- IF4, International Fly Fishing Film Tour, a special Saltwater Cut for us here in Florida.
- Very Cool trick try this it works awesome.
- Dragon Fly paddle boards in South Carolina Show this weekend.
- Real truth about SOPA
- Natural Laws
- Clay Dyer, can’t help but to be inspired by this guy
- Invisible to the Naked eye water proofing you iphone
- Tuna gets over $700,000 at the fish market
- Real Cyclops Shark found
- White Pelican eating a pigeon
The American Shad – St. Johns River, FL.
Everywhere that I’ve lived in my life, I was at least 30 minutes away from the St. Johns River and I keep hearing about the Shad run that takes part every Winter and Spring but I’ve never went out and tried catching them until recently. My buddy Dominic Agostini invited me to join him on his new and improved Micro Skiff that he’s been working on for a while now. You may have seen it in one of my previous posts called Micro Skiff = Micro Poon. Well, since then he has added a poling platform by BT’s Welding and pushpole holders from Renzetti.
If you ask me one thing about Shad, I will probably scratch my head and say “huh?” This experience was all new to me, so I just sat quietly and took notes while Dominic explained everything there is to know about the American Shad. I never knew that these were saltwater fish that migrate down to freshwater areas of the river to spawn.
Once we launched the skiff and headed north through the windy creeks, It came back to me how pristine this part of Florida was. The scenery and all of the wildlife put me in a whole new world as if I was going on an African Safari Tour. What a great time to break out the Nikon DSLR and the long lens for a photography session while we were on the way to the fishing spot.
Once we came off plane, we immediately saw some flipping on the waters surface. It was Shad feeding on small minnows that were flowing in the current. It didn’t take long until Dominic hooked into the first fish of the day on his 3wt.
Then it was my turn on deck while Dominic was armed with the camera to capture some jump shots.
We caught several Shad each along with some pretty impressive Bluegill that put up a good fight.
After about an hour of catching Shad and Bluegill, we decided to just go joy riding and enjoy the great scenery that the St. Johns River has to offer.
I think I might started taking advantage of living close to the St. Johns River and make more trips out there to enjoy the great fishery and amazing scenery.
-Capt. Willy Le
www.nativeflycharters.com
Aperture Books & Borders FX Plugin
Been playing with new ways to present pictures to friends/clients and came across a pretty cool feature in the photo editor I use – Aperture 3. The software allows you to select a number of photos and then include them in “book” format. The intention is for you to arrange your photos to form a coffee table book or a book to share with family (I’m actually considering doing a coffee table book for the house with some fishing pics). Coffee table material aside, I think the “book” layout is pretty cool just for one single photo assortment. You can document a day’s worth of fishing on one big photo collage…just chose several photos and click “new book”. You can tweak the size of each photo and color the background however you want. You can also use the borders fx plugin to add text without going into photoshop. I used it to give a friend of mine some ideas on a new flyer for his charter business…they’ve got tons of letter fonts to chose from. You could potentially arrange flyers, business cards, or whatever with your photos and designs without having to fork out a bunch of cash. Anyway, hope this is useful for somebody out there. I’ve had fun messing around with it.
January Redfish Trip
Summer Grass Flat Fishing
Random Georgetown Pics
Douglas’ Flyer
Bottom fishing with D.O.A. Swimmin’ Mullet
Me, my brother and friends ventured out of Port Canaveral in the 22′ Pathfinder TE this past weekend. Conditions were sloppy but that didn’t stop the fish 80ft below from biting. We used nothing but D.O.A. Swimmin’ Mullet to jig the bottom and caught multiple species including Flounder, Red Snapper, Mangrove Snapper, Sea Bass, Trigger fish, Grouper, Cobia, and Toad fish this day.
-Capt. Willy Le
www.NativeFlyCharters.com
15% off any Hell’s Bay skiff……….(update)
Guys I just wanted to update this post as I have fielded alot of questions regarding it. The coupon is 100% transferable to anyone of my choice, however it cannot be used on top of a HB guide discount. Would love to see it get used by someone that shares the same passion for getting skinny. It is obviously still available.
Well with the recent tournament win we were lucky enough to get 15% off coupon for a new Hell’s Bay skiff as a prize. Seeing that I just bought a new 17.8 but over 12 months ago (could have used this then!!!) I unfortunately have no use for this coupon.
The coupon can be applied to ANY skiff of your choice and provides roughly $5,000 off a new Gladeskiff to $8,500 off a new Neptune.
I would love to get the coupon in someone’s hand that is serious about purchasing a new skiff. This is a good opportunity for someone that has been sitting on the fence about one of these skiffs, god knows I love mine like one of my own children.
Heck if you know someone or find anyone that would like to use this discount I am willing to pay a finder’s fee.
Coupon expires 3/31/12
Just shoot me an email collin_ross@hotmail.com or have Sam get in touch with me.
