EP Peanut Butter for Backwater November Blitzes

 First of all, Happy Holidays everybody! I hope you've had and are having as good a holiday season as you could under the circumstances. Obviously things still aren't going fabulously, but it's best to keep our spirits up. I hope you are getting some fishing time between family Zoom calls.

This year saw one of the most drawn out fall runs in recent memory. There were still blitzing stripers to be found in December, and in November finding action just took a little less searching than it typically would most years. On the 13th though, I barely had to search at all before I found stripers and hickories blowing up in the backwaters. It was one of those dreary fall days that felt really fishy, and if I'd put in the effort I might have been able to find larger fish somewhere out front. Time wasn't in abundance though so I took what I had in front of me, which was schoolies eating peanut bunker. 

Such circumstances call for Enrico Puglisi's Peanut Butter. Believe it or not, I'd not even fished an EP fly until Ian Devlin handed me a rod with one last fall. I'm not sure why I'd been so slow to pick up on their usefulness. Now I've got a box filled exclusively with EP flies. The takes on the Peanut Butter when bass are eating juvenile menhaden are fully committed. Rarely ever do they seem to not suck the fly in on the first attempt. 

Ian's preferred retrieve when fishing this fly in peanut blitzes- and it does seem to work best for me as well- is a slow and steady two hand draw. If I get the fly where it needs to be and retrieve it that way, I'm essentially assured a take.  

The only drawback to EP fibers are their fouling tendencies. It is paramount to carry either a brush or velcro to undo the tangles in the fibers, either after a fish has mangled the fly or a cast has spun it up. Without this tool, fishing these flies becomes exceptionally irritating and darn near impossible. A piece of velcro lives in it's own compartment in my EP box, and without it I'd be lost. 

I'm very much looking forward to applying EP flies to black bass and scombrids next year. Black bass especially. I got a few good smallmouth this year and I'm really thinking I ought to get back into targeting both largemouth and smallmouth. I used to be pretty good at it, now I'd consider myself a mediocre bass fisherman.

 Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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