While my expert had the fly close enough to a number of fish, the fight with the wind did not allow the absolute head on precision needed to coerce them into feeding. A few guides have mastered the boat versus fish problem, refuse to let anglers throw at anything other than the ultimate fish, and work diligently to avoid the random shot. Of course there is no way to predict where our flats fish will show up at any particular moment. Some, not so basic understanding of the boat and fish relationship, is needed by anyone that poles a boat, professional or friend. Head on shots count for a lot more than odd, random angle shots.
Some fish do eat better than others.
Your guide or friend, that has for years seen your catches of odd and weird angle fish, expects you to always catch anything you can reach. Remind them how much better you do when the fish is a reasonable cast away from the boat. It's tough to set up and allow some fish to go by, not as tough though as having all of them go by.