- 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
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
Loon Nip N’ Sip review by Brian Sawyer
By: Brian Sawyer
I was growing tired of carrying the same dull pair of finger nail clippers in my back pocket I decided to surf the internet for a decent set of line nippers. Low and behold I stumbled up upon these little guys, The Loon Nippers. So I got on the horn with Loon, and I was delivered pair within three days. Seeing as how they were priced at only $20 I didn’t exactly think I was getting the world’s greatest fishing tool. Man was I wrong, these things are amazing!
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As I am on the water quite frequently I always carry a pair of pliers on me, any fisherman would be a fool not to. However, sometimes your standard pliers just don’t cut it (no pun intended). When I need to cut the tag ends of a blood knot all the way to the knot or clear an eye of a hook, regular pliers tend to fall short and you need a more specific tool. That’s where the Loon nips have really come in handy.
Of course I had a few test of my own:
I cut several thickness of mono line including 10lb -120lb and even 400lb! Although the 400lb line needed quite a bit of pressure, it cut through all of them flawlessly.
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(400lb Monofilament Line)
Another great feature that performed impeccably was the eye clearing needle. It is located just in-between the jaws out of the way of any accidental slip of the finger. Its stainless steel thorn will clear the toughest powder coat build up on any jig head as well as any excess thread build up around the eye of a fly.
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Overall, the Loon “Nip ‘N Sip” nipper is quite an impressive tool. Whether you are a hard core fly fisherman or just a beer drinking weekend warrior these nips are perfect for any angler’s pocket. At a low cost of only $20 and a stainless steel construction you can’t go wrong.
Amazon Link to the Loon Nip N’ Sip
Drift Paddle by Power-Pole, prototype
1.22.2012
Last week I spent a couple day days with the guys from Power-Pole at a beautiful spring called the Rainbow River in Dunnellon, Florida. They were there to test and create media for a new prototype product called the “Drift Paddle”.
The Drift Paddle is an attachment for the Power-pole unit that allows you to slow down your drift on the flats or lakes by up to 40%. You can change direction, run with the paddles on and even easily removable if you did not want to leave it on the boat. And yes power pole still works to stop the boat even with the Paddles on.
All the prototyping aside the coolest part was the how awesome the Rainbow river was. The water is a constant 72 degrees as it comes out of a spring. Even though it was 38 degrees that morning I was swimming in the crystal clear water by 10am that morning. It felt great and the underwater photos came our excellent.
An iPhone Photo Essay… Space Coast!!
There are several occurances in my world of fishing outside my daily routine that brings me to travel a long distance with flyrods in hand; the Palolo worm hatch in the lower keys during Spring, the big redfish that show up in Louisiana during the cold winters, the False Albies that show up on Florida’s Gulf coast in the Fall… niether of which I had a chance to take part of in 2011. I started this year’s travels right when my buddy Capt. Willy Le (www.NativeFlyCharters.com) informed me that it was time to make a trip North for the weekend. So I packed my gear, threw some warm fishing clothes in the Jeep, and decided to document some of this trip with my iPhone.
Fri, 6pm… check weather!
Fri, 7pm… Make fish food!
Sat, 4am… Departure from Miami!
Sat, 8am… take a boat ride!
Sat, 8:30am… fight Sea Monster, give fly line morning stretches, and try to break fly rod!
… and yes, that is backing
Sat, 8:45am… shake hands with Sea Monster!
Sat, 10am… catch a 38″ Redfish!
Sat, 11am… play with small redfisher until it is time to go!
Sat, 4pm… make quick stop at a local bass pond to use 5wt!
Sat, 7pm… Pho @ Wabi Sabi!
Sun, Noon… get a late start!
Sun, Afternoon… sight fish mega-trout over clear sand!
Sun, evening… back to the barn to make the 3 hour drive back to Miami!
Video + Report via Capt. Willy to come shortly… Stay tuned…
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!!!
Instagram photo app for iphone and droid(in the works)
Currently available only for the Iphone but the android app is around the corner. Instagram currently boost over 50 million users.
For all you photography peeps out there this is a very popular program that is must have. Well a must have if you don’t want to carry you camera every where you go anyways.
I gotta say I love this Instagr.am program. I was a bit hesitant to use it at first but after seeing how easy it was to take decent photos and connecting to people I know it was a breeze to get addicted.
The built in easy filters makes most photos look better and one touch it’s posted to FB, Twitter, Tumbler etc. Allows people to “like”, “comment” etc. Good stuff.
It is a great social media tool and very fun and easy to use. Did I mention it was free?
Here are some photos I’ve taken with it the last couple weeks I’ve been using it.
To follow my photos: http://followgram.me/scssam
Pro: easy to use, great interface and free.
Con: no cropping, very little editing ability except for the built in ones.
Groupon for fishing tackle, just in time for the holidays
I’m sure everyone has heard of groupon by now. If you haven’t, it is basically a daily email for great discounts on goods and services around you local area. It is super popular and from what I have seen the savings are pretty significant.
While at ICAST I ran into a guy name Dave. He was telling me about a similar concept but geared towards fishing products.
Dave knew me from the photos on Saltyshores and wanted me do some life style photos for the website that was to be launched in a couple months. We exchanged cards and that was one of the many quick meetings I had at ICAST.
To be honest, I thought nothing of it but I got an email from Dave one day wanting to line up photo shoot with four to five models that could fish. This was when I knew they were serious.
They actually flew down one day to do the shoot. We got four girls 2 boats to do an all day lifestyle shoot. We got some excellent photos done that day. I have been keeping it under wraps as everything was not quite ready yet with the website.
