LRHF said:

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TexasAg2017 said:

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For you guys that fish solo, do y'all pole from the front of the boat or do you add some extra weight up front and pole from the back? I'm having a hard time managing the pole and switching to my rod to cast at fish. I can somewhat make it work from the bow but for obvious reasons I can't see as well as I could from the platform.

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Pole from the back. Get a stripping basket to hold your fly rod on the deck of the boat (with line out). Tie off the pole and pick up the rod to make a cast.

Another option is to get an I -pilot with remote control. Works well for bulls in 2-4' of water. Fish from the bow and don't run over your line!

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I'll give this a shot this afternoon. I've found when poling from the platform by myself the bow likes to stick waaaayy up as I'm not a tiny guy. Gonna add a full ice chest to the bow and maybe an extra brick to offset a little weight.

I've thought of the I-Pilot but I wasn't sure if that would be adding too much to a 16ft Mitzi.

Like LRHF said, pole from the back. My skiff has two angled rod holders and they allow me to lock my rod with the fighting butt into one (right side), then when I see a fish I can clip in my push pole on the left side, grab the rod and I've usually got ~40' of line trailing behind me. Water loads pretty easy.

I offset weight in the front with a large cooler and/or TM w/batteries.

AgFlyGuy said:

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Like LRHF said, pole from the back. My skiff has two angled rod holders and they allow me to lock my rod with the fighting butt into one (right side), then when I see a fish I can clip in my push pole on the left side, grab the rod and I've usually got ~40' of line trailing behind me. Water loads pretty easy.

I offset weight in the front with a large cooler and/or TM w/batteries.

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Sounds like you need a fishing partner! Holler at me sometime. I'm a good first mate. Can poll alright too, will gladly cover gas and food/drinks. You know my home water.

Ha, will do. Headed out in a few hours to hit up West Bay. 2 people is definitely better than 1. I'll check the calendar and let you know. Definitely need to fish further south before work kicks back off.

Another fun trip to LA is in the books!

We didn't catch any big reds (but we did get close to two that would have been 45" or bigger).

Day 1 was a freaking cold boat ride. Temps in the low 30's. Not a cloud in the sky and warmed up nicely for a fun day if fishing. The smaller redfish were defiantly sluggish until the sun came out and warmed up the flats. We were hoping for weather good enough for a run to the Chandelier islands but it wasn't good enough for the East Cape EVO to brave the crossing. We had some decent redfish that wouldn't eat, caught some fish to eat and scored on some sheepies on the fly (never ez). Did you know that the "Last Stop" has been sold/ closed? It's a big bummer not be able to order a breakfast sandwich and see the older lady that ran the place.

BTW- how many of y'all eat at Fezzos? We always stop and get shrimp po-boys on the drive from Houston- Excellent!

Awesome! I've yet to land a sheepshead on the fly. All I get is refusals. I've got a new tactic I picked up off a podcast I'm gonna try next time. What fly did you seal the deal with? Any tricks on the retrieve?

dr_boogs said:

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Awesome! I've yet to land a sheepshead on the fly. All I get is refusals. I've got a new tactic I picked up off a podcast I'm gonna try next time. What fly did you seal the deal with? Any tricks on the retrieve?

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I'll see if i can get a picture but it's a small light brown fly. They like very short slow strips (4-6") with the fly on the bottom. We watch their body language and don't set until feeling a slight tug or fly disappear. These fish were caught in shallow clear water.

I've never caught one on a large redfish fly, we have another rod ready for skinny water reds/ sheepshead. They are indeed challenging, we were happy to catch some!

Very sweet. We're headed to Venice in 3 weeks, hoping the weather works out as well.

Great post! Thanks for sharing for us landlocked desk warriors this morning!

Those are some stout looking fish! Not sure how freshwater trout are gonna cut it anymore.

I'm also interested in tactics for sheepshead. I usually strip-strip-strip until the sheep sees the fly. Then let it drop immediately and don't move it again. This results in the sheep investigating, and getting real close... move the fly again, and the sheep leaves. Let it sit there...and the sheep leaves...

Ayto Siks said:

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Those are some stout looking fish! Not sure how freshwater trout are gonna cut it anymore.

I'm also interested in tactics for sheepshead. I usually strip-strip-strip until the sheep sees the fly. Then let it drop immediately and don't move it again. This results in the sheep investigating, and getting real close... move the fly again, and the sheep leaves. Let it sit there...and the sheep leaves...

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I have had the best luck throwing bonefish flies like Crazy Charlies for sheepy. I also have had the best luck this exact time of year (late Jan - early Mar) when I think they are spawning on the flats in the upper Texas bay systems and tend to be a bit less picky.

