Don’t Get Bold Feet!
By Justin Pickett
A few weeks ago I was sitting on the back of my jeep, getting ready to hit the water.
Just like any other day, I grabbed my rods and rigged them up first and laid them across the roof. I tossed my fly boxes in my chest pack and made sure I had all the tools and tippet that I needed. I jumped into my waders and buckled myself in for the day. Grabbed my left wading boot and slipped it on and tightened it up. Reached down for the right one and began to slide my foot into the boot. Before I could get my foot settled into the boot I felt quite the bulge in the toe of my boot. Not knowing exactly what it was, and knowing what it could be, I quickly kicked the boot from my foot. My wading boot landed on the grass, just a few feet in front of me. I waited a few seconds to see if anything crawled, hopped, or slithered out from it.
Nothing.
Cautiously, I picked up the boot and held it upside down, and, immediately, something fell from the boot
Read More »Joel vs The Shark
Max Pressure Photo by Louis Cahill
MY GOOD FRIEND JOEL DICKEY WAS NOT RAISED BY WOLVES, BUT YOU MIGHT NOT BELIEVE IT IF YOU’VE EVER SEEN HIM ANGRY.
With hair the color of a new penny and bright blue eyes that can be uncomfortably intense at times, the ruddy sun scorched complexion of a Bedouin, the build of a boxer and two gold hoops, one in each ear, Joel looks half Viking, half pirate. Born of a long line of Tennessee moonshiners and snake handlers, he has a great southern brogue that’s so deep you can hear the chicken frying when he talks. He has a heart as big as the Florida sky, and a temper to match. He caught his first rattle snake at age six. Joel has no fear. Fear is an important emotion. As humans, our fight or flight response has served us well, in evolutionary terms. Joel somehow missed out on the flight part of that, as well as the fear. He’s all fight. Any other person finding themselves face to face with a fifteen foot hammerhead shark might back down. Joel on the other hand…
The heat there in the Florida Keys that day had been like penance. So had the fishing. It was a perfect day for tarpon. The weather was hot with just a little wind, not a cloud in sight. It was mid May. The peak of the season. The tarpon that had been everywhere just a few days before had vanished. The few we saw had no interest in a fly. This was exactly what we had been waiting for. There was a huge falling tide in the evening and it had been unseasonably warm. We had been looking at the calendar and the tide apps on our phones for six months thinking that this was the day and now the fish were confirming our theory. All those tarpon that had been high and happy for weeks were lurking reclusively in the deep water. Staging up, preparing, for the worm hatch.
If you’ve been lucky enough to see a palalo worm hatch, you may have pinched yourself to see if you were dreaming. It’s hard to believe that a fish of a hundred pounds or more can get so worked up about a three inch worm, but when there are literally
Read More »Thank You God for the Terrestrial Season
bout this time every year, when I’m starting to get run down from guiding, the terrestrial season arrives, and I’m blessed with a second wind. I’m always astonished at how the presence of terrestrials can make my familiar trout waters seem so fresh and new to me. Even after I’ve already spent hundreds of hours during the season drifting flies through the same riffles, runs and pools. Every day, I find myself more excited about fishing than the last, despite it being one of my busiest times of the year guiding. Thank God for the terrestrial season. I tip my hat to the creator, for he sure did a fine job of planning out the life cycle and timing of the terrestrial season. Yep, life is grand for the fly fisherman when the terrestrials are out. The water and air temperatures (at least where I live) are usually warm enough to leave those stinky waders at home, and the longer days allow us the luxury of staying on the water for a few extra hours.
Is it just me, or do trout seem to have the same look in their eyes as we do during the terrestrial season, pure addiction. I love the fact that it’s not the end of the world if we forget our strike indicators or split shot when the terrestrials are out. The trout often rise
Read More »Quality Flies
By Brian Kozminski
—SlluurpAH– “Set the Hook!”-exerts the guide.
“Ewp~ #$^@%!! Damn, I missed again!” casually disclaimers client.
“That’s the third trout you’ve missed today.” arm chair QB fishing buddy retorts from stern of the drift boat.
“Lemme check that fly, I know it’s your favorite ‘Lucky’ Adams, –BUT it is missing a hook.”
Never happened to you? Kudos, keep up the great work and spread your practices to all those who you may come in contact with. We need more vigilance like yours. Anglers who routinely check their fly and keep the hook sharp are a dying breed. Seems there is a trend in the fly market to buy volume ‘less expensive flys” from not so reputable sources. These days, I find it very hard to believe one would allow themselves to purchase a $600 reel, pair it with $800 rod and then continue to outfit and accessorize themselves in outrageous Monkey Logo’d shirts and fancy rubber pants, only to skimp on the single & most important partof the equation that actually connects them to the fish-> The FLY.
