Category: Fly Fishing Crafts

Parent category for all crafts related to fly fishing.

Tom Nixon and the Calcasieu Pigboat

May 4, 2026 / stflyfisher / 0 Comments

“A bass is a far cry from the conventional target of the long rod. So when the conventional concepts of tackle, lures, and procedures fail to interest an unconventional quarry, go it his way”.

Tom Nixon, Largemouth Bass Fly Rodder

On my 2025 trip to our little place on Florida’s panhandle, I read William G. Tapply’s wonderful book of fly-fishing essays, “Every Day Was Special”, and came across a piece about an intriguing bass fly and its innovative creator, Tom Nixon. Just beyond me as I read and enjoyed a beer and cigar, lay Horseshoe Lake, a little sweet water jewel our Beachwalk townhouse is perched on.

The view from our place of Horseshoe Lake

In that water swim abundant baitfish, bluegills, and some truly impressive largemouth bass. While I had previously caught some nice largemouth bass in Horseshoe Lake, the more I read about Tom Nixon and his unique fly, the more I wanted to get my hands on it and give it a try. So, on my most recent visit, this past April, I did just that.

Nixon was a revolutionary in our sport, though, sadly, I doubt many fly fishers have ever heard of him. What I found researching the man, dare I say legend, is that he was born and schooled in Illinois, becoming an engineer, and eventually relocating to Lake Charles, Louisiana through his professional work for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. While working there, Nixon would spend most of his free time in a johnboat, armed with a fly rod in pursuit of big bass and panfish along the Calcasieu River and its many tributaries. And like any good engineer, he was constantly devising new fly patterns that might improve his success on that river.

Nixon literally wrote the book on fly fishing for bass and panfish. His seminal work, “Fly Tying and Fly Fishing for Bass and Panfish,” was first published in 1968, with a total of 3 editions thereafter. I was able to purchase a used copy – it is no longer available new in print.

The book grew from a request of Nixon in the early 1960s to teach fly fishing and fly tying to a group of boy scouts. Nixon tried to document all the various aspects of the sport he could think of, noting that most everything at the time was dedicated to cold-water trout and its flies. Failure to find sources to recommend to others led him to putting his notes into book form.

Fly fishing purists will likely not be fans of Nixon. His creations make use of spinners and plastics and all of this long before such things as the spoon fly ever took form in a vise. But Nixon’s creativity did not bother some of our sport’s greatest names. Lefty Kreh and Dave Whitlock are proud to have associated with Nixon over the years and reportedly fished his flies. Nixon was even invited as a tyer to the very first International Federation of Fly Fishers Show.

It used to be that bassing with a fly rod was wholly devoted to the popper. If bass were not taking topwater, one didn’t fish the fly rod for them. Streamers, crayfish patterns and other subsurface flies were not used for bass. That was, until the creation of the Calcasieu Pig Boat.

Nixon had friends who were into bass tournaments and used all sorts of conventional gear baits. He didn’t like getting out fished by his friends. “I was having to put up with a lot of guff from some of my heave and crank acquaintances about fly rod bass” he told William Tapply during an interview. Nixon wanted to develop a fly that would be as effective as some of the things they used. That’s how the “Pig Boat” was born, and it did prove to be one of the most effective bass flies ever developed. “Pig Boat” was the term used for German submarines in WW2, which were deadly at their ship-sinking craft. His favorite bass haunts were on the Calcasieu River in Louisiana – hence “The Calcasieu Pig Boat.”

Nixon’s creation first hit the water in early 1951. At that time, the Hawaiian Wiggler was one of the best bass lures around, and so he designed the Pig Boat to imitate the conventional lure. This fly most resembles the bass angler’s jig. Over the years, it’s not only taken thousands of bass, but it’s been equally deadly at times on brown trout, walleye and other species it was never intended for.

The Pig Boat’s overall length is two to three inches long. Traditionally, the rubber hackle skirt and the head on a Pig Boat are black with the body, composed of extra-large chenille palmered with saddle hackles in any color you want it to be. Use extra-large chenille for the body. Medium size round rubber works best for the Pig Boat’s skirt. Four bunches of legs are tied in on the near side, top side, far side, and bottom of the hook. The head is built up out of thread, coated, and traditionally has an eye applied to it. Here’s a great YouTube video of tying this great fly.

