We use the same guide every year. He’s got a Maverick. He had a Hell’s Bay but he swears by his current setup. I like the HBs but what do I know.
Always laugh at people trying to sell a 17 foot Maverick for like $75k. Fuck that. I guess it would be different if that's all you did was pole and fish shallows.
A few years ago, my buddy bought a marquesa off a guy who had it built to fish the keys for tarpon because the dude’s guide told him it was too slow to fish tournaments. So he bought a brand new hpx instead must be nice
Three day trip in the books for Islamorada. Multiple bites. 6 in the air. Two to the leader. One face grab. Worn out.
Cobia on a kayak can be really fun. I caught one out near St. Pete several years back that took me for a little ride.
I feel like I’m over packing here. 4/6/8 crazy charlies. 4/6 mantis shrimp. 8 whatever the ones with tiger legs were called. missing anything? I am willing to bet I use maybe 3 of these. Going to throw in a few beach snook flies and some baby tarpon gurglers.
The snook my buddy caught Saturday whooped his ass. It measured at 42” and he fought it for a good 15-20 minutes. He thought he missed at first because the line went slack. Come to found out, the snook was beelining right at his kayak lol
Decided to explore a new fishery. Went to the San Juan below Navajo Dam. Beautiful setting but a combination of drought and Reclamation is strangling the fishery. They haven’t flushed the dam since 2019 so it’s as if the river hasn’t had a runoff. Inches deep silt and sediment. No clue where the trout spawn. No big bugs. Only midges for dries. Really sad. Caught a single fish per day and did better than my buddy or our campsite neighbors. Bleak look at the future I’m afraid.
SCDNR had a kids rodeo yesterday. Took two of the kids, but it was so crowded we could really find a place to fish. So my kids ended up just playing in the water and caught 4 nearly dead stockers with their hands. There were a ton of adults fishing instead of their kids there, pretty disappointing from that perspective. Then we went to a waterfall today and they wanted to try an fish there, so I took a fly rod. All we found were some small fish trying to drown a dry fly.
Tried two of the SC brook trout streams on my list. Found no trout, only chubs and shiners. Followed one all the way to where it came out of the ground. The other I may just have to go another couple miles up the stream.
No. I used to carry a selfie stick with a gopro mount on it that I used in a few places, but stopped carrying it. In my experience, if they don't splash at your dry fly, they aren't there. Not enough food around for them to not appear.
Never seen so many big fish not give a single fuck about anything offered today Big ol largies lurking close enough to keep their shadows in view. Got a single one to take a couple swipes at a crayfish looking plastic in super shallows but I was so cockeyed trying to fish under limbs, on the bank that I couldn't get a good hook set. At least 1 of us reeled 1 in
honestly just decided to scrap the octopus hook. The overwhelming feedback is that circle hooks are best for cobia. You're really supposed to snell an octopus hook so I'm sure that's part of the problem.
I remember the first time I caught on of them that was in spawn mode. Was a wtf moment. That's a really good sized one too.