Do I make a lengthy trip report? There's no fall redfish updates... thread might be fading.... how about some pics and brief captions instead.

Moved back to Florida and started hitting up google maps like the old days. Found several spots to try along the SW coast from Tampa to the 10K Islands. No boat, but no problem driving and hiking anywhere.

The goal is virgin water and impulsive baby tarpon and snook. Pretty unlikely considering how many others surf maps, but not impossible. Since I'm not fishing obvious places and willing to get off the trail, there are some decent prospects.

Dropped some pins and took 3 road trips to investigate them all.

The first spot is pretty far inland, but clearly still tidal. Here is the same spot at low and high tide.


I was excited because it actually looked un-fished. No trampled ground, no litter... Ended up with some baby snook and luckily lost a tarpon before someone driving by could see it cartwheeling through the air.


Second spot, saw some rollers, but couldnt connect.

Third spot was heavily fished. Gave up quickly. Saw this cool iguana though.


Fourth spot... I would say this place is gently used. Maybe certified pre-owned. Caught a gar and some more baby snook before a gator became too comfy.


Next spot. Saw a tarpon roll. Then another. Then another in the exact same spot as the first roller. Got a cast in there and pulled out.... a husky snook.


It's a 2 hour drive home from this current spot, but I had one more place to try on this particular road trip. First cast and instantly caught a cichlid.


Then hiked to another area and changed flies. Tossed the new fly into the water to get saturated and stripped line off the reel. A tarpon ate it just sitting there.


Let that guy go, then the same thing happened. At this point it's 2 tarpon on 0 casts. Ended up catching 5 or 6 and losing a dozen more in the next 45 minutes.

It got too dark and the splashes were drawing unwanted attention, so I started to hike back to my truck for the long trip home.

I had one more place in mind, but it's *right* on a road, so it's not a great idea. I pulled over to the shoulder, pointed my headlights to the water, then caught a few more tarpon.




Didn't take long before I felt uneasy near the water, so finally called it and left 'em biting. Dang, this post isn't brief at all.

Was supposed to go chase bull reds on the fly out of Venice, LA for 4 days last week. My fishing partner and I fly fish w a guide there a couple times a year, he's rock solid. He called us 24 hours before we were going to fly over and said the weather was going to crap, last 2 days unfishable because of wind. Water was going to be high, dirty, and it was going to be cloudy and raining. He offered to move dates to next year so we took it.

That left us with open dates on the calendar w 24 hours to go. The entire gulf coast was completely clouded in last week with rain and wind. We checked our tarpon guides in the keys. Booked and weather looked terrible. POC and Seadrift were raining w clouds and wind. We checked LLM and our guide there said it was a no go because of weather. So I resigned myself to a lost few days of fishing and went back to work.

An hour later my buddy texts…..new plan, let's go to Mexico and chase dorado and roosters. After hearing him out, I said what the heck, let's go.

We flew to Cabo from Houston, took a 1 hour transfer to Los Barrilles. It's on the southeast side of The Baja peninsula on the sea of Cortez. It's just now getting into windy season there but it was sunny and weather was perfect other than the high winds in the afternoon.

Here's a view of the sea and the mountains.




We booked pangas/superpangas the first two days and went a few miles off shore and trolled for dorado and sailfish w teasers. When a fish would come up, we'd use the bait and switch method, reeling the teaser in before the fish could eat it and then cast our flies to the fish trying to hit the teaser.

Got my first ever dorado on a fly rod, 10 wt was put to the test.




We caught another on the fly and 2 more on traditional tackle. Coolest thing on day 1 was we raised a sailfish w a teaser and my buddy missed him by a foot w a fly cast. We almost hooked up on a sailfish w the fly. It was sweet to just see it come up and hit th teaser and get a shot w the fly.

We got back at 1, took some dorado to a cook your catch restaurant, and cruised the beach in a quad looking for cruising roosters in the surf but the winds were up in the afternoon. So we headed to the hotel and picked up our mahi for dinner - fresh self-caught dorado sushi.