This is a big bulky fly, so it’s appropriate to use an 8 or 9 weight rod to throw this with either a “big fly” weight-forward floating line or sink-tip line depending on the type and depth of water being fished. This fly is best fished using a strip-pause-strip-pause retrieve but it pays to also vary the type of retrieve depending upon the mood of the fish. Even though the Pig Boat was originally designed to catch big bass, it is also an effective saltwater fly. It’s reportedly been used to take big redfish in the Gulf among other species.

Over 25 years ago, when a local bass club invited Tom Nixon to participate in their tournaments on the Toledo Bend Reservoir, he accepted the chance to stack his fly rod up against their spinning and baitcasting gear. Nixon entered 5 tournaments and got one first, one second, and two third place finishes, and was disqualified from the fifth when his alarm failed to wake him in time for the start. Most of his bass were caught on just two flies – a spinner and Pig Boat rig and a yellow cork body popping bug.

Nixon fished late into his life, well into his 80’s and when he wasn’t fishing, he’d be giving programs or demonstrating his patterns at shows throughout the mid-South.

Nixon designed and tied many other patterns that are less well known than the pig boat, but also effective on bass and panfish, such as the .56%er, a deadly pattern for panfish…

The .56%er – picture courtesy of the Panfish on the Fly blog.

And so, during my recent 2026 visit, I decided to give the Calcasieu Pig Boat a try on the largemouth bass of Horseshoe Lake and adjoining ponds of the Sandestin Resort. I had purchased a bunch of Pig Boats in white and black/green color combinations. These flies sported a “mister twister” tail off the size 1 hook, something Nixon would have approved of – he was known to hang a pork rind tail off a pig boat at times and found it worked well.

A Sportsman’s Warehouse version of the Calcasieu Pig Boat

True to what I read, the pig boat performed admirably for me, tempting bass with its mass of undulating rubber legs and bulky body with the flash of chenille. I worked it in the shallows and around structure on an 8-weight floating line and sight fished it to bass staging to spawn. While I had fished a big Wooly Bugger to catch bass on previous trips, the Pig Boat has replaced the bugger as my go-to bass assassin pattern. I landed several very nice bass, including a personal best that taped out to roughly 23″.

The size 1/0 hook on this pig boat resulted in many more hookups as compared to a size 4 or 2 wooly bugger as well.

A prime example of the quality bass of Horseshoe Lake

In the end, fishing the Pig Boat on Horseshoe Lake felt like shaking hands across time, 75 years to be exact. Nixon built his flies for the dark water of the Calcasieu, but their spirit travels well — from the Louisiana bayous to a quiet Florida lake where a bass with shoulders made my day. Patterns come and go, but the good ones carry a piece of their maker with them. After this trip, I’m convinced the Pig Boat is one of those rare flies that still speaks clearly, decades after its creator set it loose. It now has a place in my box…

Pompano on the fly…

March 6, 2026 / stflyfisher

Hey, are you Jeff Lowery? You sure look like him. He’s a fly-fishing legend around here.

Shout-out from an old beach bum in Destin, Florida

He looked like Jim Harrison, the famous writer and fly fisherman, squinty-eyed, wrinkled, and tan as old leather. It was the second time in two days he had asked me if I was Jeff Lowery.

“You asked me that yesterday”, I said with a grin. “Oh, well you sure look like him”, the old beach bum replied. “He’s a fly-fishing legend around here. He fishes from a step ladder on the first bar”. And with that he promptly moved on down the beach in his quest for the elusive fly-fishing legend.

I had arrived early with the morning sun painting the beach and dunes sugar-white and the calm surf in hues of emerald and azure. The first and second bars were clearly visible with the deep blue of the troughs beyond them. The first bar was out 25 to 50 feet. That is where I needed to wade to intercept fish that cruised the trough and crashed bait against the shallows of the bar. It was late-April and the fishing report was that the pompano run was a strong one.

permit pompano spearfishing today — A tale of two cousins…

Pompano are a smaller cousin to the permit – the saltwater fish of fly-fishing dreams and one of the three gamefish of the tropical saltwater fly-fishing “grand slam”, the other two being the bonefish and tarpon.

