Fly Fishing

JohnB · Location: Mississippi gulf coast

Just wanted to say hey. i'm new to the forum, but have been a visitor here for quite a while. I'm from the mississippi gulf coast and have been fly fishing in the salt for about a year now. If any of yall have ventured this way than you know of the great fishery we have down here. The bull reds are hanging around the barrier islands this time of year and i'm going with local fly fishing guide rick lauman next weekend to see if i can tangle with one. If get one in i'll post some pics.

kory_k · Location: New York, NY

John,
Welcome. Good crew of dudes on here from all over the world actually. Haven't fished down your way but would love to. Just got back from new Orleans and for once didn't bring a rod but know of the great fishing. Was looking at a map I noticed your area and had not heard about it. You hear about Louisiana, Texas and Florida when you hear about reds but not Mississippi or Alabama but of course the fish would be there. How bout tarpon or snook? See any of them around your way?

JohnB · Location: Mississippi gulf coast

No snook around here, heard of people catching tarpon, but i'm not sure if there has ever been one caught on fly in our waters. Your right, MS doesnt get a whole lot of credit for the great fishery we have. Our barrier islands provide the best year round fishing, but the bay of st. louis and biloxi bay can be killer may through july. So of our most popular species round here are reds and specks of course, but also triple tail, cobia, little tunny, and big jacks during the summer. I would really love to make it up the the new england coast in the near future and sample the fly fishing. Around here fly fishing is uncommon to the locals. Its does seem to be gaining popularity though. I think it would be great to go to a place and fish where it has been tradition for so long. When i take the long rod out on a wading trip for specks and flounder i still get alot of strange looks around here.

kory_k · Location: New York, NY

Cool, sounds like I might have to add Mississippi to my list of places to fish. The bluewater stuff piqued my interest as well, sounds like you have a lot of great options. We have some pretty incredible fishing up this way as well...stripers, blues, false albacore (littly tunny as you call them), trout, steelhead etc. a lot of diversity and great options.

JohnB · Location: Mississippi gulf coast

I've read alot about stripers on the fly, I really got the hots to head that way and get me one of those bad boys. We have hybrid stripers in lake ponchatrain, LA but the few local that know where and when to catch them are pretty tight lipped. If you do make a trip this way i highly recommed trying the whole triple tail/ cobia on fly thing. Its a blast and it can result in some really good eating.

greg · Posted: Tue 11/10/09 6:14 pm Post subject: Hi John

Welcome to Flies and Fins forum. The Mississippi Gulf coast be a great salt water fishery, I've always heard it was and hope to find out. This page is full of good people with great experiences to share with the rest of us. Hopefully you will have a story about your trip for reds.

Greg

JohnB · Location: Mississippi gulf coast

Well, good news and bad news about my trip. The good new is that I saw over 100 fish with about 14-15 of them in the 30lbs range. I got about 25 good shots at the smaller fish and 2 good shots at the large fish.

now for the bad news, I could'nt get a single fish to eat!!!!! I did miss a lot of shots today because of rookie mistakes and some bad timing, but I also made many textbook presentations only to have the fish spook or rush the fly then lose interest at the last min.

All in all i had the best trip one can have without landing a fish. Saw huge schools of pompano, dolphins, huge bat rays, and we even netted a baby permit that had been thumped by something. ( thats right a permit, most people don't know that small ones are caught sometimes at ship island, MS the captain is takeing it to a marine bioologist to make sure though)

JeremyK · Location: Montana

JohnB,

I fished in Louisiana a little over a year ago and had one decent day on the water boating over a dozen fish (nothing too big) and then got shutout the next. We saw a lot less fish the second day but storm front came in and I couldn't get one eat! We actually bailed of the water around 1pm because of the storm. But, the first day we fished real hard, couldn't get any eats until the tide turned... once it did it was like flipping a light switch and it was on!!! the Guide kept saying... "be patient, it will turn on" and he was spot on. It didn't matter how good your cast was, I could throw my fly 4-6 feet away from the fish and as long as it was in front of them, they would devastate it. It only happened for a couple hours, but was fun.

What time of day and how long did you fish? What tides were you fishing?

JohnB · Location: Mississippi gulf coast

Fished the rising tide. This might sound crazy but I believe one of the main reasons the fish were so tight lipped was the weather. The water was glass clear and there was no wind. every fish 100ft from the boat knew we where there. in hindsight i should have tries some wading to be a little more stealthy.