First Saltwater Fish on the Fly

As I sit here and write this, the sun has risen and a new day has started.  For me it signifies the end of a wonderful week.  The family and I have been in Ocean City, Maryland for the past week.  I had a conference to attend that was being held here so I decided to bring along the family for a little forced family fun.  Overall we had a nice time.  God bless my wife cause not only did she allow me to spend money on saltwater flies, but she also allowed me to go out a few times fishing.  I had high hopes of getting into some stripers as they are running this time of year.  However, it was not to be.  I managed to go out on the Chesapeake Bay a few times and only one day, the first day as a matter of fact, did I catch fish.  This is not to say that I didn't have any strikes or hard takes.  Quite the contrary.  I hooked a number of fish but I couldn't seem to manage a decent hook set or land them.  I was also far too busy enjoying the scenery to notice or even pay attention to when they struck.  At one point I had a strike so hard it ripped the line out of my hand and rocketed down the guides.  As soon as I went to set the hook, the fish was gone.  Oh well.  Weather also played a role in my lack of success.  The wind was murder out here.  Some days it was rolling between 20-30 miles per hour.  I usually don't fish in this conditions so I wasn't used to the wind.  I found it to be quite difficult to punch through 25 mph winds with an 8/9 weight.  That brings me to the tackle.  I decided not to invest in a saltwater rod, reel or line.  About 15 years ago I bought a Cortland 8/9 rod and reel for bass fishing.  I have never used it.  The bass I catch can and are caught on my 5 weight so I never use it.  I figured it would save me some money to use it which I did.  However, it had floating line on it so I couldn't really get the fly down to where the fish were.  I will say that I saw fish slash through and attack big balls of bait fish as well as birds diving down and following the balls of bait fish.  I have never seen that before but have always read about it or seen it on fly fishing shows.  It was neat to watch.  This was really about having a family vacation and not a fishing one.  That will be next month when we go back to Harmans, so I didn't want to spend a lot of time fishing.  Regarding the forced family fun, I have never played so many rounds of miniature golf in my life.  A problem we ran into was that most of the places here were closed because is the off season.  So, what do you do with a 4 year old.  Well you take them to the miniature golf places that are still open.  He loved it!  I believe the wife played 8 rounds with him and I played 7.    I managed to land a few fish that I think are bluefish and a spotted/speckled sea trout.  I have no clue as to what is what regarding saltwater fish so if you see the photos and I am wrong, let me know.  I told the wife I am hooked and would like to do some more saltwater fly fishing.  Here are some photos of the fish, where we were at, weather conditions and other crap.