Marathon High School Fishing Club: World Angling goes back to school

On May 15th Dave, Brian, Mitchell and I packed up every fly rod we owned and headed north back to school. An old buddy of mine from when I played pony-league baseball in Key West, Luis Leal, is a teacher at Marathon High and a cofounder of the Marathon High School Fishing Club. He and another teacher Ben Craig decided to organize an after school club to get youngsters excited about fishing. Most of the time they talk about their latest fishing trip or knots and leaders. Sometimes, they get to take a school sponsored trip and go fishing instead of going to class. That’s always a popular affair. Attendance is usually at an all time high on those days. The problem is, you have to be a member of the fishing club beforehand in order to skip class to go fishing. And being a member includes having to sit through the occasional boring lecture about our great pastime. This day the boring lecture was my responsibility. I tried to keep it short and sweet. I spoke about how I got into fly fishing by cleaning boats at Sugarloaf Marina, how my parents always encouraged me to do what I loved, and how all that turned into a passion for film making. As Dave gave me the international symbol for “cut it off,” I knew that was enough and that really the kids just wanted to see the movie. So we rolled with it. For 45 minutes the kids watched intensely as our film passed from jumping tarpon to giant redfish to tailing permit. Needless to say, they enjoyed the show. We then packed up our fly rods and headed out to the baseball field for some casting lessons. I was amazed by how quickly the kids picked it up; especially the girls. With just a little instruction on how the process of casting works, the kids were soon double hauling and laying out 60′ of fly line with no problem. Then, with a little encouragement from Mitchell and I, the boys were playing mexican standoff and shooting fly lines at each other. The girls shook their heads and dismissed the boys antics as immature attempts to show off. They were probably right. But… boys will be boys, and a bit of male rivalry is common in this neck of the fly fishing world. ?It was great to see kids getting excited about fishing and interested to hear about what we do. I can’t say enough about what Luis and Ben are doing for the sport. It’s great! I think it’s a refreshing approach to reach out to kids and impart knowledge about the sport, conservation, and etiquette. It was great to see the future right in front of us. We hope to get a chance to take the kids out on the water next time. I’m sure they won’t mind missing a day of school to go chase tarpon. I know I wouldn’t. 

Here is a direct link to their side of the story.

Sugarloaf Key Flats Open: Tarpon, Bonefish, Permit, Beer…

UPDATE
Just as the 2008 guide season starts to slow down in South Florida the fishing starts to get good. So good in fact that we thought we should have a tournament. Not the kind of Keys tournament most people are used to, but a fun summer event where the anglers are guides and the guides are anglers. The first annual Sugarloaf Key Flats Open is set to take place at MM17 on August 22-23, 2008. All team members (up to 3 per boat) are encouraged to catch tarpon, bonefish, and permit on fly with prizes being awarded for highest point totals each day as well as an overall points winner. For more information click here.

