I was at one of my usual spots, the outflow of a tidal creek, right before sundown. There was about 45 minutes of daylight remaining and I wanted to see if any fish would be around on the dropping tide. At first glance things didn't look good: lots of weeds and no signs of surface activity. Nevertheless I tied on an Eel Punt fly and proceeded to swing it through the current.
A few moments later I heard a soft splash. By the time I turned my head to the direction of the noise all that was left on the water were the circular ripples of a recently risen fish. I now had high hopes and continued working my fly down the run. A few moments later I heard a significantly larger splash at the mouth of the outflow and saw a true keeper size fish nearly beach itself in an effort to chase down some sort of prey. Now it was on. I stripped in my line and approached the fish with the utmost stealth.
I positioned myself up current of the fish and lightly dabbed my fly in the water, allowing it to dead drift into a wetfly swing. On the third drift my line went tight, my rod bent over, and I saw a dorsal fin shoot down current. I was on to a fish, and it was hefty. Two times it used the current against me, and at one point it almost to me to my backing. Once I brought the fish to hand, I was delighted to see that this was a true keeper. I shared my moment with the fish before releasing it and reveled in the fact that I had caught this fish in 2 feet of water with about 10 feet of fly line outside of my rod tip.
Unfortunately that would be my last fish of the night. The fishes rose and sucked down their prey at the mouth of the outflow for another 30 minutes, but took no interest in my eel imitation. It was only after the bite had concluded that I finally figured out what had these bass so hot and bothered: cinder worms. Worms were hatching in the estuary connected to the tidal creek, and the striped bass were holding at the mouth of the outflow and eating the worms as the tide swept them out into the Narraganset Bay. Needless to say I went home and tied up about a dozen worm flies in preparation for the next couple of days.
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