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March 9th 2010

The Gary Loomis Story part 1 video.  How Gary got into rod building back in the Day. He’s an excellent story teller. A  very amusing story. I hope you enjoy the first segment.

The Youtube Version

If you like the video Please rate 5 stars. It will motivate me to finish the other segments. Thanks!

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Lately the weather has really put a damper on 2010 fishing for us weekend warriors in SW Florida. The weather this past weekend however, looked stellar compared to what it has been. I received the invite from My buddy Ben to hunt opening day of Spring Turkey and there was no hesitation. Turkey hunting in the past few years, has become one of my favorite types of hunting. The plan was to meet with Eric about 4:30 Friday and drive to the hunting gounds outside of Immokolee where Ben was. We arrived just before six but had a 30-40 min ride into the woods which is the best part of arrival! This place has to rank in the top 10 areas to hunt in the state, I am too lucky to be able to do so. We were driving just as the sun was setting:

Theres something about trying to hunt an animal with eye sight 10X better than yours – not to mention with a shotgun, which is up close and personal! Our Saturday Morning hunt was filled with a whole lota nothing…very little moving around! We ran the buggy around for a few hours scouting but that too yielded very little. We took some rest at camp to have our traditional camp breakfast/lunch. About 2:30pm we decided to pack it up and get an early start on our afternoon hunt. Eric and Ben were off to hunt one side of the property and I took the other truck to the opposite side. I figured the sun was still fairly high, I would drive around to do a little scouting. I made it through the first oak hammok to a clearing and there, about 300 yrds in front of me, stood about 30 turkeys, hens and gobblers!!!! I hid the truck in the oaks and grabbed the bare mininmum and off I went. I finally made it to where I thought they would be and nothing…not a bird in sight…But I did hear a gobble about 150yrds away. I setup in a palmetto head and let a few variant calls fly and then two Toms came sprinting out of the thick trees into the clearing. I made one little squeak and they came right to me!!!! I had my bird within 20min of hunting, not bad!!! Eric heard my shot and met me at camp for a quick photo and we both went back to the same area (same palmetto head) – just as last it took about 15min, a few calls, and we had hens and gobblers working their way to us. He choose his bird – and dropped it with his 20 gauge!! We were too excited that we were able to call in two birds within in an hour!! The next morning Ben hunted by himself but didnt get a bird in range – but, he ended the morning by getting a 225lb boar hog! Spending the weekend in the heart of S. Florida’s greatest hunting grounds with good friends 3 weeks before my wedding will never go unforgotten!! Enjoy the photos – Hopefully ill get to see the water with a fly rod in hand next weekend, as it looks like the warming trend may start to produce some heated flats!! Until then, enjoy the photos from the weekend!  Special thanks go out to Ben for inviting us to his property time and time again – He truly has an epic piece of property!  BTW – we saw too many deer to count….(I needed a 40omm this weekend to really capture the beauty of bucks in velvet!)

For any of you who hunt, here were the measurements. A pair of respectable birds taken this weekend:

Mine: Beard: 7.25″ Spurs 1.5″
Erics: Beard: 4.75 (see note above photo) Spurs 1 1/8″
Hog: ~225LB

As you can see Eric’s bird looks as though he had highlights done…(this and the short beard is caused from Mites -something I have never seen until this weekend)

Gotta love the orange moon!

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Got her a 2 weeks ago, and have been trying to get pics.  Leia is a 6 month old Doberman/Husky mix (pending DNA confirmation).   In many ways puppies are much harder to take pics of than kids.  They move quicker, and almost impossible to stage a pic.  Add to that we did it at a dog park so she had 100’s of distractions!  But we made it work after 5 trips, 8+ hours, and 100’s of digital images….

This one would be epic… but really shot one shutter speed to slow

And the winner!!!

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I just recently pulled the trigger on an underwater housing for my D300. So far I am loving it and having a blast. Here are a few photos from the last few days…

Contact me: (239) 994-4925
email: wadefisher616@yahoo.com

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March 9th 2010

Yesterday I took Dave Teper of Worldangling.com fame out to some fishing in Tampa bay. Dave being a pure fly fisherman that was all we brought along. We had shots at a 30lb cobia early, but all we had on was a redfish fly so no take.

The weather was awesome out there today. It has been unusually cold here in Florida but today it was nice bright and sunny with the temperature in the 70’s. We saw lots of reds but for whatever reason, today they did not want to eat. They were just hunkering down on the mud flats and just did not want to move until we spooked them.

A couple or Droid photos.
Film tour at the Tampa Pitcher Show

Dave w/ a Quesadilla at Little Harbor. Tide was slack so we decided to grab lunch.

Last night I was at the Fly fishing film tour a Tampa Pitcher Show. Excellent showing of almost 200 people that showed up to show their support. I hope to have a cool film for next years tour.

Here is a 30 second clip I manage to put together of the Gary Loomis Story. Gary is a very easy edit as he is very smooth and well polished.