Day 2, rinse and repeat. We got a super panga and went out a little farther. Caught 2 more dorado on the fly, one a really nice bull. That was a blast, caught him on a 12 wt.





We had to fly home the next day, but wanted to get some fishing in early. We booked a guide who specializes in roosters, and went and got some sardines and headed to some jetties where the roosters are known to hang. Guide chummed w the sardines and we both caught roosters, 11 between the 2 of us. They were small schoolies but the speed at which they crushed the surface after the bait was epic. The sight of those roosters crushing w their formal combs out of the water will be a forever memory.





Here's a few photos of a sea of Cortez sunrise. And the offshore boats loading up w the sports (guests) before heading out.







And here's sunset from the quad.




It was a great last minute trip, got 2 new species on the fly and had a great time w my fishing buddy. Outstanding food, great and interesting people, fantastic weather, and awesome fishing. Would definitely go again.

Finally getting around to posting a trip update from our January trip out of Venice, LA. Went with my best friend/ fly fishing buddy. This was the trip that was cancelled for weather twice, once in 2022, again in fall of 2023. Finally made it over and fished 3 days (he fished 4). Wow had a fantastic trip.

Got my first big nasty on the fly on Day 1. I've missed few of these guys fishing on the Texas coast (wrong fly, just wouldn't eat) but finally got one to eat over in LA. It was cloudy and windy, water clarity wasn't great, he just kind of popped up within 20 ft of the boat and I was lucky enough to put in on his nose. One of those reflex shots. Looking at that photo, I can still feel the slime from here.



Day 2 was the best weather-wise. Here's some photos of our guide's Waterman, launching from the marina.





We fished a decent sized bay and were lucky enough to find groups of bull reds working shrimp under birds (our guide knew where to find em). We had an absolute blast. We doubled up 7-8 times, catching fish on 10 wts that were 38-40 inches. It was a top 5 fly fishing day for sure. This day alone made it a trip of a lifetime. My buddy got an epic eat on a topwater popper, got a pretty good video of the eat.





Day 3 was cloudy and cold, wind blowing hard, we started out trying to find some fish to sight cast to, but it wasn't happening, so we hit the same bay system and while they weren't working the birds like the day before, there were still some schools working but they would break up after you caught one fish out of them. So we took turns working each school, no doubling up on Day 3.



Look mom, no spot! Caught 2 bull reds without spots, one on day 2, the other on day 3.



It was a fantastic trip, can't say enough about the fishery. Nothing better than being out on the water with your best friend, doubled up on bull reds, sun shining, birds working, great day to be alive.

Fished Abaco over Spring Break.

We had two boats for four days and one on the last day and I think we totaled 94 bones.

Freelance with Danny Sawyer and Town Williams.

Saw two permit, but no shots.

The Marls are amazing, but those mangroves are probably 90% or more dead from Dorian.

Let me know if you have questions.

One of our own won one of the big Keys tarpon fly tournaments today. Yeti co-founder Ryan Seiders '96 and Capt. Rob Fordyce got it done! Second time these two have won this tourney.

https://instagr.am/p/C7SjIiGuId5

Bump!

Here's some pics from spring....The beaches have been terrible lately - discolored, high surf, and seaweed for days.



I'm not experienced at handling sharks, so I gave this big bonnet a pass.



Finally found some clean water and snook.



To me, this is the major leagues. These fish are shallow, wary, pressured, and tricky on fly... but they are also attainable.



You have to see them before they see you. Then you have to get the fly down without spooking one. Not just the one you're going for, but also the one you didn't see that freaks out and alerts the rest. Then the dance begins of watching the snook react to the fly. And if you put it all together and a wave doesn't wash your fly or a tourist doesn't walk by before the eat, you get the most underrated beauty in the game.





Bonus: I saved these tarpon scales a long time ago. Left them being pressed under a toolbox and forgot about em. Re-found them and my wife covered them in resin. Not sure what I'll do with them, but they're neat.