SEEING ON THE FLATS
Last week while wading the flats, I noticed a beach fisherman preparing to fish. I watched as he put out his lawn chair, baited a hook and cast it as far as he could. He then plunked himself down, popped a beer and waited. As relaxing as this might seem, I thought to myself, is this really fishing? In fact, the whole scenario put me in the mood for a nap.
When first learning to fly fish, I was taught that by nature, humans are hunters and that fly fishing is the best method to stalk fish by closely imitating the size, shape, color and movement of the bait that game fish feed on. I liked the idea of hunting fish on the flats, of seeing and casting to individual fish and presenting the fly in a realistic manner that enticed them to strike. When sight fishing the flats, you are not casting a fly and hoping for a strike, instead, the fisherman is in control.
A successful day on the flats begins at home. An evaluation of the day’s weather and tides is crucial to safety and planning a fishing strategy. Knowing your wind speed and its direction beforehand will help you to choose your fishing location. I like to fish around the low tide, beginning and ending my day 3 hours on either side of the low. For tide charts, I prefer a particular app for my smart phone called Tides 4 Fishing. It gives me tides, weather, solunar scales and tidal coefficients. Having the right equipment is also important. I carry a 7wt and a 9wt fly rod out to the flats. The 7wt is loaded with an intermediate line. This is my stealth rod for wading the flats in shallow water. The 9wt with a sink-tip line is my rod for higher tides, when I need to get the fly down on the sand quickly. A stripping basket is a personal choice but it is helpful when current is running hard. I carry a full range of flies to match the bait found on the flats. Clousers in tan/white, olive/white and chartreuse, sand eel patterns in a variety of sizes, crabs, shrimp and bait fish patterns. The most important items in my arsenal of deceit though are my polarized sun glasses. Without them I cannot hope to see the fish beneath the surface of the water.
As with trout fishing, I never enter the water before first evaluating the situation. What bugs are hatching? Should I use a dry fly, a nymph or a streamer? The same goes for fishing on the flats. Stop for a moment to look around and get a feeling for your surroundings. The first thing I do before entering the water is look for bait. I’ll always remember my good friend Dave Reid quoting Cape Cod legend, Stan Daggett, when he said “You find the bait, you’ll find the fish.” That mantra has stuck with me through the years and always proves to be true.
The sight fishing on Cape Cod, with its miles of sand flats and crystal clear water is some of the best on the East Coast. Striped bass ranging in size from 15”- 40+” cruise the flats in skinny water feeding on crabs, shrimp, silversides, bunker and most importantly sand eels (sand lances). When I’m out on the flats on a calm summer day, I might as well be fishing a bonefish flat in the Bahamas. The scene looks the same: blue skies and white sand beaches. I arrive by kayak on a higher tide, first looking for fish moving along the beach. Large striped bass are running the shoreline in just several inches of water, their backs exposed. They are feeding on mummichogs gathered in the sand ripples along the beach. I see one coming and cast a small deceiver or bendback ahead of it and wait until it’s within a few feet of the fly. After a short quick strip, the bass charges the fly.
The tide is still high and the flats are not yet exposed. I look off the beach and beneath the surface of the water. I’m hoping to catch a glimpse of movement or maybe a flash from the flank of a bass as he rolls on his side to feed on sand eels. On cloudy or windy days when sight fishing is difficult, I’ll see the fish by looking through the water in the lens of a breaking wave. Diving gulls and terns will show me where the fish are. A pancake flat spot on a riffled surface could indicate a sub-surface feeding fish. Nervous water generally means bait. Any indication of something out of the norm may deserve a cast or two.
Far off the beach, sand eels have emerged from the sandy bottom en mass, to create large dark shadows that drift across the flats. When I look closely, I see another dark shadow circling the bait. The bass are closing in. If I have time to switch to a crease fly, I’ll quickly pop the fly near the bait-ball. I’m too late though and the bass have moved on in an explosion of crashing fish and jumping bait. To take bass on a surface popper is the ultimate in excitement but when stripers are feeding like this, they are not hard to catch and any fly will do if it’s placed in the zone.
