Dreaming of Steelhead
I WOKE THREE TIMES LAST NIGHT DREAMING THAT I WAS FISHING FOR STEELHEAD.
Not epic, fish hoisting, hero shoting, steelhead fishing but, ass backwards, pointless, penitent steelhead fishing. Swinging tiny flies on floating lines in the turbid, chocolate waters of spring run off (and this is my favorite part) in Colorado’s Black Canyon. If you’re not a steelheader, I’ll break this down for you C.G. Jung style.
The steelhead is, in freshwater at least, the iconic challenging fish. The “fish of a thousand casts.” If you were forced to fish for them in high, stained water, and I have been, you would use big flies and heavy sink tips or better yet a steelhead bullet and an egg pattern and it would still be very, very tough. Lastly, the Gunnison river which flows through The Black Canyon does not contain steelhead. So, in my dream I am fishing for the hardest fish I know of, using tactics and gear that I know are wrong, in a river where this fish does not exist. Clearly I need professional help. A psychiatrist or a guide at least.
This dream was so vivid and persistent that I couldn’t help but wonder what it meant.
Read More »The Perfect Day on the Flats
By John Byron
You’re after bonefish.
An easy flight and you found all your luggage. The lodge is even more comfortable than you expected. Supper was super. Your new fishing companions seem a really great bunch. You’re excited to get fishing.
Next morning seems perfect. Sunshine all day. The right tide. Gentle breezes, sufficient to calm the fish but not enough to hamper your casting. The guide knows his business and handles the boat flawlessly, spotting fish early and lining you up for easy casts. When you wade, it’s on hard bottom, a comfy depth and the wind and sun at your back.
You find fish all day long, big ones in singles and doubles, larger schools all ready to take your fly, which seems to be the perfect weight, size, and color. When one spot slows down, you move to another loaded with bonefish, maybe stopping for some fun fishing alongside a big mud. It’s the perfect day.
And it happens so seldom that you should never never count on it.
Any putz can catch fish on a day like that. Your challenge … and the great challenge of bonefishing as a sport
Read More »The Blanket Octopus is the Damnedest Thing I’ve Ever Seen
FROM THE “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” FILES.
On a recent blue water fly fishing trip with Captain Ron Doerr out of Jupiter, Florida, I saw something truly strange. It looked like a woman’s scarf floating in the water. Bright red, yellow and green, it seemed to be just floating out there a foot or so under the surface. It didn’t look like a living thing, well a space alien maybe, but nothing I’d ever seen. Nothing Capt. Ron had ever seen either, in his thirty years as an offshore captain.
It drifted up next to the boat and my buddy Kristen touched it with his rod, as he is want to do, and the rod came back with some pretty scary stuff on it. It looked like jellyfish tendrils. That didn’t make sense. Jelly fish don’t just come apart when you touch them. Was it dead or alive, animate or inanimate? None of us were sure until we saw its eye. A big black creepy eye.
I stuck the go pro under the water and captured the video below.
Read More »How Trolling Motors Are Changing Tarpon Fishing
MY FIRST DAY OF FISHING TARPON WITH A TROLLING MOTOR WASN’T WHAT I’D EXPECTED.
I’ve been involved in several conversations on this topic in the past year. There are strong opinions on both sides but the fact is that each year there are more guides pursuing tarpon with trolling motors and it is definitely changing the game.
I do most of my tarpon fishing in the Keys. I like the fishing in the Keys for the same reason I like the Keys in general. Things are just a little slow to change down there. The Keys remind me of the Florida of my childhood, before theme parks and resorts, when Florida was ringed by sleepy beach towns and single-story motels.
While fishing the Keys today is far from the same experience it used to be, it’s still the kind of place where you can get lost in time. What I mean by that is that it’s the kind of place where, on a good day, you can pole a bank in quiet isolation and focus on the water and the fish. There are plenty of boats and anglers but there is still some etiquette among anglers. That’s disappeared in much of Florida.
It’s disappearing in the Keys too and if you spend any time at all drinking a beer with the flats guides down there, you hear about it. More and more you hear about trolling motors. Every year, new guides show up with electric motors mounted on their boats and every year more of the established guides give in and buy trolling motors of their own. I have heard a lot of talk about how it’s changing tarpon fishing but I never saw it until recently.