Catching Up On Catching Poon: Tarpon Season In A Nutshell

Wow!  Where has all the time gone?  Consumed by 12-16 hour days, 4:00 AM wake up calls and a hazy recollection of giant schools of tarpon, aggressive permit and the always elusive bonefish to complete the grand slam…I seemed to have forgotten to post a fishing report.  Darn!  The fishing this season would be best described as intense.  It never seemed to want to settle into its’ normal rhythm.  We worked hard for the fish we caught…and oh yes, we did catch!
Late April brought some terrific tarpon action and we fished a mix of backcountry fish and ocean side swimmers.  Dale Dashiel finally landed his beast after hooking many with me over the last couple of years.  Then, he did it again the next day! Watching his buddy Jim Schneider land so many monsters year after year finally pissed him off enough to get one.  Congrats Dale!  Now you have to catch a permit.  Speaking of which, Cliff Snydor landed his first ever on fly with me in early May.  We had just released a tarpon moments before hooking the permit so a slam was certainly on the table.  About an hour later cliff and I were celebrating the first slam of the year! Then the fishing got tough…My longest clients and best buds George Haley and John Davis had true technical fishing.  The waters out west shut down and we were confined to Confrontation Basin off Sugarloaf and my home waters out back.  Although we did manage to hook and land fish the difficulty and patience level was much increased from  early Mays of past.  The whole week culminated on the last day when J.D. finally managed to wiggle a fly seductively enough to feed a fish that clearly didn’t really want to eat.  We all screamed very loudly and thanked the Gods for blessing us.  Mike Allen and I had some good fishing wading for tarpon and permit.  We almost had a slam but couldn’t stay glued to the tarpon.
For 2 weeks every year I live and work aboard the mothership Outpost.  Fred and Penny Wheeler own and run this terrific operation here in the keys as well as in the Bahamas.  If you’re really serious about your fishing this is the way to do it.  Contact the Outpost at www.outpostexpeditions.com for more details.  On week 1 I fished with Woody Woods and his buddy Bobby Strawbridge who was guided by the talented Capt. Scott Irvine.  The week was terrific.  Woody set yet another high for most fish jumped in a single week.  Last year during this time we experienced some of the worst weather I’ve ever seen during the month of May.  Thankfully the gods took piety and the seas smoothed to bring some really impressive schools of fish.  On week 2 I fished with the fly guru Peter Smith and his cousin Frank.  Although the weather wasn’t quite as good as the previous week there were still plenty of fish to be caught.  Peter and I had our annual sit down on the skiff where we looked over flies and talked about what the next generation tarpon flies are going to look like.  We’re hoping to have some to try out by the fall but, as Peter tells me, it’s quite a bit more complicated than just putting the materials on a hook and trying it out. I hope all the great ideas we have come together because the next generation flies are going to take the whole game to another level.  You can check out the best flies in the world at www.ssflies.com .  The 2 weeks ended for me with another near miss on a grand slam as Frank Smith broke off a permit and missed another eat to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  I fished with Jim Nichols during the first 2 days of June and again we nearly missed a slam as the permit mysteriously got off while Jim was clearing the line.  All that came to a screeching halt on Thursday June 5th as Mike Allen and I proceed to set another personal best for permit on fly.  Mike hooked 6 and landed 5 and yours truly stepped up to the plate and hooked one while Mike was fighting his fish off the front.  The incredible part is we could have hooked more fish!  It was one of those magical days when all the conditions come together and the permit decide to inhale anything that crosses their path…so long as it’s the secret pattern!  No pressure for Cort Dehart the next day as we set out to post as many points as possible in the annual Broken Oar fishing tourney. We had a great day hooking and landing 3 tarpon, loosing a couple of bones and barely missing several permit.  The guide competition was fierce with Capt. Jeffery Cardenas and I neck and neck on day three.  Then, from out  of nowhere, my buddy Capt. Aaron Snell posts a monster score to eclipse every record for the tourney and take home the prize.  Congrats Aaron!  Remind me to kick your ass next time I see you at the Parrot.  The good Dr. Gannon Dudlar and Dr Bill McCoy rounded out the month of June so far.  As always Gannon and I managed to hook a few fish to keep things interesting; including a very big permit in skinny water and some other cookie cutter sized fish that were schooled up.   Dr Bill and I closed out our season with some great eats from singles off David’s Island and a fine tequila with salt and lime; the traditional reposado of “El Pescador.”   I’m looking forward to some time off and a chance to try out my new underwater housing for the HD camcorder.  We are taking a trip to Fort Jefferson on Friday aboard the Yankee Freedom II with some friends of ours from Indy and their 2 boys Ron and Reese, who have just finished watching Tarpon Season and now want to see one close up. Lets hope I can make it happen.

“Permit” Movie: Fly Fishing Film Tour Trailer

See It Here

A lot of people have been asking for a copy of our movie, but we are currently working out some music copyright issues, as well as polishing up a few edits.  DVD release is set for late 2008 or early 2009, and we promise that it will be worth the wait.  In the meantime, enjoy the trailer that we had on the Fly Fishing Film Tour this year.

Golden Fly Tarpon Tournament: I Went Bonefishing

The 2008 Golden Fly Tarpon Tournament has been completed and the champions announced. Congrats go out to Capt. Scott Collins and angler David Dalu as they beat out a group of fine anglers. Included in the field were our friends, Capt. Mark Phillips fishing Doug Behrman, and Capt. George Wood fishing my friend Brian Bavosi. Although all of our friends hung fish, tough fishing prevented any sort of slaughter fest… even for Andy Mill.

Brian and I had been in the Bahamas and the Marquesas for a couple weeks prior to the tournament getting him accustomed to the weather and the fishing, as he has suffered through a long winter with almost 600 inches of snow in Steamboat Springs, CO. The fishing in Grand Bahama with Bernard Bevans was as it always is…awesome! Just when we thought the trip couldn’t get any better we got to Key West, and Will put us on more tarpon than we needed, although we couldn’t get enough.

After Key west, Brian and I headed up to Islamorada so he could fish his fancy little tarpon tournament, and so I could hopefully bum some bow time. The next 2 days I found myself on the front of Capt. Eric Lund’s boat, and scored big with him. An 80lb. tarpon, a 5lb. bonefish, and a 18lb. permit all fell victim to the bright blue boat. The next day I found myself on Jeremy Fisher’s boat, and when he asked what I would like to do, I replied “Dude, everyone is tarpon fishing, lets go stick a pig bonefish”. And we did.