This passed summer, while waiting for clients, eating a delectable reuben sandwich, counting the number of Pine Grosbeaks, Siskins, and Purple Finches along side one of our more famous waterways, I overheard guys at a table next to me complaining about the price of flies. It was not the haughty Cherry Run Orvis store, but it was the height of big bug season, drakes were predicted tonight certainly on the North branch, possibly sections of the South, and inter-mitten log jams in between.
“$30 bucks a dozen! Thats a damn outrage!!” befuddled one guest.
Rightfully so, but when you hook a monster brown tonight, you must know a few facts about what goes into your $30/dozen flies versus the .80 per fly from Discount Fly Guy. The fly shop has a reputation to uphold, and it cannot be cut short at the terminal end of your line. The shop guys who tie flies all winter to pay the bills when rooms are not rented and few anglers make their way north for respite, only use quality hooks and materials provided by the shop owner. They in turn are paid on piece orders and quickly learn to tie a well proportioned Borchers Drake while not wasting materials nor thread wraps. I would bet my time on the water is going to be better spent using that fly versus a fifty cent knock of from Sri Lanka.
There was a guide, probably long gone now or working in Alaska, but he kept two distinct fly boxes in his boat.
Read More »One Fly, One Cast, One Tarpon
The bow of the skiff rises and falls under my feet as my eyes scan the vast expanse of blue and green.
We call this riding the bull. Balancing on a casting platform as the boat bobs and shifts in the surf. Out on the ocean side, that’s where you find migrating tarpon. These big fish push past in schools, often single file. It’s challenging fishing and today has been no exception. We’ve seen plenty of fish and plenty of refusals and disappearing acts but no open mouths or flared gill plates.
It’s late on the second day of fishing. We haven’t seen a fish in a while and haven’t fed one all day. My buddy Johnny Spillane and I each put a couple of nice fish in the air the day before, in spite of poor light. We had great expectations when we saw the beautiful blue sky this morning. Neither of us, or our guide Capt. Jessie Register, have an explanation for the attitude the fish are giving us, except that they are tarpon and that’s what they do.
A little red catamaran is cooking up the beach straight for us. It’s up on one hull and the guy is leaning out over the side. As he gets close, we are all wondering if we should be panicking. It really does look like he’s going to T-bone the skiff. It occurs to me that we are all watching the sailboat bearing down on us and that’s exactly the time a nice fish would swim by. I make a quick scan and, sure enough, there she is at two o’clock, and she’s big.
Read More »Hyperfocal Focus
Sometimes to get it all in focus, it has to all be out of focus.
Shooting photos you often find yourself wanting an object in the foreground and an object in the background both in focus. This can be a frustrating situation. Inevitably, focusing on either the foreground or the background leaves the other out of focus. There is a way to make it happen but it requires putting on your thinking cap.
It’s called hyperfocal focus and yes there’s going to be math, sort of. You may have noticed that on the barrel of your DSLR lens there is a scale that shows how far from the camera your point of focus falls. That tool is handier than you might think. Here’s how you use it to get the shot.
First focus on the foreground object that you want sharp. At this point it doesn’t matter whether you use auto of manual focus. Take a look at the scale. Let’s say your foreground focus is at three feet. Now focus on the background object that you want sharp. Let’s say it’s at nine feet. We now know we need to carry six feet of focus.
That six feet of sharpness is called depth of field or DOF. Literally the depth of our field of focus. We control the DOF with our aperture. Smaller apertures like F16 or F22 carry a wider DOF. Larger apertures like F2.8 or F4 have narrow DOF. If you’re confused don’t panic. Stay with me. The higher the F# the smaller the aperture. It’s a mathematic formula and I could explain it but it’s not important for this exercise and it’s frankly too much information.
So what we need is an F# that will carry six feet of DOF. Now it’s time to set your camera to manual focus! if you spent a whole lot of money on your lens it may have a scale that shows you the DOF for each F#. If so, that’s great. Choose an F# and set your focus so that three feet and nine feet fall between the brackets. If you don’t have the scale, don’t panic, just set your lens for the highest F#. If you want to get really technical, consult this nifty DOF calculator.
OK, I promised math so here it is. The thing about DOF is it’s a geometric progression. That means that as you increase your DOF by stopping down your aperture, you get twice
Read More »Fish Floating Nymphs for Selective Trout
TELL ME IF THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR.
You’re kneeling at the edge of a slow glassy pool watching several big trout inspect what floats above them. You change flies, again, and make yet another perfect presentation, only to watch the fish move three feet out of the way as your fly passes by.
