The Curse Is Lifted:  Dave Finally Lands A Permit! 

Posted under fly fishing reports by Will Benson

 

After 301 days of going permit-less the talented Mr. Teper finally managed to wrap his hands around another vertical silver flounder!  It all began the day after our first film premier.  Dave, Capt Mark Phillips and I were out taking some much needed shots at fish following a nearly six week editing binge.  Late in the day, we spotted some tailing fish cruising off the flat with the tide.  Dave jumped in the water while Mark polled me into position with the camera.  What ensued was pure documentary magic.  Dave caught the fish and I captured the best shot of my life.  And with that, the curse of the magic shot began.  Over the months Dave managed to connect with a few but never got one to the boat.  He threatened to nail the next one to my wooden door, which only exasperated his already miserable luck. The darkest hour came when he and Capt. Jeff Legutki accompanied Bill Houze and I on a shoot in mid July as we were preparing our entry for the Drake Magazine Video Awards.  Dave managed to pass his bad luck on to Bill as Bill’s biggest permit to date came boat-side.  A freak bend was put into the edge of the reel spool during one of the last ditch efforts to escape from Bills Gold Cup-grip.  The line popped and the Captain lost his cool.  It made for awesome film, but we didn’t know it at the time.  It just seemed that Dave’s miserable luck was plaguing our efforts.  

At the Fly Fishing Retailers Convention this September, Dave had his moment of revelation as we stood at the back casting pond and threw a little known line of rods called Fetha-Styx.  As dave began his trademark left-handed relaxed cast, he turned to me and said, “this is the rod!”  Sure enough, first time out in the keys, first tailing fish in his sights, Dave’s hunch paid off as his new Fetha-Styx made short work of a nearly 20 pound permit.  As we all rendezvoused at Marvin Key for a picnic later that evening, Dave and Jeff broke the news.  Since I was fishing the rescheduled S.L.A.M. earlier that day and didn’t manage any fish to the boat, I was sincerely impressed if a bit jealous.  Maybe the good luck rubbed off because my Anglers Ron Walker and Joe Weaver managed to land 4 the next day.  Since Ron caught his last fish first, he took home most permit releases.  Congrats to Troy Pruitt and his guide Brian Helms for their overall win in the event.  For all the details on the 2008 Mercury S.L.A.M. check out the press release at ESPN Outdoors.

New Orleans Fly Fishing Rebounds: The Aftermath Of Gustav

Posted under fly fishing reports by Will Benson

Although he was out of power for nearly five days, caught between the mess of one hurricane and unsure about the next, Capt Greg Arnold is back at it.  “Will,” he said. “The marina ain’t there no more.  Launch ramp is fine, but all those houses and sheds…they’re gone. Not to mention, one of those big rigs from out in the gulf that has sunk in the middle of MRGO.  All you can see are the offices at the top!”
I could picture it in my head as Greg just kept telling me about what he’s seen down on the bayou.  A lot of the same area that was hit hard by Katrina took another blow in Gustav.  With a surge of about 12 feet, the roads were covered with mud and mostly impassable down to where you could put a boat in the water.  After 4 days Greg was able to get out and get a closer look at some of the damage in his skiff before heading out to check on the redfish.  
“It appears that the oyster boats themselves are mostly intact just the dock operations for the commercial fisherman are gone.  I suspect that the damage is significantly worse over in Grand Isle and back towards Cocodrie and Houma.  I haven’t been to look though.”  Greg said.  He also described  how obviously he was lucky this time, as the levees in New Orleans held, and the city should reopen for tourism soon.  The fishing hasn’t been outrageous but Greg said it was getting better and may get really good as soon as the weather settles down.  It looks like New Orleans has dodged another bullet with hurricane Ike, but the boys on the Texas Coast might not be so lucky.  We can only hope that the storm damage is minimal and that these hurricanes don’t continue to come at us every week! Down in the Keys we certainly feel lucky to have dodged the bullet on Ike.  The water in the Keys right now is very murky as a result of the continued tropical storm activity.  I am glad to be heading out to Colorado for the Fly Fishing Retailers Convention this weekend to promote Connected instead of trying to find fish in this pea soup.

