The bait is there. You can see it — nervous flickers of silver in the wash, maybe a dark cloud shifting just beyond the second bar. Something is pushing them, because birds are working and there’s a boil fifty feet out that isn’t wave energy. You strip line, false cast, and deliver a 4-inch Deceiver into the chaos. Nothing. You throw it again. Nothing. A guy down the beach with a spinning rod and a tiny silver spoon hooks up on three consecutive casts.

The problem isn’t your casting. It’s your fly box.