Video of a Space Coast Redfish on fly
A short clip of Honson catching a nice Redfish on fly while he was up visiting from Miami.
A special day for Kent Johson
Kent Johnson from Montana spends his winters in warmer climates to get away from the frozen lakes and icy streams back at home. This year he is in Florida with his 5th wheel in tow and his wife by his side and they plan to travel the whole state staying in each region for 2 weeks then on to the next. This week he is staying on the outskirts of East Orlando and called me up to target Redfish with a fly rod. Kent has traveled the world with his fly rod and has caught Bonefish, Salmon, Tarpon, Permit, Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout, etc. but always had trouble with the Red Drum in Florida. After several attempts in the past years, he has failed to catch one until today, January 10, 2012, which was a very special day for him.
On a sandy flat of 8-12″, we would encounter Laid up Sea Trout, laid up Redfish and also large schools of Redfish. The water was crystal clear and not a lick of wind making the whole river sheet glass, which also made the fish very spooky. Kent had over 50 shots of both Trout and Reds but most of them blew off by seeing the fly line soaring through the air. The ones that didn’t spook off are the ones that either trailed the fly for a few yards before turning away, or ate the fly that imitated a small baitfish.
After landing a few nice Sea Trout (which Kent can also check off his list now) I see a pod of upper to over slot Redfish approaching us. I quickly position the skiff for Kent to fire off a long cast next to the school which he did perfectly without spooking the fish. Once the pod of fish headed towards the fly, Kent makes 3 or 4 quick strips which gets a fishes attention which then turned on the fly and ate. Now Kents first ever Redfish is hooked up on the end of his line and the battle begins.
After about 20 minutes of tug o war with the fish, I give Kent a hand to land his first ever Redfish on fly that he’s been after for a long time.
Kent cherishing the release of his first Redfish which measured 28.5″.
It wasn’t too long after the release of his first Redfish when he made a perfect cast to his 2nd Redfish ever caught.
After a bunch more shots and spooky fish, the wind picked up which made it tough to get the fly in the right spot so we called it a great day and headed back to ramp.
Congrats Kent on your Redfish and I hope you enjoy the memories that these photographs will bring back to you!
-Capt. Willy Le
www.nativeflycharters.com
Fish n’ Hunt
As of late life has thrown some challenging curve balls which have been putting a damper on my photography, fishing and hunting! This past month has been better and I have been able to get out and do those things we all love to do. I was able to harvest a nice Florida 8pt that weighed about 140lbs. He was only about a 2-3 yr old deer. I have been tracking his big brother whom will hardly show himself. Like they say though, “big bucks don’t get big by being stupid”. I did see him during archery and gun but he is just too sneaky. He is a 10pt and goes probably 170lbs. I know people say the deer are like dogs in Florida but I have a place north of Ocala that produces big doe and pretty decent bucks! I have also gotten into stone crabbing. Per recreational license you are allowed to have up to 5 stone crab traps per person. My good friend Jon and I have eight that we check once a week. Thus far our biggest yeild is 32 claws in one haul which came out to around 6lbs worth. We have been baiting with hogs feet and ham hocks which seem to work really well. The crabs enjoy them and they are very durable. And since I am a big hunter I can’t go with out hunting down triple tail this time of year either. After we are done plucking traps we make our usual run after the trips. The one in the picture put up an awesome fight and made for excellent table fair. This same day we came across another triple tail that was larger than the one we caught but he would not take any of our offerings. I dropped a shrimp on him several times but no such luck. Till next time and a happy new year to all!
The year of the Redfish
2011 was without a doubt the “year of the Redfish.” After the massive freeze we had in the winter of 2009/2010, the the redfish population had bounced back incredibly. Days of 70+ sight fished redfish were a common occurance this past summer and reports of redfish being caught in all the islands from Flamingo to the Keys and even on occassion on the ocean side were not uncommon. This was the most incredible redfishing that I had ever seen in my life. We spent the last 2 days of 2011 on the Florida Bay flats catching good numbers of redfish on fly.
The cool morning runs called for jackets and sweaters.
It eventually warmed up enough to shed the thick clothing and do some dental work on redfish.
We headed back the second day on both Capt. Jeremy’s Maverick 18 HPX-V and Dr. Tony’s Hells Bay classic 16 Whipray. The warming weather brought out a more aggressive nature in the reds.
So ended another year of fishing around the Purple Isle. We will look forward to getting back out on the water to experience what the Keys and Everglades has to offer.
I would walk out the door the next morning to meet with a great friend and mentor to start the journey into 2012… only, the flyrods utilized this day on the Maverick skiff would be 12 Weights. There is only one thing that can possess a man to wake up after a long New Years Eve and make the long chilly run into the Everglades backcountry to pole around in what could be empty water… or was it empty?
Stay tuned for the next tarpon junkie chronicle. I would like to wish everybody a happy and prosperous 2012!!!