Sunday Classic / Don’t Throw The Hail Mary
FISH, FISH EVERYWHERE AND NOT A FISH TO CATCH.
I was trout fishing with a friend in North Carolina the other day. We were fortunate to find a nice piece of water which held a good size pod of fish. Maybe a dozen total spread across the tail out. A couple of them were really nice fish. I called my buddy over and pointed them out to him, insisting he take a shot at them.
He’s fairly new to fly fishing and was a little intimidated by the sight of all those fish. He didn’t know exactly how to approach the situation. Option paralysis took over and he made a choice that I suspect a lot of anglers make in that situation. He dropped his fly upstream of the pod and hoped for the best.
Casting to the geometric center of a pod of fish is sometimes successful but never optimal. Often you spook the whole pod and walk away empty-handed. If you catch a fish it will likely be the small enthusiastic fellow darting around taking what he can get. The big guy is not going to move to your fly. He’s going to play it cool.
Any bird hunter will tell you, when you flush a covey of birds, you don’t fire into the group. You will only end up shooting
Read More »Saturday Shoutotu / MOM: The Motivator
Tomorrow, moms are having their day of appreciation.
IT IS SILLY TO THINK THAT ONE, SINGLE, SOLITARY DAY OUT OF THE YEAR IS SUFFICIENT ENOUGH TO THANK OUR MOMS FOR EVERYTHING THEY HAVE SACRIFICED TO ENSURE THAT WE GREW TO THE HUMANS WERE ARE ON THIS DAY. FROM COOKING MEALS TO FOLDING CLOTHES AND WIPING AWAY TEARS FROM “OUCHIES.” BASEBALL GAMES, BOY SCOUT OUTINGS, BIRTHDAY PARTIES…. YOU NAME IT, MOM WAS THERE COORDINATING CARPOOLS AND PLANNING TIRELESSLY TO MAKE SURE WE KIDS HAD EVERYTHING WE NEEDED. IF OUR MOTHERS WERE TO LIST ALL OF THEIR PRIORITIES ON A SHEET OF PAPER YOU WOULD FIND THAT THEIR OWN INTERESTS AND WELLBEING WOULD MORE THAN LIKELY BE LISTED SOMEWHERE ON THE VERY BOTTOM OF THAT PAGE, IF AT ALL.
MOMS SELFLESSLY GIVE THEIR ALL TO THEIR FAMILY 24/7/365 AND THOUGH NO TWO MOMS ARE THE SAME, YOU WILL OFTEN FIND THAT, AT THEIR CORE, THEY HOLD THE SAME PRIORITIES, VALUES, AND ASPIRATIONS FOR THEIR CHILDREN. OF COURSE MOTHER’S DAY IS MEANT FOR US TO SHOW OUR MOMS HOW THANKFUL AND FORTUNATE WE TO HAVE THEM IN OUR LIVES, BUT IT SHOULD ALSO BE ALL ABOUT MAKING SURE THAT, EVEN IF FOR JUST ONE DAY, MOM GETS TO PUT HERSELF FIRST ON THAT LIST OF PRIORITIES.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL THE MOMS OUT THERE! WE HOPE IT’S A GREAT ONE!
Stacking Running Line For Better Spey Casting: Video
How do you shoot a hundred feet of running line without a tangle?
It’s easier than it sounds. There’s a very specific technique for stacking running line when spey casting. When it’s done right, everything comes off without a hitch. If you are learning to cast two-hand rods, it’s a skill you’ll need to learn pretty quickly. It’s challenging to write about, so here’s a video, which should make it pretty clear.
WATCH THE VIDEO AND LEARN TO STACK LINE FOR BETTER SPEY CASTING.
Read More »A Friend in Need
Anyone who has fished at Bair’s Lodge, South Andros, will recognize Harland Sands.
To say that Harley is a character would be the hight of understatement. If you have spent a day on his boat, you likely remember two things. Catching a lot of bonefish and your sides hurting from laughing all day. There’s no such thing as a bad day on Harland’s boat.
Unfortunately, life off the boat is not so simple. The other day while Harley was on the water, his home, his car and his personal boat burned. Literally everything he and his family had, gone in moments. Luckily the family was not harmed. It’s been a tough year for the Sands family, having lost a son not long ago.
South Andros may be a tropical paradise, but life there is not easy. It can be especially rebuilding a home and replacing vehicles. Harland and his family face a hard, uphill battle. The community on South Andros is rallying to help and it’s time for the fly fishing community to do the same. Let’s face it, if we can afford to fly fish, we are truly blessed. Let’s show our true nature and help a friend in need.
