Del Brown Permit Tournament 2009: Benson and Allen vs. Rea and Vincent.

The Ninth Annual Tournament held in honor of the late Del Brown came down to the wire as Justin Rea and angler Greg Vincent and Mike Allen and I battled it out atop the leader board.  With near perfect conditions on Day 1 Mike and I went 4 for 7 to take an early lead.  Rea and Vincent were one of many teams to post 1 fish after day 1.  Day 2 saw the winds die and the attitude of the fish change.  While Mike and I remained confident that our score from day 1 would sustain through day 2, we concentrated on catching a big fish worth 250pts.  We did manage to catch a nice fish which was not quite big enough to score the 250pts, but we felt comfortable in our strategy given our 3 fish advantage from day 1.  Then came the shocker!  Day 2 saw yet another round of teams catching 1 fish with the big exception of Rea and Vincent who posted a whopping 5 fish to take the overall lead by 1 fish worth 100pts.  Mike and I clearly had our work cut out for us the following day if we wanted to earn the Grand Champion title.  With almost identical conditions as day 2, we set out to do what we do best…whack permit!  By 9:13 we were back in 1st place having caught a fish worth 150pts.  Needless to say we were pumped.  We did what we absolutely had to do, and now we just had to hope we could eek it out. Although we found fish and had shots it wasn’t meant to be.  Rea and Vincent also caught 1 fish worth 150pts to preserve their lead and claim the title.  As we shook hands and congratulated each other on an excellent competition Justin told me how his day 2 score came together with 5 fish caught on 5 different flats.  My hat goes of to he and Greg on this point.  That is simply good guiding and good angling hands down.  In the end it was truly a great tournament.  Such a dramatic finish between two rival Sugarloaf guides is just cool.  Congrats Justin and Greg on a great victory.  Mike and I look forward to next year’s tourney and the opportunity to challenge you guys for the highly coveted 10th annual champion title.       

W

Permit 101: Chasing Del Brown’s Record

If ever there was a school for permit fishing, and Permit 101 was the first course, the first thing they would teach you about is a man named Del Brown.  Del Brown caught the most permit in the world; 513. It took him about 25 years fishing 100 plus days a year.  The next thing they would teach you is, if you think you will ever catch that many, you are crazy.  The truth is… most of you students will never pass this class.  It takes a near total devotion to the pursuit,  at least $100,000, tremendous skill, and a weird kind of patience.  And that’s just the first hundred! Imagine what it would take to beat Del’s record.   For most people Permit fishing is an elective or a class we stumble into looking for something else.  Kind of like philosophy, no one actually Majors in it.  Except Mike Allen…

On monday Mike Allen actually passed Permit 101! We caught number 100 (thankfully not a little rat) in the afternoon and then quickly made sure we wouldn’t get stuck there by catching number 101.  We celebrated with some champagne, then finished the flat.  Congrats Mike!  Keep throwing those pies and catching fish.  You never know what might happen.   

W

p.s. does anyone know who might be in second, third, fourth… Not that it matters.

Grand Slam Season: Open Dates Available With Will Benson

As the big tarpon migration winds down and all the out-of-town guides pack up their skiffs and head back out west, I feel a sense of relief.  Although the quest for big tarpon is the most exciting thing in saltwater fly fishing, it’s always nice to be done with the crazy rodeo atmosphere and on to quieter more relaxing days ahead.  Don’t be mistaken, there are still big poons around, but that game is usually over by about 10:00, which leaves the rest of the day to chase Permit and Bonefish with the fly rod, and Hogfish and grouper with spear guns.  Some of my favorite fishing is during this time of the year.  Most of the pressure is off, and the fish really sense that.  Things return to the normal lazy summer rhythm and almost everyday there is the potential for a Grand Slam.  Not to mention that with a few days of calm winds the water visibility will get up to 80′-100′ in some of the better dive spots.  Last week Bryan “Big Bear” Holeman and I took our youngest interns, Ron and Reese out for an adventure to check on some of these dive spots.  The boys “manned up” and covered my back as I went down to check for resident grouper and inspect the areas.  A lot changes from year to year with the bottom and it’s always important to do your homework if you want to shoot a big Black Grouper.  They braved barracudas, stingrays and sharks in the water then put the hurt on some permit late in the day going 5 for 8 with 3 double hookups!  It really was one of the best days you could ever hope for with youngsters and I am very thankful to Bear for coming through with a bad-ass ride for us.  If any of you out there haven’t had your fill of fishing for the year, or would like to spend a day with me working on the next installment of the WorldANGLING Drake Video Awards submission, the following dates are open:  July 9,10,11,12, August 6,7,8,9,10,11,20,21,24,25,26,27,28, September 1,2,3,4.  Just email me at the Contact Us page if you are interested.  Thanks to everyone so far this season for their continued support; Dave and I are really pumped for this year’s Drake Video Awards and can’t wait to unveil the new website and videos very soon!

