Presents:
The 2024 International Fly Fishing Film Festival
Join us again at The Marine Discovery Center for an afternoon tailgate with friends new and old before we all enjoy the latest films selected for the IF4 are shown at the amphitheater once the sun goes down.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the IF4 website.
This years exhibition of the International Fly Fishing Film Festival will be a special one for the podcast. We cant wait to see you there!
Our family had the opportunity to support Images this year by being a Patron for the event.
We thoroughly enjoyed the entire weekend.
We spent time walking the exhibits and found a new piece for our home on the first day.
We enjoyed the hospitality of the Patrons Lounge.
We picked up some small sculptures for our mantle on day two.
We awarded our second Patron’s Choice award to the artist, Matt Maher.
His work is amazing, you can find it by visiting Mojo Metalworks.
Throughout the event we, we were amazed at the vast variety of art, the pleasant crowds and how clean and tidy everything was kept by event staff and volunteers.
If you have the opportunity, jump at the chance to be a Patron at Images 2021.
The Atlantic Center for the Arts is part of the fabric of the New Smyrna Beach community and we could be more proud to have supported them this year!
Since moving to New Smyrna Beach, my wife and I have enjoyed getting to explore all the great locally owned and operated food options it has to offer.
Our home is a short two block walk away from the center of Downtown.
We recently had the opportunity to check out one of the newest additions to Canal Street, The Local Pearl.
Chef Henry Salgado is a neighbor and we were excited to see what he had created.
We started with an order of calamari while the final preparations were being made to open the raw bar. (oysters arrive fresh daily)
Lightly fried along with jalapeño slices, it was delicious.
We started with a dozen Texas oysters that were being featured for happy hour ($1 /oyster). They were followed with another TX order and a third that were a combination of oysters sourced from the Florida panhandle.
Kyle was on the oyster knife behind the bar & he was very efficient and a pleasure to talk with about our selections. It’s clear he enjoys his ambassadorial role and is well suited for it.
If you have fresh oysters on your mind in New Smyrna Beach, head down to Canal Street and visit, you won’t be disappointed.
There are local oysters you can have on the menu as well. The are raised just a few miles away in the backwaters of Mosquito Lagoon by the Indian River Oyster Company.
There is something about Charleston… The entire place has a vibe about it that is unmistakable. It’s the kinda of place where everyone is welcoming, happy and looking for the good in every situation.
After working the first half of the week in Washington, DC it was a welcome place and change of pace to wind down the week and ease into the weekend.
My family loves the place as much as I do, so they welcomed the chance to meet me there.
The next few days were spent eating, skating, fishing, drinking and being merry.
This is what Good Clean Livin looks like:
While we were there we made sure to get our yellow lab, Cabo, a session with Bre Williams. She takes amazing photos, check out her latest work on Instagram or click here.
For a couple of years, I would get a call from time to time to fly right seat over to the Bahamas with a good friend who was working in South Florida as a charter pilot.
We would take folks over for the day and while they did whatever they were there to do, we would harass the local bonefish on the “airport flat”.
Getting there and back was also a lot of fun.
Get out there and seek adventure, even if its just for a day, or a few hours!
In February 2019 I was minding my own business, gassing up my skiff and slapping a couple of stickers on Pump 1 at the Oak Hill Sunoco (The Meth Lab), when I noticed an old strip of double sided foam tape that was stuck in the middle of the sticker collage. My first thought was to scrape it off to make room for more stickers. As I contemplated it, I looked in my Whipray’s aft locker and saw a fly box laying there and decided to stick a couple of clouser minnow flies on it instead. I posted a story on my Instagram profile, @saltbum, offering them to a good home.
Over the next few weeks, the two flies disappeared and miraculously, new ones appeared from other fly anglers who frequent the store. After visiting Castaway Customs to order fly patches for the Tailer Trash Fly Fishing Podcast, I stuck a 239 Flies patch on the pump to see if something a little more formal would inspire even greater participation.
We later talked about the number of stickers that had been accumulating on the gas pump as well as the addition of the fly patch on an episode of Tailer Trash. Thats when it really started to take off.