The bass are not always easy to take. One June day on Brewster flats, I saw what must have been over 50,000 striped bass as they poured onto the flat with the incoming tide. Cast after cast was rejected. My friend Rick said, “They have just arrived, they’re tired and they want to rest.” Dave said, “They’ve been feeding all night, they’re full and now they’ve come to the flats to relax, kick back and smoke a cigarette.” I cast my fly and finally got a look and a follow. I switched to a Flatwing streamer and three fish followed it turning away at the last moment. On the next cast, I had a large bass follow the fly. His fins and gills flared as he chased the fly. This time, I quickly jerked the fly and the bass grabbed it. I thought to myself, remember this and in the future look closely at the fish’s body language. They tell you how aggressive they are, in their movements, not unlike a dog.
In July, I find travelling fish on the Brewster flats. They are moving from one place to another and often pass parallel to the outer sand bars. These are not easy fish to catch. They are more interested in moving than feeding. A fly cast horizontal to the bar will generally line the school and send them scattering. A fly cast parallel, just ahead of the nose of the fish and stripped away, causes the bass to chase the fly. A weighted fly, on the bottom, where the fish are, is more likely to be chased. A small cone head sand eel tied to a 12lb tippet and slowly moved along the sand is a good option. Small flies are the key to success on the flats. Small flies catch big fish.
As the tide drops and the sand bars become exposed so do the troughs that will later become the highways that bass will use to reach bait trapped on the flats. I want to position myself on the edge of the troughs, with the sun at my back so that I can see the fish and intercept them as they pass by.
At low tide I move to the Horseshoe flat on the inside of Barnstable Harbor. As I walk the flat I always keep an eye on the sandy bottom watching for sand eels that scurry out and then back into the sand. The ability to see under the surface is acquired through practice. You can train your eyes to see through the reflection on the surface by focusing on objects sitting on the sand underwater. Once you’re out on the flats, seeing movement above and below the surface is key to spotting fish. However, it’s not easy to miss a striper with its nose in the sand digging up sand eels; waving its tail in the air like a flag as if to say, “Hey, come over here and catch me.” When I see this, my first thought is to tie on a small weighted olive and white sand eel pattern. In the height of the summer months, I’ll see lady crabs at my feet burying themselves in the sand. During slack tide, I will give a crab fly a try, watching it fall to the sand in front of a cruising striped bass, only to be gobbled up after a twitch and then a tug of the fly line.
On the east and west flats outside Barnstable Harbor, the tide is coming in. One of my favorite tactics involves seeing the bass as they come out of the deep channels and run up through the trough on the filling tide. As they enter the trough, they often pause and stack up on the edge of the channel. This is the time when they are most vulnerable to a drifted sand eel fly cast out and across the trough so that it swings with the current in front of their noses. The fly represents a dislodged sand eel drifting in the current and the bass find it hard to resist. When I see the fish move, I know it has the fly, I don’t strip at all, until I feel a tug and the fish hooks itself.
In the fall, juvenile herring pour out of Barnstable Harbor and run along the edge of the channel. I look down the line to see huge schools of stripers rising out of the deep channel to blitz the bait up against the east and west bars. The stripers are feeding and the sand bar is dancing with bait. Sometimes, I just like to watch them eat.
A cool fall morning brings fog into the harbor. I paddle my kayak through the fog and over the Horseshoe flats. The fog thickens and my vision is reduced to inches instead of miles. I hear a slurping sound in the distance. I paddle in the direction of the sound and soon I’m surrounded by feeding stripers. I cast a deceiver off the bow and soon I’m hitched to a bass. The kayak moves as I try to gain control of this large fish that is now taking me into the fog on a surreal Nantucket sleigh ride. I can hear the passengers talking on the deck of the whale watch boat leaving the harbor and I can’t see the bow of my kayak. It’s like moving through a dream (or a nightmare?)
Over years of fishing, you may develop a connection to fish in an unconscious manner. You cast a fly to a swimming striper, you see the fish turn on the fly and you get this feeling inside that you just know that fish will take, and then it does. This intuition that you have developed is a culmination of all your knowledge and insights and the fact that you are not only a fly fisherman but that you are now a hunter.
Scott Dietrich
