10/18/2010 Another pre-storm weather window today offered us blue bird skies, light winds and 56 degree water temps which is the magic number. We pushed off on the hunt for laid up Bass and the smooth water conditions would offer us a great opportunity to see these Bass clearly. We worked our first flat for about 1/2 hour before we saw a nice group of Bass tailing in about 8" of water. At a distance it looked like it was a couple of Bass but as we approached my client laid out a beautiful cast landing the fly right in front of the lead Bass and he made a move towards it, took a swipe and missed, but in turn spooked this school off the flat. We worked the area a bit more before deciding to move on. We did a quick hit and run on a spot before running to one of my old school spots that often gets active under the current tide and conditions. We arrived at our new area and slowly worked our way across the smooth water and into the basin and just as I looked ahead of us...there it was. Not just 1 "toad Bass" but a group of 3-4 solid 20 lb+ (36"+) Bass Rolling happily on a school of Mullet that were trapped in the corner of the Basin. These Bass were very happy and coming up about every 5 minutes...it was quite a site. We inched our way up to them, getting set up to lay the fly in there when they came up again. Excitement high, tension high, we were about to finally put an end to the elusive "toad Bass" saga that has been going on for 2 months. Once in position, locked and loaded.....they stopped moving and stopped coming up as if they knew we were ready to close the deal, these Bass were very smart. We did some topwater casting into the pockets hoping to find them laid up but unfortunately with no response. We changed flies and went down a little deeper and started plucking a bunch of school size Bass in the 24" class which are often the "protectors" of the big Bass due to their aggressive nature. The tide slowed and the action shut down so we ran to chase the tide. We managed to get on Bass again after hitting a couple of infertile flats, which gave us a few more tugs and 1 more nice 28" specimen.....The "Toad saga continues."