Fly Fishing the Texas Flats

Blind Casting and Sight Fishing

Many experienced saltwater fly fishers never make a cast when wading a shallow flat unless they sight a fish, preferring to concentrate on the hunt.

Making cast after cast over unproductive water can be exhausting and frustrating; but selective blind casting should be a part of every fly fisher's flats strategy.

Fly fishers should learn to recognize features that warrant a blind cast, such as creek mouths and dropoffs, channels, and depressions or "potholes" where light, sand bottoms are surrounded by grass.

These are natural holding areas for game fish. Likewise, any movement on the surface or disturbance around a bait school also warrants a cast.

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Texas has an abundance of shallow flats with firm bottoms that are ideal for wade fishing.

Wading a prime shoreline or grass flat by yourself—confronting the quarry in its own environment—is one of the purest pleasures of fly fishing on the Texas coast. It also is one of the most effective ways to take redfish, trout, black drum, flounder, and other flats species.

The most successful wade fishers imitate the slow, methodical movements of egrets, herons, and other wading birds that regularly take their meals on the Texas flats. Redfish and other game fish are always on the alert for unusual sounds or disturbances.

If you can hear yourself making a disturbance in the water, you are going too fast, advises Port Mansfield guide Terry Neal. Neal advises his fly-fishing clients that if they can hear themselves wading, the fish can hear them too.

When waders are in an area where the fish are active, if they just stand still, fish will pass within range. "I have fished days when I didn't cover 50 yards," Neal says. Another good approach, when waders find fish holding tight to the shore, is to get out of the water and walk along a section of shoreline to spot a target.

When wade fishing, anglers should always hold the fly by the hook bend and have enough fly line outside the tip—10 to 15 feet—to enable them to quickly load the rod and cast in case fish appear suddenly. To become proficient, flycasters should practice casting with the wind on all quadrants to targets at a distance of 30 feet or less.

In addition, although some wading anglers are comfortable allowing fly line to trail behind them in the water, others might want to use a stripping basket, as there are many circumstances in which a trailing fly line can be a severe handicap.

The ability to recognize changes in wind and current and to make quick adjustments, even if it means holding a few coils of fly line in the line hand, is a mark of the skilled wade fisher.

© Article copyright Pruett Publishing.