Met with Dave Boucher, a fellow Newtonian (Newtonite? Newtoner? even as an editor, I never could get that straight) for an evenin' of fishin' fun at PI.
After the requisite 128 gridlock, finally arrived at about 6:45pm with the rain just about blowing sideways and feeling much like sleet; this and the fact that it was just about pitch-black dark by then anyhow. Passed a fellow fly-fisher who was on the way out, and asked if he had any luck; he said with an ominous "Nooooooooooo"--or maybe that was just the wind howling, I don't know which.
Waded out on the sandbar--tide was dead low--and proceeded to attempt to find the best position to cast in 25mph wind--forget about the direction, or where the fish might be, 'cause the waves were crashing all around us and we couldn't see a damn thing anyways. For future reference, we found that a 45-degree left-to-right + back-to-front wind worked best (for right-handed casters), giving a couple extra inches to your cast and keeping it well to the right and out of ear-piercing range as well. What we were casting to was of no consequence; we could have been casting our clousers toward 3 inches of water for all I know.
Highlight of the evening were sand eels literally erupting out of the water with each step you took. This seemed to puzzle Dave, as he figured lots of bait must attract lots of bass, but of course I knew that their sheer numbers had simply scared all the bass away.
But Dave got a chance to play some more with his new 9-wt, and I got to notch another zero into the beautiful green finish of my new 8-wt.
But we'd gladly go again...