.
It was a small, maybe 15" trout but it was perfect and beautiful. As John and I watched the released fish slowly swim away, the clouds moved in and the wind turned and increased out of the north.
That was the end of that.