Bair’s Lodge has started a Go Fund Me page and made a healthy donation to start. Please follow the link and help the Sands family rebuild. You’ll feel great about it, Harland and his family will know you care, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you banked some sweet fish karma in the process.
Thank you deeply for your support!
Read More »Tom Rosenbauer’s 8 Tips to Becoming a Better Fly Fisher
THERE ARE FEW GUYS OUT THERE SQUEEZING CORK WITH THE ANGLING CHOPS OF TOM ROSENBAUER.
Tom is the author of nearly two dozen books on fly fishing and too many articles to count. Add to that his podcast and posts on Orvis News and it’s fair to call him one of the leading educators in the field. Tom’s been an angler his whole life and was tying flies commercially when he was just fourteen. He has fished all over the world, including the English chalk streams, Christmas Island, and Kamchatka. He invented stuff you use every time you fly fish, like the magnetic net keeper and tungsten beads for fly tying.
Tom is now the Marketing Director for Orvis and a driving force in the rejuvenation of that great brand. A few people know that he also makes his own chocolate from the beans, which is incredibly technical not to mention amazingly delicious. He’s a hell of a nice guy and a good friend.
Tom has a lot to share on the subject of fly fishing so we asked him for some broad strokes. Some basic tips that will help you be a better and more satisfied angler. Here’s what he got back to us with.
Tom Rosenbauer’s 8 Tips To Becoming a Better Fly Fisher:
1. Observe everything. Look around every time you catch a fish and figure out why it was there and why it ate at that particular time. Look at the sun angle, the surrounding terrain, current threads in rivers, or highways on the flats.
Read More »Sunday Classic / Sooooo-ee!!! Calling All Pellet Pigs: What You Should Know About Feeding Trout
THE OTHER DAY ONE OF OUR READERS WAS OFFENDED WHEN I USED THE TERM “PELLET PIG”. I ENJOY OFFENDING PEOPLE, SO I DECIDED TO WRITE AN ENTIRE POST ON THE SUBJECT.
I honestly didn’t know we weren’t supposed to talk about this. Pellet pigs are a fact of life. They exist and people catch them. They are not offended that we call them pigs, because they don’t speak English. They can be a TON of fun. (get it) They can turn a marginal stream into a hog farm and they can seriously fuck things up.
Feeding fish on private water is a very common practice. I am not going to tell you that it’s ‘bullshit’ or it ‘doesn’t count’ or that it makes you a ‘pud whacker.’ I did it myself for a season and I have good friends who still do. I’ve had some great times catching pellet pigs and sharing the experience with friends. Through personal experience, I’ve learned the positives and the negatives.
Feeding fish, on private water, is a great way to insure that they hang around. Feeding will also attract wild fish from other parts of the stream to hold in your water. It’s a sure fire way to insure that you will always have good fishing, regardless of the quality of your water. It makes fish grow fast and generally means big fish will be present in unnaturally high numbers. This all sounds pretty good, right? Well, nothing in life is without cost and pellet pigs are no exception.
I’m not saying it’s always a bad idea to feed fish. You can do it right and you can do it wrong. What I am saying is,
IF YOU DECIDED TO FEED FISH, HERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU OUGHT TO KNOW.
1)Your trout is so fat it showed up at the Macy’s parade wearing ropes!
2) Feeding fish takes natural selection off the table. This can negatively impact the entire ecosystem of a stream. It discourages predation and supplements trout which would otherwise end up food themselves. If the trout in question is capable of reproduction, they pass on inferior genetics. Feeding also encourages fish to to crowd into holding water in unnatural numbers, increasing the spread of disease. These hordes of fish put unnatural pressure on forage food and can virtually wipe out localized forage species like insects and crawfish, leaving the fish increasingly dependent on feeding.
3) Your trout is so fat it can’t hold in a run, it has to hold in a waddle!
4) Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. Feeding fish in one section of a stream can negatively impact the overall population. Causing fish to congregate puts them at risk on many levels. In addition to spreading disease, large pods of fish attract predators like otters, herons and bait fishermen. When a large pod is wiped out, the fish which are lost might have populated several miles of stream. Spread out, they would have survived.
5) Your trout is so fat
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / Latitude 40
Big brown trout and aggressive wading in New Zealand.
