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Fishing Panama, Big Lure equals Big Fish and How to take Firework Photos
12.31.2010
Many of you will be shooting fire work photos tonight on new years eve. Here is a post I made last year on how to take good firework photos. Last year it was a bit too late but this year I am going to be right on time.
How to take fire work photos.
http://saltyshores.com/wordpress/2010/01/06/photography/how-to-take-photos-of-fireworks/
The past few days I visited down in Panama and fished with team Sebile at Oliver’s Lodge in Boca Chica Panama and the surround islands. You know research and development trip to test big splashers, giant swimming magic and stick shads. We fished out of Oliver’s 24′ Panga style boat casting big lures near rocky bottoms. It was pretty intense hardcore fishing at it’s finest. No trolling we were casting for Big fish with big gear, big lures.
Tunas, Cubera Snappers, Mullet Snappers, Big eye Tuna, yellowfin tuna’s and many more species I probably forgot but will be going through the photos here soon.
I will get more detail and photos as I have time but for now here are some photos.
Another good day
Went fishing with Mike Torregrossa and Chuck Statham a few trips ago and finally downloaded the pics off of my camera. There were several reds caught but Mike definitely got the biggest of the day.
Cold Weather Reds
I got a text from my buddy Troy this morning saying he was on vacation and ready to fish. He drove over to my place and we headed out to Matlacha this afternoon for a few hours of hunting reds. We poled a creek and sight casted a beautiful red. He was hideing inside a large pile of ladyfish and mullet. As we continued poling we came around a corner and spooked about 30 big boy reds just sitting there. I couldn’t believe it, by the time I switched from fly to spin they were gone. It was pretty awesome though! Here is a couple shots from the day
Another bad ass Louisiana Redfish video
RA Beattie has always been known for releasing some epic fishing clips but this one takes the cake by far. Watching a big fat slob of a Louisana redfish raise it’s head out of the water to eat a popper fly is nothing sort of spectacular. Catching it on film so that the world can watch with their jaws on the floor…. EPIC. This is without a doubt the coolest fly fishing for redfish footage I’ve ever come across.
Check out some of RA’s stuff at http://www.beattieoutdoorproductions.com
Good times
After a lot of travel and a busy year, there is nothing like spending some time on the water with good friends.
Banana River Solo Mission and some photos from Louisiana & Tampa Bay
With a busy week lined up with charters next week, I’ve been exploring some waters to see if I can find some consistent fish. On Christmas day I decided to check out the Banana River in Cocoa Beach on a solo mission. I was greeted by slick calm conditions as soon as I got to the ramp but once I got to spot A, the south winds started blowing. Lots of big Sea Trout are sitting in sand holes along grassflats in the 1-3′ depths with Redfish in the mix. Redfish were sunning and laid up in sand holes in less than a foot of water around 1-2pm. Most fish were spooked when I jigged a few different types of artificial baits in front of there faces. I then put the spinning rod away and broke out my flyrod. Once I saw some fish laid up in sand holes from a distance that I could accurately cast, I put down my Wang Anchor so I wouldn’t drift over or get too close to the fish. Once I made my cast to a laid up fish and started my retrieve, I watched as the nice 27-30 inch fish slurped my Redfish Slider as I was pulling it across its head!! One of the best eats I’ve seen in a while!
I’m sure you all have read and heard about our Louisiana trip from Sam and Honson so I’m not going to write about it, but I will post the photos that I took on the trip. At the end of the trip, Joe Welbourn, Eddie O., Honson and I decided to fish Tampa Bay for a couple hours before we all went home to face reality. Joe showed us some great spots holding lots of fish, but rubber hook syndrome was the hot topic of the day for most of us. I did manage to bring 2 fish to the boat. I’m feeling pretty good about the Salty Fly Tournament in February!
Capt. Willy Le
nativeflycharters.com
321-303-7805
Louisiana Winter 2010
Tampa Bay
The wonderful boom or bust days of winter……..
While I prefer to bonefish like most in the heat, our wintertime fishery can be spectacular at times…….it can also be void of life.