Carl Granger and I needed fuel before heading out to watch one of the rocket launches that frequently happen here along the Space Coast and while we were there, we posted another story featuring the fly patch with the “Need one, take one – Have one, leave one” mantra that is often associated with a cup of pennies alongside a gas station cash register. During the next podcast, the term Flybrary was used for the first time to describe it.
We sent a couple of our new Tailer Popper fly patches to our good friend Ben Sittig in Colorado so he could put them up, creating the first two Flybrarys outside of Florida. When he did, he posted a story on his Instagram and the response was HUGE.
Since then, the Flybrary Project has taken on a life of its own, creating a sense of community and a positive vibe within the fly fishing community nationwide. Flybrary Projects come in all shapes and sizes. The spirit of the movement is to create a community of sharing and collaboration amongst anglers. get out there and found a Flybrary in your neighborhood.
Learn More about the Flybrary Project by reading about it on Fly Lords. Click Here
Lately; my English Lab, Cabo has been spending a good amount of time on the water.
As with most labs, he loves the water and often times finds the most inopportune time to quench his desire to get wet. He’s a master at going total ham and plunging into the backyard lake when you need to be on the way out the door to an appointment in five minutes.
Over the Christmas and New Years holidays, Cabo spent a couple of weeks in Melbourne with Florida Fly Co. co-founder, Ben Pickett. While there he joined Ben on the water a lot and unlike when he was younger, seemed to be a bit better behaved / able to remain in the skiff.
I’m not sure whether Ben employed some “dog whisperer” charm on him or its simply that he has settled down now that he’s four years old.
Recently I had the opportunity to get out for an afternoon session on Mosquito Lagoon and figured it was time to see if he was ready to join me while I tried to fly fish.
We stopped on an island beach to get wet on my terms and in hopes that maybe Cabo would be more apt to chill out the rest of the day if he had just gone full tilt for a few minutes.
Our beach time was a blast.
Once he started to slow down, I figured it was time to go look for a redfish.
A few minutes into the first flat, he was totally chilled out, simply posting up alongside me, content to watch the shoreline pass by as I hunted for a hungry fish.
We spent the next couple of hours slowly poling over deserted flats, taking a few shots at the happier redfish we came across, even managing to feed one that was lost skiff -side when I bungled the landing.
Cabo still seemed proud of my effort, showing great interest in the fish as it spun and thrashed alongside the gunnel.
Occasionally, an osprey or pelican would attract his attention, but he remained calm and never left the boat, which was exactly what I was hoping for.
I believe that Cabo is going to be fishing a lot more in the future. Maybe my solo trips are over for a while…
I’ve known Tanner for years. He’s been in love with Mosquito Lagoon since before he was able to drive. Years ago, his parents would drive him over to Oak Hill so that he could explore and fish the area from a Gheenoe.
There is no doubt he’s developed a vast knowledge of Mosquito Lagoon in that time, but what strikes me most about Tanner, is that he is always seeing more.
The last time we spent time on the water together was around Thanksgiving and as always, we had a great time and shared in the joy of giving a few redfish a quick ride in the skiff.
When planning to fish this time, our expectations for good weather was high.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, the weather guessers got it wrong.
The calm winds and clear skies we were expecting were actually a fresh breeze from the NNW coupled with thick clouds.
The first area we chose to fish had decent water clarity and a bit of visibility tight along the shoreline. As we poled along we spent time catching up on the latest happenings. Its times like these that I cherish the most about a day on the water with a good friend. Life’s normal distractions fade to the background and the topics of the moment are of our choosing. They are typically something fun, upbeat and positive.
A redfish appeared along the shoreline, hovering along, over the sand as it silently searched for its morning meal. Tanner was the first to see it and with a calm and deliberate clock position and distance had me focused on the prize. My first cast landed precisely where it should to set up a crossing pattern between fish and fly, but while in mid flight, the redfish’s attention had been peaked by something else and after it had turned to inspect the distraction, it had reversed course,
Before being able to adjust to the change, the distance between the fish and the skiff had shrunk to inside of 30 feet.
Sadly, my accuracy at that range was horrible and the open loopy cast I attempted smacked the redfish right on the head and it was over.