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Made it out with Erik for a little Fly Only fishing. We scouted for 4 hours and didn’t really see anything. Towards the end of our trip I noticed something off in the distance that looked like a roll in about 8″ of water. I kept watching it thinking that’s gotta be a fish. I poll over to it…and it was a nice healthy Redfish, about 9 1/2 lbs.

Key word is “WAS”

Headed over to the FS Show after that and got to see the the Green Vantage. Much better in person!

-Richard

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I had the chance to attend the Vero Backcountry Fly tournament hosted by the Vero Backcountry and Maverick Boat Co. this past weekend.  As with similar events in the past that MBC has hosted, this event allowed for some friendly competition and a chance for fly fisherman with similar interests to get together and socialize a bit.  On the more serious side of the tournament, anglers targetted 4 species; redfish, trout, snook, and sheepshead to bring home the top honors.  I had never realized the great sight fishing opportunites that Vero Beach and Fort Pierce has to offer.  Not were we able to target these species via sight fishing, but we had shots at 3ft long trout laid up on the flats.  These big trout definitely proved to be the most challenging species I have ever tried to sightfish on a flyrod… I have earned a whole new respect for the species.  Capt. Eric Davis and I teamed up and stalked the shallows in my Mirage managing to feed over a dozen redfish, hooking 8, pulling the hooks on 5, and landing 3.  After a few frustrating hours of throwing at big stubborn mega trout, we ended up dredging flies in deeper water and catching a dozen or so small trout.  Our fishing was pretty good actually, but not good enough to take the top honors from team Maverick Boat Co. (Charlie Johnson and owner Scott Deal), whom posted redfish, trout, and sheepshead.  An incredible time was had by all with raffles and some sweet prizes.  Plans for next year’s event is already in the works.  If you guys are looking to sample some of Vero Beach’s best sight fishing, make sure to contact Capt. Eric Davis.

The past few weeks leading to this event have been pretty interesting.  My buddy Paul and I had a chance to get out the prior weekend and sight fish redfish for an hour or so in Flamingo before the massive front chased us off.  Blue bird skies followed the front and it made for some great photo opportunities on the water between my study breaks.  The cold temperatures finally subsided a bit today and we were greeted with some warmer temps as the day wore on.  I certainly hope this is a start of a warming trend that will last.  Fishing should be absolutely stellar once we have some consitantly mild temperatures.  These March ninja cold fronts need to end already.  I will be spending some time in the lower Keys in a weeks so I really do hope the weather leading up to my Spring break will finally be warm enough to allow the water temperatures to climb back up.  We need this warm up… bring on the tarpon, bring on the permit, and bring on the big bonefish.

 Here are some of the recent photos I finally found time to process tonight:

For those of us in college, this week is either spring break or mid term week so good luck in whatever event you are facing.  Catch you guys later…

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March 7th 2010

The weekend was s spent mostly at the Frank Sargeant Show. I had not planned on attending this Sunday but I had the opportunity to do a video of Gary Loomis, Yes, the famed rod builder him self. For those of you that don’t know it G. Loomis rods are consider one of the best rods ever made in Spin and Fly fishing world. Gary is consider one of the pioneers when it comes using carbon to fishing rods with.

I got there bright and early with my gear and set things up at the TFO booth.(Gary is now designing the blanks for the TFO) It was pretty cool to meet a legend in the fishing world.

The interview was awesome as only Gary him self could tell it. I got the history of how he got started in the rod building business and down to Gary himself telling you how to pick a proper rod. It’s a great story and the video came out excellent.

I look forward to sharing that video with you guys. It’s late, I will get for the first part of the interview tomorrow afternoon.

Here are some shots I got from the show I thought turned out ok. I used the fisheye lens to capture it all.

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Today was a more than pleasent day to be on the water and I am hoping all that were able took full advantage of this beautiful day. I however decided to go hog hunting versus being on the water. I had the notion for some fresh pork for the table, however this didn’t happen due to poor planning and better hunters. I woke up this morning at 3:45 and headed over to my pick up my buddy Alex and head out to his parents house which is way out by Clewiston somewhere. Our goal was to be there at daylight which we made happen. We walked with guns on shoulders to the hunting ground where we intently looked for the wild beasts. After about a mile of walking we finally struck gold. We found a nice pack of hogs and we took aim. After missing a couple shots we continued walking looking for more.
As we were walking I saw this big boy hog standing there broad side to me and I took a shot, BAM I hit him. He started running and then I started running to try and catch up to him so I could have a second shot, next thing I know he is running right at me. I jacked in another shell and hit him about 10 feet from me and rolled him right there. Talk about heart pounding. It was awesome. Well, I gutted him right there and Alex and I drug him for about 150 yards and decided he was way to much to drag a mile. We figured we would leave him lay and walk back to the house and get a radio flyer wagon. We were gone about 45 minutes and upon our return to the hog there were about 100 buzzards hanging about. Those dang birds ate both hams out of the hog down to the bone, they ate the inner loins, ribs, and half of the back straps. We couldn’t believe it. I wanted to cry. What a shame. Anyhow, we put it in the wagon and drug it back to the house for some photos. Here ya go

For an idea of how big this boy was I took a pic of Alex next to the hog

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