It’s a common scene on heavily pressured, catch-and-release trout streams. Big educated fish who have seen a lot of flies don’t come to hand easily. Kent and I were in exactly this scenario just the other day and were able to turn it around using a simple but often overlooked technique. A floating nymph.
Fish see dry flies in a very different way than we see them. Before the fish inspects your thread color or how many turns of hackle you’ve used it sees the impression of the fly on the water. These slight dimples in the surface film are incredibly powerful triggers for feeding fish. The curved surface of the water, which supports the fly, focuses the light creating a bright spot that get the fish’s attention like a flashing light. This is why fish commonly eat Thingamabobbers.
Fish who live under constant pressure from anglers become very savvy at reading these impressions on the surface film. They eat only those items that make subtle, life-like impressions. The kind of impressions made by emerging insects struggling in the film. Nothing I know of is a better imitation than a floating nymph.
Start with the right nymph. It must be unweighted. A nymph tied with
Read More »Bruce Chard’s Key Lime Pie Tarpon Fly
SPOOKY TARPON? NO PROBLEM.
Feeding tarpon a fly on bluebird days when the sun is high and the water is clear can be quite a challenge. It’s always a little mind blowing to see a six foot long monster run from a three inch fly bit it happens more times than not when conditions are tough.
When it comes to fooling tarpon, I don’t know anyone with a better track record than Bruce Chard. Today Bruce is going to share with us a simple fly that turns those tough days into hero shots. He calls it the Key Lime Pie, because it’s just that hard to resist.
Watch the video and learn to tie Chard’s Key Lime Pie.
Read More »The Magic Stonefly
ON OF THE BEST LESSONS I HAVE LEARNED FROM FISHING WITH KENT IS THIS. IF THERE IS A SECRET TO ANGLING SUCCESS, IT’S CONFIDENCE.
A few years back I was on a photo shoot in Wyoming when the client wanted to stage a shot of an angler looking through a fly box. The box we had on hand was my own, but my fly selection was greatly depleted, as it almost always is by mid summer when I’m too busy shooting to tie. My good friend Rob Parkins was helping me out on the shoot and offered to fill out my box with some of his flies. After the shoot when I offered the box back so he could reclaim his flies, he told me to keep them.
I was stoked! Rob is one of the best fly tiers I know and I was stoked to have half a box of his flies. I was planning a couple of days of fishing at the end of the job and I knew these flies would insure that it was productive. I was right.
Among the flies were some very cool stonefly patterns. Several I had not seen before. One in particular caught my eye. A golden stone dry fly with sexy legs and a cool wing made up of layers of flash and different colored yarn. I held it up to the light and the wing had a lifelike glow that I knew would drive fish crazy. I remember thinking how clever Rob had been to think of it.
I wrecked fish with that fly while I was in Wyoming. When I got home I couldn’t wait to give it a try. I wasn’t surprised to find that it was just as effective in the east as it was in the west. It was just one of those fishy flies that works anywhere. When I got to the river I would tie it on and I knew it would produce.
I fished that fly with confidence because I trusted the guy who tied it. I knew that any fly Rob had tied was going to be a guaranteed producer and all I had to do was put in on the seam and hang on. I caught a lot of fish on that fly everywhere I fished it. Eventually I stashed it away. I was afraid I’d lose it and not be able to tie another.
I called Rob up and told him about the success I was having with the fly and asked him if he would share the recipe with me so I could tie up some more. He was happy to help but when I described the fly he wasn’t sure which fly I was talking about.
“Take a picture with your phone and send it to me,” he told me. So I did. This is the response I got.
Read More »Shooting Line In The Backcast Is A Skill Every Fly Angler Needs
THERE ARE A LOT OF MOVING PARTS IN A FLY CAST.
There’s a lot of talk about the double haul and the tight loop, and there should be, they are hugely important skills that every angler should practice. It always surprises me, however, how many experienced anglers can’t, or don’t, shoot line in their backcast. I’m also surprised I don’t hear more about it.
I consider this simple technique essential for every type of fly fishing. The efficiency of working out line on both ends of the cast translates to more fish in hand in almost every situation. I don’t remember when I started casting this way. It’s a habit I’ve had for as long as I remember. I do remember when I became aware of its importance.
I was working with my friend Bruce Chard who was teaching casting to some anglers new to saltwater fishing. I picked up a rod and made a cast. Bruce stopped the group and pointed out that I was shooting twenty feet or so of line on every backcast. I wasn’t even aware of it but his point was spot on.
“He’s going to reach the fish in half the false casts,” he told the group. It’s nice to be told that you’re doing something right but for me it was just instinctive. The fly cast is symmetrical. It makes no sense to shoot line on your forward cast and not on your backcast.
Here are a few of the reasons you should practice this technique if you’re not doing it already.
Read More »