With that said, I have also had them follow a fly like 40' all the way to the boat without striking only to turn around at sight of the hull and swim away like my heart isnt broken.

We don't always catch prisoners, but when We do, we use this crab fly! My fishing partner tied this during the Enrico Puglasi tying seminar at Bayou City Anglers a few weeks ago.

Slow strips, let it pause when on the bottom and give them a chance to eat it. Set when fly disappears or you see the fish eat (or body languages that looks like an eat).

Most just won't eat but the fish this weekend we're surprisingly easy to catch! Hope this helps, I'm going home to shovel snow, ski and float the San Juan when the weather is nice again (aka drink beer and row!)

Good luck-

LRHF

The Golden Fly is going on this week in Islamorada. Is there a better way to follow tarpon fly tourneys? I have completely gone down the rabbit hole of tarpon fishing and am wondering if there is a source I can read about tarpon tournament fishing that is better than Instagram.

https://instagr.am/p/Cd9OWumLsMv

Where's your home water? Haven't chased tarpon yet but we fish the flats at POC and Seadrift pretty regularly.

Headed to POC this weekend to fish on the fly for the first time. We fish POC regularly with plastics and bait and the wife and I both freshwater fly fish but this is the first time in the salt. How's POC been recently?

Hopefully this isn't going to add to the rest of my fly fishing addiction and make this hobby more expensive than it already is, but I'm sure it will....

AgFlyGuy said:

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Pleased to report we tied for 25th . Screw that wind

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whoa, that's seriously bad ass.

How do you get hooked up (not a pun) to fish in a well-known invitational tarpon tournament?

Sorry, was only meant to show that conditions were brutal and that even some of the heavy hitters on a 3 day tournament skunked. Had we been in the tournament, we'd have tied for 25th, or last place with our performance. We never got one to the boat.

TxAgg07 said:

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Headed to POC this weekend to fish on the fly for the first time. We fish POC regularly with plastics and bait and the wife and I both freshwater fly fish but this is the first time in the salt. How's POC been recently?

Hopefully this isn't going to add to the rest of my fly fishing addiction and make this hobby more expensive than it already is, but I'm sure it will....

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I haven't fished right there close to POC in a couple of months. We've been focusing on Seadrift and the lakes a bit more now that boat pressure is trending up for the summer months. There are miles of flats with clear water and tailing reds. Just need some intel and dropped pins to find them.

Last month I had some bad luck w 25mph winds for the 2 days I was down. All my shots were close and visibility was bad. Two weeks later wind was down in the teens, we had a ton of good shots and only saw a couple other boats. Trying to get down there again next weekend.

You fishing on a buddy's skiff or going w a fly guide?

Unfortunately don't know anyone with a skiff. I'm heading out with the Fly Fish Rockport guide service.

Hey EyeBallz- you see or talk to O'Hearn lately? He didn't fish anybody in the Golden Fly this year. I haven't been able to get down to fish with him in a while but I'm gonna try and make a trip in the early fall and see if I can't finally catch a permit with him.

dr_boogs said:

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TxAgg07 said:

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Headed to POC this weekend to fish on the fly for the first time. We fish POC regularly with plastics and bait and the wife and I both freshwater fly fish but this is the first time in the salt. How's POC been recently?

Hopefully this isn't going to add to the rest of my fly fishing addiction and make this hobby more expensive than it already is, but I'm sure it will....

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I haven't fished right there close to POC in a couple of months. We've been focusing on Seadrift and the lakes a bit more now that boat pressure is trending up for the summer months. There are miles of flats with clear water and tailing reds. Just need some intel and dropped pins to find them.

Last month I had some bad luck w 25mph winds for the 2 days I was down. All my shots were close and visibility was bad. Two weeks later wind was down in the teens, we had a ton of good shots and only saw a couple other boats. Trying to get down there again next weekend.

You fishing on a buddy's skiff or going w a fly guide?

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I absolutely love fishing POC/Seadrift but I practically refuse to do it on a weekend anymore. There's just too many damn boats and googans tear-assing around the flats like the freaking Daytona 500.

A few years ago I was able to fish down there on a Thursday-Sunday. Thursday was awesome- tailing, happy reds everywhere. Friday early was good but boat traffic picked up noticeably after lunch. Then Saturday & Sunday got skunked- there were no reds to be found when Thursday on the same flat there had been wads of 30 fish happily tailing about. What changed? Dick-munchers in tunnel hulls blasting across an 8" deep flat at WOT.

Isn't the LLM your home water? Let me know if you want to fish that area during the week sometime, would be great to wet a hook with ya. PM me or post some contact details and we can find some days.

I hear ya, I try to avoid weekends particularly during the warmer months of the year. Winter after duck season closes - the weekends are fine until weather starts to warm up.

