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Newest Fish Tale
 Bonefish: There's A Lot That Goes On In The Crazy Minds Of BoneFishermen
Posted by flyfshrmn82 on February 20, 2010 (572 reads)
My fingers lead the way with my hand and arm close behind in the attempt to hit the snooze button. It’s 4:45am. As I felt my way across the bed, my hand hurdled the gap between the bed and the night stand, but it falls a little short and jams one of my fingers into the nightstand. There’s nothing like a good case of expletives early in the morning to get the day off on the right foot. I begin to drift off again, until the sudden shrill of the hotel phone starts to ring (I love wake up calls). “They put these damn things right next to the head of the bed. Why do they have the ringer turned up so loud?” I ask myself as I reach over to answer it. I am awake now. Today is my last day, I have to get a bone on fly. I pack up all my gear, food, beer, and clothes and fire up the Yota. The humidity is up, the heat has already started, and the skeeters never sleep. Today is going to be a hot one for sure. I check out of the hotel, crack my first beer (5:30a), and make my way to Bob’s casa. I pull up to Bob’s house and find that he has already backed the trailer up to the boat, and is milling around the garage. Yep you guessed it, it was hot, humid, and skeeter abundant over there too. The game plan is discussed and we load up our gear, food and water and hit the road(6:00a).
We pull up to Don’s bait shop only to
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Florida Keys: A Great DIY Fly Fishing Trip, Thanks To The Scandy White!
Posted by marshalld on October 07, 2009 (1559 reads)
Bill Baldus and I live in Naples, Florida which is 200 miles from Key West. We decided to tow Bill's Skandy-White flats skiff to the lower Florida Keys and fly fish for Bonefish and Permit for 3 days. We were lucky to get some fly pattern suggestions and local knowledge from a respected source who also suggested a good place to stay. A gift. So, armed with 9 weight fly rods, a GPS and some faded maps we found the motel, launched The Scandy White and cast off to explore the lower Florida Keys.
The Scandy White has an aluminum hull filled with foam and runs in very shallow water. It's surprisingly quiet, has a carpeted interior and bow, helping to make it silent and while you're casting in bare feet, the line stays on the deck. I can't praise this skiff too much. It made our trip!
Bill is a well-known and respected guide and both of us have had some experience fishing Bonefish. So, finding the fish and hoping to see Permit, was our main objective. It didn't take very long because we had great low tides, partly cloudy, sunny days, fairly calm winds and Bill's good navigating skill.
During our time on the water we saw 4 or 5 huge solitary Bones, had shots at maybe 15 bonefish on the first full day and 30 shots at bonefish on the second day, along with shots at several four-foot Barracuda and larger Sharks. The flats where we fished were teeming with life. Bill had one 12-pounder bend a Gamakatsu hook before coming unbuttoned.
The scenery and colors of the Florida Keys flats and sky were breathtaking. We caught several fat Bonefish, saw a school of Permit and cast a hail-mary at them as they said g'bye.
The motel was old, but clean, the food was terrific in the bar and the breakfast was good. We parked
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Maine Fly Fishing: Ice Out Brook Trout In The Allagash
Posted by bfc06 on June 29, 2008 (2546 reads)
Maine Brook Trout Video
The beginning to middle of May marks the time when ponds and lakes in northern Maine lose their ice for the year. For the past 30 years, my father and various collections of his friends have visited the pond in question, in search of large, native Maine Brook Trout. My virgin pilgrimage to the pond was last spring, and several weeks ago Wilkie and I made the voyage north again.
Travel time to this pond is roughly 7 hours from Portland, so it's a good ways up there. It always amazes me to think that you can drive for 7+ hours and still be in Maine. Wilkie and I got an earlier start this year, and we arrived in camp around 1:30 am, 3 hours earlier than the previous year, and this allowed us to sleep for two full hours before taking Wilkie's new square stern's virginity in the cool water.
Fishing in this pond is slow, to say the least. Over the course of three full days of fishing, I caught three brookies. Wilkie caught two, Mitton five and my father netted seven. All fish were caught on streamers, the majority on the Woodville Special, "Woody" for short. The hog I brought to the boat took a white bead-head woolly bugger.
Fishing is done by either trolling streamers around the shoreline or by anchoring and casting around structure, which, thankfully, there is a good amount of. Rockpiles, drop-offs, points, islands and logs all provided areas that we concentrated our anchored fishing to, and about half of all the fish caught on the trip were done so while anchored. Wilkie and I spent the vast majority of our time anchored, throwing sinking lines, but I will say that
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Alberta, Canada Fly Fishing: Bruiser Bull Trout At Dusk
Posted by BigBear on May 11, 2008 (2622 reads)
Tonight was like any other spring night in Alberta, Canada. Scattered showers and a cool breeze barrelling off the foothills. I pulled my vest over my shoulder and headed out the door. Five minutes later I was standing on a sand bar rigging up my eight weight with 8 lb leader material and a large brown spun deer hair bugger. The river was still off colour but was on the mend. My plan was to wake my fly in the shallows near the current break where the silt was not as thick. I was sure a brown or maybe a bull trout was using this as an ambush location for wayward suckers and sculpins. Several casts in I had a boil behind my fly and I quickly flicked the rod tip to get the fly back in the zone. Wham a 17 inch bull raced off with my fly and a short while later I did a quick flip with the pliers and he was on his way.
The clean water from a spring was mixing with dirty water and a definite seam was forming downstream of me. I made a long cast and began my retrieve giving it some rod tip action and all of a sudden the line was ripping between my fingers. I was in to a big fish and quick minor adjustments to the drag on my real as he made time for the current. Pulling the rod low and the right I turned his head back into the back water. I thought for a second he
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