Pine Island Sound Redfish: Tougher Than They Look

Posted under fly fishing reports by Dave Teper

So far the weather, and subsequently the fishing this summer has sucked ass.  It feels like it is a million degrees in the sun and in the water.  I’ve seen tarpon sweating blood, snook dying of dehydration, bonefish wearing sunglasses, and permit…well they haven’t really been around that much. It is hard to get motivated to crawl out of the cave and get out on the water.  Maybe I was just that bored, but we went fishing the other day.

The task at hand was to take advantage of one of the three good weather days all month to try to get some footage for a web project for my friend John Stark.  He had been on some nice tailing redfish for a couple days previous, so we decided to head north and try our hand at the nearly impossible.  To really validate the day, the object was to get a red to eat Willy’s crab fly.  I had no doubt that they would eat it, and eat it they did.  We had three eats, one I stripped the fly out of a big red’s mouth, the second was what we like to call an “action rod set”, and the third came to hand.  Not the biggest fish, but it fulfilled our goal.

Tropical Storm Fay: WorldANGLING Gets Whacked

Posted under fly fishing reports by Will Benson

On monday Tropical Storm Fay blew into Key West and dumped an impressive 8” of rain flooding my entire property, tackle room, Rathole Studio and screwing Mike Allen out of yet another scheduled fishing day.  And then…it sucker punched Dave up in Naples.  Not that he’d know as he was passed out after a long day backing up way too much computed crap.  Not to worry because he’s back at it after a quick phone call with me to discuss the entire future of World Angling, and few small things we should do to the website.  So… look for an entirely new homepage and layout sometime before the Drake Film Festival on September 14th.  We are planning on releasing our film on the website right before we head to the theater, so if you can’t make it out to see us in Denver you can certainly catch us right here at www.worldangling.com .
Speaking of catching… lately we’ve been catching up on some well deserved time off. Denny and I went to Chicago to connect with Gannon and see Rage Against The Machine, John Butler Trio, Nine Inch Nails, Gnarles Barkley, G love and lots of others at Lollapalooza.  Since Key West doesn’t really attract those kinds of bands, it was great to get a chance to see them live in concert.  Capt. Bill Houze and I have been heading out spear fishing lately and we are working on putting together a film about what fly fishing guides do on their days off… Head out as far as the little skiffs can go and Kill Fish!   Besides sleeping in, shooting guns, and raging at concerts, I’ve also found some time to squeeze in a bit of the old buggy whipping.  Mike Allen and I stuck our redemption permit on Friday, a hefty 28# fish.  Finally the monkey is off our back as we turn our attention to the redbone.org Superfly and SLAM tourneys where we will be defending our title in the 1 day / 1 fly event, and looking to capture the overall grand championship title using only fly rods.  I had a very relaxing yet ultra productive day fishing with Rick Orcutt on Saturday.  Rick managed to catch his first ever grand slam!  After releasing a 20+ pound permit to complete the slam we both just stood there looking at each other thinking…did we just do that?  It was hard to believe considering that we didn’t see as many fish as you would think.  Congrats Rick!

Grand Bahama Bonefishing: Pesca Enferma A Cualquiera

Posted under fly fishing reports by Dave Teper

Recently our friend Carlos Cortez journeyed from Argentina to Grand Bahama to fish with Bernard Bevans.  I guess he got some good weather and fishing as he went way out of his way to send a report.

Thanks Carlos, I look forward to fishing with you soon.