W

South Florida Tarpon Fishing: Everglades, The Keys Are Heating Up

I’m not too sure where to start… its been a busy spring/early summer.  Jeff Legutki and I have been using every available day to chase tarpon here in the everglades and get it on film for our upcoming everglades movie.  Our main focus has been the laid up fish that show up in the spring and float high in the water on calm days.  One problem, there haven’t been too many calm days.  We went from dry and windy to wet and windy in the blink of an eye.  On the few calm days that we were given, we made the most of them putting some big fish in the air and in the boat.  We can’t wait to show off some of this footage, and show everyone the best tarpon fishery in florida in my opinion.  Laid up fish, rolling fish, and cruising tarpon can all be found here, and the best part about it…they eat flies really well.

We are currently filming for our submission to the Drake Magazine 5 minutes of fly fishing video awards which is due in August.  On a shoot last week in Key West the fishing gods were good to us.  Tarpon, bonefish, permit, all came to hand, even though the shoot didn’t go exactly as planned.  Thanks to Bill Faulkner, Raul Montoro, Honson Lau, an Mijo for the help, and hope those that weren’t able to make it got their heads out of their asses and ot their issues sorted out.

A final note, our movie, Drum, is coming along.  The only hold up right now is music.  Anyone have any we can use?  We have been making connections to get some, but need more.

thanks to Honson Lau for the pic

Saltwater Fly Development: Think Inside The Canal.

Channel 02 on the old VHF handheld radio does not sound good right now.  A STRONG ATLANTIC RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE WILL EXTEND ACROSS THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES OVERNIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT. THIS RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE WILL SLOWLY WEAKEN AS IT SLIDES SOUTHWARD WEDNESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. A SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT FOR ALL KEYS WATERS OVERNIGHT DUE TO SUSTAINED EAST SURFACE WINDS OF 20 TO 25 KNOTS. And we’re already a couple of days into it!  It started to blow thursday afternoon and it seemed like the fish just knew what was going to happen. The last 2 weeks were  really good for tarpon.  One day in particular was epic, with hundreds of fish moving through.  But alas, all that is gone.  Now we’re forced to tuck away somewhere on a high tide and look for surly laid down fish; my least favorite tarpon.  Unless we just don’t feel like it, and have more constructive things to do.  Especially when Peter Smith from SS Flies is in town.  It might be just the kind of day that’s good to tie some new prototypes and try them out in the canal. It was good to have Peter’s cousin Frank and a small barracuda to bounce ideas off of.  I jumped in to take a bit of video and look at the ride of a different shaped hook that we’re trying out.  I know it’s corny but I do think it helps to look at the fly from the fish’s perspective.  Hopefully it will lay down a bit before friday so we can actually have a chance to try out some of the new stuff.   On another note, Congratulations to Steve Trippe for winning his own tournament (which is always cool) and taking home the hallmark yellow jacket of the Trippe’s Invitational Tarpon Series or TITS.  Steve caught a great fish on friday that we measured next to the boat to eek out ahead of his brother Tom Trippe.  Thanks to Bill, Bear, and Meho for their hard work in the wind and Richard Berlin for his money. W