I fished Boca Grande for the first time recently. It was a very different experience than what I’m used to. I don’t want you to think I’m bashing the fishery or the guides there. It’s a beautiful place with tons of fish and great water. It’s just a very different culture than I’m used to, and it has to be. The pressure there is so intense that there’s no choice other than to throw the Keys-style etiquette out the window. If you don’t want to fish a flat with three other boats, it’s not the place for you. Guides there have been using trolling motors for some time now and it was a great chance for me to see what that really means.
How is fishing tarpon with a trolling motor different?
The trolling motor is really changing the way anglers target migrating fish. It used to be that when you were targeting schools of fish moving along the beach you would get in position and get a couple of shots at the school as they passed. Your guide would try to keep you on them as long as possible, but it’s hard to chase fish with a push pole. You got a couple of shots and you had to make them count.
It’s a very different game with the trolling motor. A guide with a motor can
Read More »Waiting for the Cicada Hatch
Most of the savvy local fly anglers I know are on high alert.
Fly shop phones are ringing. Fishing buddies are organized into call lists. Everyone has their ears up, listening for that buzz. Except for me, of course. I’m deaf as a post and I hear that sound all the time. It’s 2017, and it doesn’t take a math scientist to figure out what that means. Our last 17 year cicada hatch was in 2000, so it’s time to spin up some foam monsters.
Any angler who has fished a good 17 year cicada hatch is not likely to forget it. It’s the kind of experience that leaves you wondering about everything you thought you knew about fish. If you haven’t fished it, you’ve likely heard the stories. The best one I’ve heard involved huge striped bass sipping dry flies. That sort of thing will change a person.
If you’ve chased this hatch before, you probably also know about disappointment. Maybe you drove 400 miles for a hatch that never happened, or maybe you’ve seen the cicadas on the water and fish ignored them. I’ve done both, and with the chance coming only every 17 years, that’s pretty heartbreaking.
A couple of years ago, after spinning up a mound of cicada patterns for a hatch that was supposed to happen several states away, and didn’t, I got sick of waiting. I decided to fish those flies anyway, right here at home, in the absence of any hatch. Guess what?
Read More »Winston Air 2 “Dark Horse” Review
A great fishing rod has to cast great, but not every great casting rod is a great fishing rod. By Louis Cahill Back at, what proved to be, the last IFTD show, I cast the new Air 2 from Winston. I was blown away and I shot a video where Adam Hutchison and I talk about the rod. I will include that below. However, no matter how well a rod handles the casting pond, I will not write a review based on that. There’s a whole lot more that goes into a rod that fishes great than the cast. Especially when it comes to trout rods. I don’t own an Air 2 but my buddy Dan Flynn bought one recently, after I told him how much I liked it. Dan is one of the best Trout anglers I know, especially on a small stream, but he’s not a gear guy. He might drop some coin on a beautiful jungle cock neck but he’s never owned a premium rod before now. He’s thanked me about eight times for suggesting the Air 2 and when he and I fished together last week, I asked if I could fish it. He was more than happy to oblige. Real quickly, I’m going to address something that bugs me. I often get negative comments on reviews about people not trusting the review because I got a free piece of gear. Anyone who knows me knows that’s ridiculous. That’s not how I roll and I have pissed off rod manufacturers and lost advertisers for telling them their products weren’t up to my standard. At any rate, I’m writing this review of a rod I don’t own and Winston has no idea I’m writing it. You can take that for whatever it’s worth. I do not accept … Continue reading
Read More »Muddy Water Redfish
BY OWEN PLAIR
WATER CLARITY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN SALTWATER FLY FISHING.
No matter what fish you are targeting, simply being able to see the fish, and the fish being able to see your fly is key. Targeting fish on the flats in muddy water is a challenge, but there are ways to get past the dark side my friends!
Many things can cause water to be muddy. Wind, rain, current, temperature, big schools of fish moving, and tides, especially when it comes to shallow water redfish flats. Targeting redfish, on mudflats with poor clarity, can still be productive. The fish are still feeding, they’re shallow enough for you to see them push, and it’s easy to get close enough for a simple cast.
Seeing the fish in muddy water is the first step to having a productive day. You’re not looking for the bodies of the fish but the push of water caused by fish moving or chasing bait. These pushes are shaped like a U and give away the direction the fish is moving, which will help you make the right presentation. You can also look for tails, backs, and other visual signs of redfish without having to see their whole bodies.