Shortly after that failed attempt, we made a decision to try another area in hopes of changing our luck. One redfish per mile of shoreline wasn’t really cutting it…
Despite the fresh breeze, we elected to fish open water over a well known bar to take advantage of better water clarity.
Tanner had hopped up front to give it a go and off we went.
The overcast skies were beginning to break up a bit and blue sky was peeking through at times. As one of the breaks in cloud cover streamed past, the sunlight illuminated the light sandy bottom as if stadium lights had been turned on. It was all we needed to expose a lone redfish that was swimming parallel to the skiff 45 feet away.
Tanner let fly a back cast as soon as the fish was seen and a couple of twitches of the fly were met with a flaring of gills that signaled success.
As I staked-off the skiff, we saw flyline turn to backing as the fish tried to make the county line in an effort to escape.
It didn’t.
We spent the next hour or two meandering to the south exploring a large flat where we saw several tailing fish, but I was unable to coax any of them to eat my crabby offering.
Eventually, I relented and offered Tanner the bow again and resumed the role of pushing.
What was once a cloud covered sky had morphed into a nearly cloudless sky and the brightly lit result had given us hope for even more opportunity.
We transitioned back to shorelines and eventually found another unsuspecting redfish that became our focus.
Tanner worked through a couple of presentations and soon was tight again.
The entire stalk and resulting hook-up was accomplished with a simple low whistle and nod, as I was on the phone with a client when the fish appeared.
I wrapped up the call just in time to hop down and snap a couple of pictures to memorialize the event.
We wrapped up our day on the water a little while later and headed back in.
I’m always thankful to have spent time on the water with Tanner, he’s one of the nicest folks you’ll ever meet.
If you’re ever looking for a capable guided to lead you to a successful day on Mosquito Lagoon, you’ll do yourself a favor booking him for the trip.
Recently, I had the good fortune to spend a few days on the water with my good friend, Ben. As always, I picked him up at the Orlando International Airport and within an hour or two, he was tight on a redfish. Its become quite the tradition for us.
Ben is working on a new YouTube project and it was a “work trip” for him, so it seemed fitting to put him on the back of the skiff.
Here’s the result of that effort to get him up to speed with a push pole.
I’d say he’s well on his way to becoming a regular Pusherman.
In addition to stabbing a few fish in the face, we spent time talking about more technical issues like the following:
Make sure to follow Ben on his new YouTube channel, Huge Fly Fisherman, more content is on the way, including conservation issues facing Mosquito Lagoon.
Ben will also have his writings about the state of conservation efforts in Mosquito Lagoon featured in This Is Fly magazine very soon, check it out.
Stay Huge!
How did you celebrate the longest day of the year?
While in the midst of a 10 day road trip across portions of Pennsylvania & New York, I spent the evening on Chautauqua Lake near Bemus Point catching up with a great friend.
Eric Peterson grew up along the shores of the glacier formed lake and knows it well. He’s been guiding in the area for years. When I called to let him know that I’d be in the area, he insisted we hook up and fish. Who am I to refuse?
Eric has always been a generous soul. He is responsible for putting me on my first Lake Erie steelhead and smallmouth bass. He’s also an incredible fly tier. He helps me keep my fly box stocked with flies that are so beautiful, I feel guilty fishing them.
The plan was to hunt for my first muskie. I’m a realist and had a measured, pessimistic outlook, fully expecting to cast a lot and catch nothing.
A mere twenty minutes after launching, that changed.
The cast was about 50 feet, hucking a 400 grain, sinking line out and stripping it back after giving the fly a 10-count to sink along the edge of a weed line.
At around 40 feet the violent take thumped in my stripping hand and I strip set hard – a few times.
Once the fish was safely in the net and boat, we couldn’t contain ourselves, we had done the impossible, cheating the fish of 10,000 casts by significant digits.
We celebrated with cold beers, continued casting and occasionally simply laughed again at the absurdity of my success.
We watched the sun sink low to the horizon, knowing the days were again going to begin to grow shorter, but we had seized the moment and etched it into our memories for life.
Thanks fly fishing!
