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I hit a local beach for the first half of the day today and experienced something I haven't dealt with in a long time... I got buck fever. Bad!
Apparently I hit the timing just right on this beach because from the second I stepped on the beach there were fish all around me. Jumping, swirling, rising, splashing.... They were everywhere.
I quickly peeled off line after spotting the first swirl, and hooked up first cast. Released that fish and was instantly into another, then another, and yet another. After about my tenth fish is when the buck fever really kicked in. As I released a fish I noticed that the Delia Squid pattern I had been fishing was bent and shredded. My leader, which I've fished for several weeks now, was more wind knot than leader. I decided I better go ahead and put on a fresh leader as I was tying on a new fly anyway. No sooner had I clipped the loop of mono at my fly line loop all hell broke loose. There were suddenly fish swirling and jumping in every direction I looked... All within 50'. It was at this moment that I completely forgot how to tie a non slip loop knot. My fingers started shaking, I couldn't thread the line through the eye of the hook, and once I did it took me 4 tries to actually tie a knot! On top of that I made another rookie mistake.... I had pulled off about six feet of Maxima and tied a loop at one end. After the several tries I also finally tied the fly on the other end. At this point yet another nice fish jumped right in front of me. Then without actually looping the leader onto the fly line, I quickly fired a cast into the rings left by the jumping fish. It was a perfect cast, and I'm sure I would have caught that fish had the fly line actually had a fly and leader attached. I looked down and there was the fly and leader sitting in my stripping basket. Man I felt dumb. All I could really do at that point was laugh out loud.
I then lit a smoke, took a couple of deep breaths, reminded myself the fish weren't going anywhere, attached the leader and promptly caught more fish.
It's been a long time since I've experienced a good bout of buck fever, and honestly it was a hell of a lot of fun. Made me feel like a kid again.
So, any of you vets still get a case of buck fever any more? If you don't, you're missing out
I had my Gopro running the whole time and am really looking forward to watching the footage. I know I was laughing out loud and talking to myself the whole time so I'm sure I'll get a chuckle out of watching it.
Not much life left in this squid
![Finger Terrestrial plant Thumb Marine invertebrates Invertebrate]()
Pretty cutthroat. The spots on this fish were awesome. The pic does not do it justice.
![Food Salmon-like fish Fish Ingredient Seafood]()
Apparently I hit the timing just right on this beach because from the second I stepped on the beach there were fish all around me. Jumping, swirling, rising, splashing.... They were everywhere.
I quickly peeled off line after spotting the first swirl, and hooked up first cast. Released that fish and was instantly into another, then another, and yet another. After about my tenth fish is when the buck fever really kicked in. As I released a fish I noticed that the Delia Squid pattern I had been fishing was bent and shredded. My leader, which I've fished for several weeks now, was more wind knot than leader. I decided I better go ahead and put on a fresh leader as I was tying on a new fly anyway. No sooner had I clipped the loop of mono at my fly line loop all hell broke loose. There were suddenly fish swirling and jumping in every direction I looked... All within 50'. It was at this moment that I completely forgot how to tie a non slip loop knot. My fingers started shaking, I couldn't thread the line through the eye of the hook, and once I did it took me 4 tries to actually tie a knot! On top of that I made another rookie mistake.... I had pulled off about six feet of Maxima and tied a loop at one end. After the several tries I also finally tied the fly on the other end. At this point yet another nice fish jumped right in front of me. Then without actually looping the leader onto the fly line, I quickly fired a cast into the rings left by the jumping fish. It was a perfect cast, and I'm sure I would have caught that fish had the fly line actually had a fly and leader attached. I looked down and there was the fly and leader sitting in my stripping basket. Man I felt dumb. All I could really do at that point was laugh out loud.
I then lit a smoke, took a couple of deep breaths, reminded myself the fish weren't going anywhere, attached the leader and promptly caught more fish.
It's been a long time since I've experienced a good bout of buck fever, and honestly it was a hell of a lot of fun. Made me feel like a kid again.
So, any of you vets still get a case of buck fever any more? If you don't, you're missing out
I had my Gopro running the whole time and am really looking forward to watching the footage. I know I was laughing out loud and talking to myself the whole time so I'm sure I'll get a chuckle out of watching it.
Not much life left in this squid
Pretty cutthroat. The spots on this fish were awesome. The pic does not do it justice.