The most important thing, when targeting redfish in muddy water
Read More »Fly Tying Material: DMC Embroidery Floss for Midge Patterns
As we work through fall, and move our way into the winter months, midges will start making up a higher percentage of a trout’s daily diet. Midges may lack the high caloric value of their larger aquatic friends, but they more than make up for it with their year-round availability, and high densities on the water. Veteran trout bums understand the important role that midges play, especially as a mainstay food source for late fall and winter trout. Tiny midges don’t pack a lot of weight on trout, but they do supplement trout enough to help slow up winter weight loss, until the smorgasbord of food returns in the spring. If you went around and snuck a peak in as many hardcore winter trout bums fly boxes as you could find, most, if not all, would be stocked with a nice variety of midge patterns that imitate the three life stages of the aquatic midge (larva, pupa and adult).
The past month I’ve been bulking up my inventory of midge patterns. That way, I’ll be ready when the trout start consistently keying in on the tiny stuff. If you know your way around a vise, I suggest you take the time to do so as well. Most midge recipes are quick and easy to tie, and I promise, the time and energy you spend tying them up, will be paid back ten fold on the water. One of my favorite fly tying materials that you can find in your local craft store or Walmart for tying midge patterns is DMC (Six-strand) Embroidery Floss. All I can tell you is I flat out love this stuff.
Read More »Fishing With Your Kids
By Justin Pickett
If you’re like me, and planning to hit the water with your kid, here’s a few things to take into consideration before strapping them in the car seat.
Hot and sticky days are beginning to give way to the hints of fall that are felt amongst the fog laden mornings and it gets me all worked up. Fall has got to be my favorite time of year here in the Southeast. Leaves are beginning to change color, water temps are dropping, and the fall spawners will be on the move in the coming weeks. But there’s one other thing that gets me excited about fall, and that’s getting my little girl back out on my local rivers and streams with me. Georgia summers are hot and heavy, so many of my fishing outings with my little one are limited to very short, bank hopping sessions in the evening. Far from the fishing I enjoy the most, especially with my little fishing buddy. For me, the upcoming days will no doubt have me preparing for long, streamside days with my kiddo. If you’re like me, and planning to hit the water with your kid, here’s a few things to take into consideration before strapping them in the car seat and screeching out of the driveway!
Be Realistic: Before you go running out the door thinking that you’re going to have some crazy, epic day of fishing, let’s be realistic about the situation at hand. You’re not going to be doing near the amount of fishing as when you go with your buddies. Though it is very rewarding and some of the most fun a parent can have, it is going to be more work than you’re probably thinking. While your kid may be excited about going fishing with mommy, or daddy, or both, they’re still kids. They have short attention spans and limited physical abilities. When planning to fish with your kid(s), your destination needs to be greatly considered and chosen accordingly to fit your child. Climbing Barrier Falls in search of Appalachian Brook Trout with a toddler probably isn’t going to be the best idea. Keep safety in mind. Choose a creek, stream, or pond that is easy to navigate and doesn’t require a ton of hiking.
Food: Don’t get caught with your pants down! Make sure to take the time to pack away the essentials for a successful day in the outdoors with the little ones. Water, juices, snacks, and sandwiches should be no-brainers. You won’t last very long if you forget food and drinks for the kids. You also don’t
Read More »5 Reasons Why Turbulent Water Can Provide Great Trout Fishing
Many of my beginner level clients, struggle when it comes to reading trout water. More specifically, they find it difficult when they have to compare two different sections or types of water, and quickly decide which one of them should yield them a higher percentage for success. In turn, I get asked the question often, “What’s the type of water I like to target first, when I have the opportunity.” I usually respond with “If I have a choice, and I’m looking for consistent fishing locations year round, I prefer to target turbulent water (faster moving) over calm water (slow moving).” It’s the riffles, pocket water and main current seams that fly anglers will generally find the turbulent water, and that’s the kind of places that not only will provide everything a trout needs to survive, but furthermore, the trout will usually be less picky as well (easier to catch), since the water is moving more swiftly. Below are five reasons why fly anglers should search out and fly fish turbulent water when they’re fly fishing for trout.
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