Fishing the Garden

With a bottom carpet of turtle grass, crystal clear water, and rows of floating turle grass, it posed some new fly fishing challenges. I was running east of the Three Island area of the Lower Laguna Madre on my way to what I call the Edge. By that I mean the area where the bottom cover gives way to splotchy grass and potholes growing in increasing numbers until the bottom gives way to only sand. While still in the area of total turtle grass I ran over a couple of reds and said what the heck, I was alone and wantd to try some new areas, so I shut down only to realize that there were perfect wind rows of floating turtle grass perfectly spaced as if a farmer had run his cultivator and disc to make them. It looked like a garden or rows of crops. It was just Mother Nature working her magic. I almost cranked back up and continued to the Edge but I decided to try something new. It posed some new and difficult challenges for me not before encountered. There were a decent amount of fish but I realized I had to time my presentations perfectly, computing the wind, rows of floating turtle grass,spaces between the rows of grass, drift of the boat, and speed of the fish. I had to land the fly in the space between rows, let it sink to the appropriate depth, and hopefully time it perfectly as the fish passed under the floating grass and then strip the fly into the fish's window. Needless to say, it was a steep learning curve which I had some great fun with and after some totally mistimed casts, I started to connect. Hope this info. can bail you out if you ever encounter this scenario.