just got back from Monomoy

[cons99]

We saw a few fish on the western flats but did not hook up. The fish were extremely nervous. I did not see any pods of fish only singletons. I was using 1/0 chartruse clousers on a 10 foot leader with fluorocarbon. I was told by a very experienced angler that 1/0 flies are way too big. This guy hooked into 12 fish on saturday(a few over 30 inches)using a size 4 crab and a size 6 crazy charlie look -alike. Are most people using these small flies? Would you use these size flies fishing the drop offs at South beach? Thanxs Cons

[repka]

In my experience I don't think that the 1/0's are too big on the flats. Anywhere from a 1/0 to a size 2 hook is fine for the flats as long as you are tying very sparse clouser or sandeel patterns. Just because the hook is fairly large doesn't mean that you have to put a lot of material on it (It's alot easier to hook a 30" fish on a 1/0 than on a 2 or 4). On the other hand, smaller size hooks ( 4 and 6) are fine too, just make them sparse and hope you can hook the larger fish (Some small shrimp patterns worked well this weekend). Off of south beach I would use larger flies, squid or deceiver patterns, but I might also use the sparse little clousers, depends how much surf there is and what visibility is like in the water. Skinny little sandeel patterns are fine on the flats because the water is gin and usually calm, fish don't have any trouble picking them up. It's not quite the same when you're fishing on the outer beach. Anyway, the moral of the story is sparse flies on the flats, it's not so much hook size but what what you put on it. Perhaps I wrote too much to your question, just got carried away I guess.