I try to take a live and let live approach to life, there's a lot of water and everybody's got a right to enjoy it. I love the peace and quiet of a salt flat on a poling skiff and stalking individual fish, but choosing the weekend 2 hours from Houston usually dampens that experience quite a bit. Sometimes I can't avoid it though, gonna take my lumps and go again next weekend.

We fish back lakes and pretty skinny water in our poling skiffs so we don't deal with too many boats, but man the last 3-5 years have seen the air boat brigade multiply like crazy. Nothing wrong with an air boat. It's a tool to be used for certain tasks, but the mindset of a lot of weekend airboat owners is more like somebody that wants to drive around in a UTV or 4 wheeler all weekend running trails. If that's your thing, go for it, but try and not ruin the experience for the outdoorsmen that don't want to listen to one all day. So most air boat owners and poling skiff owners are actually after two completely different things.

A week ago my fishing buddy is poling me into a back pocket that is holding 10-15 tailers. We had them spotted 100 yards away. We are making our approach, right on cue two airboats roll in and burn the shoreline, turn right in on us, run by full throttle within 50 yards, and proceed to throttle up and down around the flats for 30 minutes running up and down over the marsh. Those guys saw us, couldn't have cared less about what we were doing, and didn't have any regard for the flats, because running up and down over the shallow island marshes pushes down the grass and mangroves and creates new cuts which causes man-made change to the fishery. I don't have a solution to the problem, but just having some common decency and thinking about how your actions might be perceived by the other outdoorsman would go a long way toward building bridges vs. walls.

I bet you'll have a great day. I've got a great fly guide based in Rockport, happy to send you his info. If you haven't been into Swan Point Fly Shop there in Rockport, that's a must stop. The owner Dave is terrific, and he gives early morning fly casting lessons as well. Great guy.

Nah, my home waters are the upper coast. I typically fish East Matty to East/Trinity Bay.

But whenever I can, which isn't often enough, I like to head south. That being said, I've never taken the time to get down below the Graveyard and really into the LLM out of Mansfield or Arroyo and I need to remedy that.

dr_boogs said:

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Isn't the LLM your home water? Let me know if you want to fish that area during the week sometime, would be great to wet a hook with ya. PM me or post some contact details and we can find some days.

I hear ya, I try to avoid weekends particularly during the warmer months of the year. Winter after duck season closes - the weekends are fine until weather starts to warm up.

I try to take a live and let live approach to life, there's a lot of water and everybody's got a right to enjoy it. I love the peace and quiet of a salt flat on a poling skiff and stalking individual fish, but choosing the weekend 2 hours from Houston usually dampens that experience quite a bit. Sometimes I can't avoid it though, gonna take my lumps and go again next weekend.

We fish back lakes and pretty skinny water in our poling skiffs so we don't deal with too many boats, but man the last 3-5 years have seen the air boat brigade multiply like crazy. Nothing wrong with an air boat. It's a tool to be used for certain tasks, but the mindset of a lot of weekend airboat owners is more like somebody that wants to drive around in a UTV or 4 wheeler all weekend running trails. If that's your thing, go for it, but try and not ruin the experience for the outdoorsmen that don't want to listen to one all day. So most air boat owners and poling skiff owners are actually after two completely different things.

A week ago my fishing buddy is poling me into a back pocket that is holding 10-15 tailers. We had them spotted 100 yards away. We are making our approach, right on cue two airboats roll in and burn the shoreline, turn right in on us, run by full throttle within 50 yards, and proceed to throttle up and down around the flats for 30 minutes running up and down over the marsh. Those guys saw us, couldn't have cared less about what we were doing, and didn't have any regard for the flats, because running up and down over the shallow island marshes pushes down the grass and mangroves and creates new cuts which causes man-made change to the fishery. I don't have a solution to the problem, but just having some common decency and thinking about how your actions might be perceived by the other outdoorsman would go a long way toward building bridges vs. walls.

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Well said Dr. Boogs. I would Be livid if an airboat did this to us.... Do have to say that an airboat did save our bacon a few years back when my skiff driver said "hold on" and we tried a new cut that didn't work so well!

Thought I was finally gonna get up to fish the Juan with you this summer. But the fires have us in a holding pattern.

dr_boogs said:

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Thought I was finally gonna get up to fish the Juan with you this summer. But the fires have us in a holding pattern.

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Pagosa had a big fire a few weeks ago that COJ summarized and was put out. We had a small fire behind our place that they put tankers on and a new fire West of Durango popped up a few days ago and seems well contained (at the moment). Hopefully nobody burns down the place this weekend and we get some good monsoons earlier than normal!