An Informative Blank

I turned up a few hours before the low tide so had a look out the reef side before heading to the big north flat with my 8 and a wee shrimp where I followed the calf deep water out looking for yellowspots. I saw one and made a poor shot, lined the fish and spooked it. Meh. Shortly after, I saw another little guy and caught him. Small but welcome redemption. Not much else happened for about half an hour when a nice GT of maybe 80cm came out of the glare to my right, and looked as surprised to see me as I was to see it, the glare was there but the fish wasn't causing any nervous water. It spooked before I got a shot off, but I'd have been outgunned with my 12lb tippet and size 6 the other had it miraculously eaten anyway. 10 minutes later I saw another GT cruising along in front of me not monstrously big, maybe a bit bigger than the other. It ignored my attempts to entice it with my wee fly. One fish isn't enough to make me change, but two in similar situations like that are, so I cut the tippet off and tied a popper onto the 30lb of my taper and worked my way along the channel that they'd seemingly been following. I didn't see another fish except the squads of Picasso triggers that were marauding the shallows by my feet.

Today there was a neapy tide with a high at about half ten so I decided to head back to the big flat after breakfast. It's pretty reliable for trevally usually and there are loads of deeper channels that mean it's relatively fishable at most stages of the tide. It was a bit higher than I expected when I arrived, already waist deep, so I worked my way along the shore expecting to see fish in the nearest channel. the light was good initially but I didn't see any fish for the first hour, just turtles. I don't know why, but whenever I see turtles I don't see trevally. I had just decided to work my way back to the bike and go to the other flat on the east side if I didn't see anything. Moments after the decision, I saw a permit, it was swimming at a bad angle so I ran down the shore and got a half an angle on it, the shot was about as good as it could have been, but it didn't eat. Obviously, I decided to stay, unfortunately the clouds decided to move in. Scuppering visibility so I just waited for gaps when I could see further than about 10 feet. In the first bit of sun another permit materialised in front of me but again swimming away, this time directly away and there was no way to get an angle on it. The only shot would have been across its back so I watched it in the hope it would turn, but no dice. As the clouds came back another permit arrived, hard to see but half a shot so I put the crab in and tried to make out what the fish was doing. Whatever was going on, it didn't eat. Another popped into view during this cloudy spell, almost at my rod tip going left to right. being on the shore I though I might be able to get ahead of it and put a nice shot in front. but it spooked as soon as I moved. The turtles were still cutting about but the permit apparently don't mind them or the odd shark as there were a couple of them around too. Then my old pal the tailless stingray appeared. I've seen it pretty regularly on my last few trips, it seems to have a fairly regular patrol route on this flat around high tide, usually about half an hour after the high it'll turn up and it always brings me a fish. I even wrote a song about him, but you'll only hear that if you find me on this flat. Anyway, I couldn't see anything following the ray but had a cast anyway, it's always worth it in case there's a fish you can't see and in the bad light I wouldn't have been surprised if there was. Nothing doing. I kept walking down the shore looking for another fish, and shortly after my stingray buddy caught me up and there was a permit on his back. I made a decent shot, didn't spook the permit but also didn't get an eat.
This isn't a bad morning of fishing, and if I was looking at a week of good weather instead of one more good day on Thursday, I'd be well pleased. I'd confirmed what I thought for a while that on this kind of tide, on this flat there's a window of roughly an hour and a half each side of the high which is when I'm going to see a permit on this island, if I'm going to see any that is. Although numbers are definitely increasing. Informative if nothing else.

As the tide dropped the flat I was on basically went dead, except for the turtles. Usually if there aren't any trevally on this one, they'll be on the one to the east so I jumped on the bike and went over there. The light was much better in the afternoon and I saw a nice pair of yellowspots coming in towards me within about 10 minutes, made a good cast and both fish chased but wouldn't eat, they just followed they fly till they got to the rod and spooked. This happened 3 more time, and I don't know why. Frustrating. So I'm sitting with a decision to make about tomorrow. Do I spend my 1 good day hoping for a permit or go looking for trevally, which are probably a higher percentage option, but they're not permit. 1 permit would go a long way towards making up for the weather forecast.