Blackmouth Quest - Day 3

I talked about hooking rocks in an earlier blackmouth post and thought I would post a picture of one of my recent catches.

I did get out for a about an hour today.  Birds were working and I marked some bait on the sounder.  No fish to hand but only made about three drifts through the spot during a ripping ebb current.  It was nice to get out on a day with no wind.  The peace and quiet of drifting with the engines off is a nice change of pace from the past few trips where I needed to use the kicker to back into the drift.

I fished the Mushmouth pattern and it looked good in the water.  I'm going to attempt to incorporate some weight into the pattern without changing the look of it too much.

Every chance on the water is another opportunity to learn something new.  The lack of fish can be trying, but I still have faith.

Mushmouth

I have always been a fan of east coast striper flies.  There are so many possibilities for not only specific patterns but of techniques (such as Bob Popovics') for west coast salmon.  I recently was spending a bit of time watching tying videos online and came across the Mushmouth by Dave Skok.  It looks to be perfect for imitating herring and I liked the use of Softex within the pattern to minimize fouling.





I decided to make an attempt and while the first try was a little rough I was pleased with the second attempt.

Right now I have confidence that this fly will work well dredging for blackmouth in the upcoming months.  Of course I find that I always have confidence in the flies when they are fresh from the vise.  We'll see if that confidence lasts on the water.