The simple flip of a coin can either lead you down the path of righteousness or a pointless dead end. This is the gamble of the wintertime fishery, simple boom or bust if you will.
Monitoring water temps is a must, having the right weather is second and having a large amount of luck can always be useful. Since the cooler weather graced us most slicked days have been spent tooling around with the youth in tow. The windy wintery days were left flying kites on the edge or sitting in the duck blind. Many of the slicked days where conditions were right happened to be cut short because the baby was along for the ride. A few of those days kept me thinking what if……………..
So as the Holiday approached I was able to waive the white flag at the office early one day in attempt to toss a few flies without the family in tow. Weather looked right, but the water was presumably cold, yet we decided to fill the cooler a push out around noon.
After an hour or so of nothingness we figured it was one of those “put in your dues days”………………………..until finally I was able to confirm Santa had indeed come early.
He left some floaters……………………………………
As it turns out apparently I was a good boy this year……………
Then came the acres of pre-spawners…….
I was giddy as a school girl………………..
In all the awe we decided maybe we’d catch a few………
In all the fuss as we shot through fly after fly I realized it had been a good while that I consistently sat down at the vice with a fine glass of wine and whipped out a few bugs. This used to be my typical evening routine but with the new addition to the family free time has been limited at best.
On some occasions that monic fly line is worth it’s weight in gold……..
Then it seems Santa’s tailers decided to show in masses…………..
And in five knee shattering hours of fly-fishing 14 bonefish came to hand with well over 20 fish hooked………….
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Holiday………..
Tarpon Bug in Matlacha for Fly Fishing in Saltwater
12.21.2010
This past summer I had the chance to be involved in a cool project down in a little place named Matlacha Florida. I got together with some friends to do some baby Tarpon fly fishing. Instead of taking photos this time I wanted to concentrate on shooting good video and see what I could do.
There were lots of guys involved because we wanted a second boat perspective. You know instead of looking at the back of the guy’s head perspective you see in most videos, I wanted to shoot on a camera boat. The group contained Rich, Joe, Rusty, Scott, Brad and myself. We shot for 2 days and took 1/2 day to do interviews and b rolls.
As luck may have it Rusty got a nice story printed in the 100th anniversary issue(to be released soon) of Saltwater in Fly Fishing, the largest saltwater fly fishing magazine in the country. This lead to me putting together the video to be featured in the magazine.
The first video is to showcase the baby tarpon fishery in Matlacha, FL. Most videos I have seen are usually all about how epic the fishing was, how cool and hardcore everyone is. To be a little different, I try to make it more of a feel good life style type video. To me it is not always about the fishing it’s more about the journey. Hopefully I succeeded in doing so.
The 2nd video is Brad Lowman tying the “Tarpon Bug”. It is a fly tying “how to” video so it was tough to make it very exciting. I needed some fillers like underwater shots etc but just didn’t have the time to get it done. I did however, used multiple cameras to make it more interesting.
Thanks again to everyone that was involved in the project:
Capt Joe Harley
Rusty Chinnis
Brad Lowman
Capt Rich Osgood
Scott Swartz
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Nautilus Reels
Simms Apparel
———— Lodging ———-
Angler’s Inn
Sun and Moon
———— Music ———–
Bombalaros(Joe’s band) for the sound track
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South Carolina winter Reds by Jay Nelson
12.21.2010
South Carolina redfish have officially shifted into winter mode. We had several days with sub-freezing temperatures last week and the water has transitioned from stained to gin-clear. The redfish have ganged-up in large winter schools and most of the baitfish have either left the creeks or gone deep to avoid the cold. The fish are really predictable this time of year and won’t turn down an easy meal in most cases. Huge schools of redfish mixed with near-perfect visibility make winter fishing in South Carolina’s Lowcountry a unique experience. Yesterday’s fish were caught on bright clousers, redfish sliders, and Gulp baits in natural colors.
One Last Cast
Capt. Kenny Smith
InshoreNearshore.com
InshoreNearshore blog
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