Nine minutes in paradise. This short film showcases backcountry sight fishing for big browns in New Zealand. It’s almost like meditation. If you’re having a stressful day, this will fix it.
Enjoy “Latitude 40.”
Read More »Accidental Fishing, Keep Your Gear Close
I’m a firm believer in a well laid plan, so why has some of my best fishing been an accident?
I guess it all started because I have a weak bladder. Anyone who has been on a road trip with me can tell you that. Be prepared to make frequent stops. As much as I try, those stops don’t always coincide with gas stations and rest areas. It was on one of these unscheduled pit stops that I noticed a small stream in the North Carolina mountains. The sound of running water always helps to get the plumbing moving, but this water deserved closer inspection.
I tromped back to the car for a 3 weight and within a couple of minutes I was catching wild brook trout fifty feet from the road. The little stream was lousy with them and there were no trails, beat down banks or any other sign of human traffic. Wild brook trout were thriving there in spitting distance of the highway with no one the wiser. I caught eight or ten and was back on the road without ever knowing the name of the stream.
A couple of years later I was in Colorado when nature called. This roadside bano took me in sight of a small mountain lake. I couldn’t help but notice a cutthroat about sixteen inches cruising the bank. I zipped and trotted back to the car for a different rod. A single cast was all it took. The optimistic cuttie swam right over and ate my hopper. Nothing breaks up a road trip like an unexpected fish.
All of my accidental fishing isn’t related to public urination.
Read More »Concentration, Relaxation and Communication Equal Better Bonefishing
By Louis Cahill
Concentration, Relaxation and Communication. I wish I could claim those words.
I’m quoting Jose Sands, bonefish guide at Andros South Bonefish Lodge. That was his answer when I asked what he thought was the key to successful bonefishing. As usual, he nailed it.
Plenty of anglers are frustrated or intimidated by bonefish. Bonefishing is a complex game with a lot of moving parts and all too often what should be a simple formula breaks down completely. When that happens it’s usually because one or more elements in Jose’s recipe are missing. It’s easier said than done but if you can accomplish these three things, the pieces start to fall into place.
COMMUNICATION
Most saltwater fishing is a team sport. Whether fishing with friends or a guide, you are generally depending on someone else to help you find fish and make a good presentation. Things happen quickly and everyone needs to be on the same page and communicating efficiently to make it work.
There are some universal ideas that everyone needs to understand in order to have good communication. Understanding the bow clock, for instance. When your guide tells you there is a fish at eleven o’clock, forty feet, moving right, it should be a simple thing to find that fish. You learn pretty quickly however, that everyone’s forty feet is not the same and even your guide will occasionally lose track of where eleven o’clock is.
It pays to take a minute at the start of the day to pick an object like a mangrove sprout and decide how far away it is. That helps you calibrate for the day. I find that guides often call out distances that seem much farther than I think is realistic. Not because they don’t know how far away the fish is, but because we are looking at it from very different perspectives. Mine on the bow, and there’s, from the platform at the back of the boat. It’s also worth the time it takes to look at the bow of the boat and confirm where twelve o’clock actually is before you waste a lot of time looking for fish in the wrong spot.
Guides will also use terms like “drop the fly” and “shoot the fly,” to indicate how it should be presented. Drop means you are already carrying enough line for a good presentation, while shoot indicates that you need to let some line go on your delivery. These kinds of directions vary from guide to guide, so take the time to ask early on. It’s impossible to over emphasize the importance of good communication.
I have about a 40% hearing loss and it’s a huge challenge for me. I remind my guide several times during the start of the day that I am deaf as a post. No guide likes to shout in the presence of bonefish but if I can’t hear their direction we both wind up frustrated.
CONCENTRATION
The thing I enjoy the most about bonefishing is the same thing that makes it so difficult.
Read More »Sunday Classic / Bruce Chard’s Palolo Worm
THE PALOLO WORM HATCH IN THE FLORIDA KEYS TRULY MUST BE SEEN TO BE BELIEVED.
Tarpon go completely crazy when these bright red worms pour out of the sand by the millions. The fish gorge themselves on worms and quite a few of those worms are cleverly tied imitations. It’s the fishing opportunity of a lifetime.
My good friend Captain Bruce Chard has this hatch wired. I’ve fished the hatch with Bruce and his success rate is astounding. Today he’s going the share the simple but effective fly that makes it happen. There’s not much to the tie. Anyone can pull it off, but when you see it in action it looks like a million bucks.
Watch the video and learn to tie Chard’s Palolo Worm.
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