Darrell asked me to bring my fly rod along when Lois and I came down. 'Spose I should have asked him what he had in mind. I was thinking along the lines of back bay fishing for bonefish or sea trout. Maybe redfish or snook. All of those would have been logical and a bucket of fun.
On the illogical side I saw me whippin' out huge streamers to the schools of blue marlin or sailfish he'd attracted close to the boat with chum and big, squiddy lookin' rigs. 'Course for that I'd have needed a fifteen weight rod with a reel that held about a half mile of backing and even then it would have been like farting in a hurricane (I know that analogy makes little sense but I liked it so I wrote it).
What I packed up was a ten foot, eight weight. About right for the logical fish. With that I grabbed a fistful of streamers, all about an inch, or a little more, long. I was wrong. The rod was more or less okay. Not so the streamers. Seems Darrell had gotten into catching his own ballyhoo. At two bucks a pop for the 'hoos he could save the price of a tankful of gas with a couple of hours effort. Not to mention havin' a good time along the way. In my mind it's also akin to makin' your own lures. Good deal all around.
Turned out ballyhoo were way too small, eight or ten inches long, for my flies. Bummer. It woulda been fun for both of us. Plus they look a lot like tiny marlin. As it was we fished for them with little hooks baited with shrimp. How Darrell knew where to find the ballyhoos was a mystery to me but find them he did. Another step he'd mastered in the learning curve I suppose.
The process also involved some chumming as I recall. Talk about a food pyramid. Usin' bait to catch bait to catch game fish. Made me wonder if it woulda been simpler to eat the shrimp. The things we do for fun.
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