You will be happy to know this week they opened up and I get to tell you guys about it as well as share with you some photos.
Here are a couple and you can check some of them out at www.TightLinz.com
So here’s the low down. TightLinz is a members only (free membership) community that gets access to brands names at up to 70% off of retail. They have to keep it members only so it will not show up in search engines.
Once a week TightLinz sends an email to your inbox to let you know about new sales events. Each event last just 72 hours or until they sell out.
One cool thing about this community is that they will credit you $10 for each friend you refer that ends up buying.
Invite as many friends as you like. The events are starting small and will grow quickly and will include tackle, apparel, accessories as well as boating gear and travel!
I checked it out and yes the discounts is pretty substantial. I have been on a couple “guide deal” program and I have to say, the discounts are as good some even better.
The 1st events are featuring Shakespeare combos, Fenix LED lights and gear, clothing and accessories from Old Harbor Outfitters.
Tampa Kayak fishing with Spencer Goodwin
11.19.2011
Got out on the water yesterday with long time friend Spencer Goodwin(Tampa Kayak Charters) and his friend Trent to do a little Kayak fishing. With these low tides and the north winds to make the tide even lower its much easier to target reds and trout when they concentrate themselves in pot holes.
Spencer stuck with his Lil Jon on a jig head and I used a variety of things of lures. Yo-zuri Crystal Shrimp(still testing this for a full review), Doa shrimp, DOA swim tail and even pulled out the fly rod.
The bite was excellent with very quick action. We caught 20+ trout, 12 or so redfish and two flounder by lunch time.
The new Skinny Water Culture Hoodie got a video review coming up.
Spencer probably caught the most fish out of us three since most of the fish has hunkered down on the bottom of the holes. Trent caught a few nice reds and a good trout. After a few fish on the swim tails I pulled out the fly rod and caught three small red fish to cap off a successful morning of fishing.
Photo note: used the DSLR but forgot the lens wipe today. Had a cause of smudgy lens. Must remember this especially when kayak fishing.
Bass to Bonefish…
What to do between the onslaught of high winds, big seas, cloudy days, and pre-frontal rain… go fish for bass or bonefish!!!
Tampa big trout bite with Del Calhoun, Kayak Fishing
11.5.2011
One of the problem with actually fishing and not just being out on the water is that you never get any really cool shots. By cool shots I mean those nice sunrise, action, candid photos. When these moments happens and you have a fishing rod in your hand by the time you reel in and get the camera out of the storage it is pretty much over. Staging it sometimes work but the really really cool stuff, for the most part, just can not be staged effectively.
I say this because looking over my photos from the last fishing outing with Del all I have are grip and grin shots. No action, no scenic, no candid moments. The photos besides showing the fish we caught just does not seem to tell the story. So now you know, if have really really cool shots chances are I’m not fishing just taking photos. Ahh.. the things I sacrifice to capture good images for you guys. 
Those that know me back in the day before I really got into the photography knew I was an avid fisherman. And like most avid fisherman, I try to get out as much as I can. Sometimes this means once a week but many times it was more like 4 times a week. I got out so much that I started to become burnt out on it. If that actually happens. When I started to take better photos, the sharing of images actually honed new interest for me.
I bring this up because it seems that many new to Saltyshores and or Facebook assume that I am just a lowly photographer with zero fishing skillz. I joke around here but believe it or not this is actually the case with many people I know in the fishing industry. I have met many people in sales, marketing, crunch numbers and have no desire to fish or fish very little. You would think it was the opposite that these guys fish all the time. At first I was quite surprised myself.
To try to change this image to the newer visitors of SS, I am forced to get photos of my self with fish every now and then. Not a bad task really.
Now back to the fishing report.
This past week the weather had been nasty with cold fronts coming in one after another. Thursday had an opening of a beautiful day and I wanted to get to do some fall fishing in the flats. I called my artist friend Del Calhoun up to see if he wanted to get out for a few hours. I try to get a couple other guys together but their schedule just did not work.
We decided to Kayak fish today so I loaded the Hobbie Revo up the back of the truck with two rods and a couple boxes of tackle. In the tackle box was the Paul Browns(something I always wanted to try), Yo Zuri Crystal Shrimp(new from Yo Zuri) and DOA shrimp. Del was using the top water the entire time.
The bite was sporadic at first first with a few small snook and trout. With this first cold front and the grass dying off the floating grass made treble hook lures like the PB and Crystal Shrimp painful to use so I stuck with the DOA shrimp for the most part.
When the tide started to switch things turned on. We were catching bigger snook along with a few redfish in the lower 20′s. The best fish of day came around lunch time. We were on our way in and worked pot holes. After spooking a few fish I was able to sneak up on nice pod of fish and made a cast up current of him. It got swooped up right away and fought really well. I thought it was a redfish since it was pulling nicely but when it started to zig zag I’m thinking snook, when it shoot is’ head, wow a trout! I yell over to Del and then he hooks up on big trout on top water.
We both landed our fish 25″ and 26″ trout sight cast from Kayaks something neither of us I have never done on trout this big. After a few photos and successful release of the fish we figure we couldn’t do better than this and headed in. On the way in we caught a couple more smaller redfish to cap off a nice day and as a bonus got a few photos of my self with fish for a change.
Lure note: With the clear water the DOA Shrimp 382 caught the big fish today.
Photo note.: did not have the DSLR cameras with me that day. All photos shot on the Sony NEX-5.
Check out the strange growth on this trout’s nose.