Despues de ver y leer mucho tiempo sobre Bonefishing decidí ir a probar suerte, doble propósito, darme el gusto y llevar a mi familia a la playa, cosa que por mis preferencias ( flyfishing y snowboarding ) no hago frecuentemente. El lugar elegido fue Grand Bahama, a priori buenas posibilidades de pesca, buenas playas y no tan costoso.
La isla es bastante agreste, mucha naturaleza, poca ( o casi nada… ) vida de ciudad, para mí “el paraíso”. La capital se llama Freeport y si bien tiene cierta oferta hotelera no es un lugar de turismo masivo, ni cerca de ello, poco shopping…
Alquilamos una casa que estaba a 40 minutos del aeropuerto, 30 minutos del supermercado y 30 minutos del lugar donde nos embarcabamos para ir a pescar. Contraté guía para 6 jornadas de medio día de pesca.
El día de pesca empezaba a las 8 am y terminaba a las 13:30 promedio, el guía espectacular, muy conocedor, buen tipo y además nos pescaba “la cena”, de 6 a 8 langostas por día a requerimiento!!!
La pesca del bonefish es como la describen en cuanto material se lee, es un pez que entra a alimentarse en grupos ( schools ) con la marea y siempre está en constante movimiento, pues es cazador y presa a la vez… el guía detecta cuando se está acercando y empieza a dar indicaciones de lanzamiento, la proa se toma como referencia ( 12:00 del reloj ) para guiarnos en el cast poque al principio no los ves ni cuando están a tiro!!!!
Start casting to 9… longer… longer… more to right…. more to right… left… let it fall !!! let it fall !!!
Comienza a castear a las 9… más largo… más largo… más a la derecha… más a la derecha… izquierda… déjala caer… déjala caer… mientras piensa: BURRRROOOOO!!!!! te dije que la dejes caer!!!!!  ANIMAL!!! los espantaste!!!
Como no sabés a que le estás tirando ni donde están, lo más probable es que les castees arriba de la cabeza y salgan como flechas hacia todos lados… y en unos segundos están a 200 mts…otra vez a empezar a buscarlos…
Después de un par de días los empezás a ver ( sólo después que te dice hacia adonde mirar y a que distancia ) y la cosa cambia por completo… tenés que tener  velocidad y precisión en el cast… sólo una o a lo sumo dos oportunidades para tentarlos antes de que se asusten… son muy sensibles… sobre todo si hay tiburones y barracudas cerca…
Cuando lograste hacer un buen cast, el guía ve absolutamente todos los movimientos del pez, entonces también te dice cuando tenés que recoger y cuando parar… y cuando te dice que claves… clavá aunque no sientas ni veas nada… el tipo sabe que tiene la mosca en la boca!!!
La clavada es otra historia, si el débil se te desenganchan en la primer corrida, si es brusca o hacés presión un instante de más de lo debido es corte seguro… un bonefish de 1 kg y monedas te corta tippet de 13lbs de resistencia como si fuera hilo de coser!!!
Ahora, lograste hacer un cast rápido y bastante preciso, lo tentaste y lo clavaste… la primer corrida es impresionante, mínimo 50 o 60 m !!! y si estás cerca de mangroves, seguro que va hacia ellos y empieza a hacer zigzag, en ese momento tenés que aflojar el freno totalmente y cuando para, después de sacarte 40 o 50 mts de backing entre esas plantas, hay que empezar a seguir la línea caminando y ver si te cortó o te enderezó el anzuelo o si se enredo y lográs sacarlo !!!
En algunos momentos, cuando la marea está entrando o saliendo, podés pescarlos en flats más libres de vegetación y la pelea es más limpia.
El promedio en este lugar es de 2 a 4 libras pero vimos de más de 10 libras!!! como siempre, los más grandes se van… tuve 4 piques importantes, 1 me cortó al entrar a los mangroves, 2 me dejaron el anzuelo abierto en los mismos y el otro me lo abrió haciendo el mismo zigzag pero en los arrecifes de los flats oceánicosa…
Pero si todo esto no te sale, no hay que preocuparse, a fin del día te lleva al “mud” o mancha que es el lugar que eligen para comer en tránsito, con más profundidad, de 1 a 2 mts, y los detectás porque levantan sedimento y el agua cambia de color, allí tirás a esta mancha, dejás profundizar y tenés pique seguro… no es muy lindo el proceso de conseguir que pique pero la lucha es igual de entretenida.
Podría seguir escribiendo un par de días más, contando anécdotas y sensaciones, pero no quiero aburrir, sencillamente les aseguro que esta pesca enferma a cualquiera!!!
Abrazo,
Carlos