Pompano can range up to 8 lbs., but fish over 5 lbs., are rare. Even so, they are built for speed with their forked tail and tall compact body. Their saltwater habitat is typically inshore and nearshore warm waters (70-89 °F), especially along sandy beaches, oyster bars and over seagrass beds. Because of their temperature preferences, pompano migrate northward in the summer, and then southward in the fall. Their range extends from Massachusetts to Brazil, but they are most common to areas near Florida. Like permit, pompano feed on crustaceans: sand fleas, small crabs, and shrimp. But they also eat mollusks and small baitfish. They are a member of the jack family (Trachinotus Carolinus) and like most jacks, are very fast swimmers and live in schools. They are bottom feeders with very short teeth made for crushing and their mouths are rubbery, much like a carp.

permit-zoom — The Permit – picture courtesy of Gray’s Taxidermy

I was not sure how to fish the pompano run so I started with a small Clouser in blue and chartreuse. The 9-weight cast it well on an intermediate line and a 6-foot leader tapered down to 15 lb., test. There was little wind to knock the fly down and almost immediately I felt solid taps on the retrieve. As I lifted the fly to re-cast, several small fish came screaming by the fly. I’d deal with these feisty fish all day, dime-bright bullets with tails in egg yolk yellow.

After a few more casts to the deep blue edge of the trough I felt a soft grab, somewhat tentative, followed by a few head shakes and then the jolting of the line and bright flashes in the water. The fish suddenly “grew” in size and made off on a run that pulled my rod down to the horizon, bucking wildly, and had me doing everything I could to keep the slack line feeding cleanly through the rod guides. In no time I had the fish on the reel, the drag screaming as the fish tore off to deeper water.

At times I gained on the fish, then it would reverse and peel out. This continued for 5 minutes and then wondering and hoping it was a pompano, my first pompano, I saw its gleaming deep side and the forked tail. I waded back off the bar into a small trough and up the beach. The fish slowly tired but still fought in the surf. I walked up the beach some more and dragged the fish out onto the beach.

It was a pompano – speed demon of the gulf surf! Its body shone bright in the sun – hues of silver and light blue, its back dark gray with hints of yellow on its underside and tail. The fish had inhaled the small Clouser so I clipped the line as close as I could and released it, feeling good about catching my first pompano.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — My first pompano on what would turn out to be one of those days to remember…

I waded back out to the first bar. The water was still relatively cool but the sun warmed me. The day brightened and the sea around me turned on with color. I now tied on a fly that imitates a sand flea, one of the principal foods of the beach-running pompano. Like permit, the pompano has a downcast mouth made for eating the bottom dwelling sand flea, among other crustaceans.

Vlahos sandflea — This sand flea pattern was just the ticket for the pompano that ran the troughs the day I fished. This fly was designed by Nick Vlahos and sold on his website (www.sandbarflies.com). The pattern I fished was sold at the Sandestin Orvis store and is called Vlahos’ Marbled Sand Flea.

I fished this fly deeply with short twitches and it wasn’t long before I was fast to another pompano. These fish are truly built for speed in the shallower waters of the surf, and it was evident why when I watched large porpoises in the outer bar that were feeding on them.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, I could see the pompano in schools cruising up and down the beach. I was able to sight-fish them, casting ahead or just short of the school. Though pompano are known for their Jekyll and Hyde feeding personality, on this day the “pomps” were turned on and lit up. Most casts I made were followed and the fly would be attacked even when it meant an about-face for the fish. While the sand flea fly was very effective, switching to Clousers and other bright saltwater streamers didn’t seem to make much difference.

The fishing continued red-hot most of the morning into the early afternoon with 30 fish landed and quite a few more lost. Quite possibly the ultra clear water conditions and bright sun eventually ended the active bite. Pompano are known to prefer turbid waters so maybe too much sun was a bad thing.

After 5 hours of epic fishing in the sun-drenched clear waters of the Gulf, I decided to give the rest of the day back to the fish. I had that good tired feeling as I walked the two miles to the beach access with the sound of a screaming reel and the sight of a deeply bent fly rod accompanying me the whole way. The pompano definitely put a smile on my face and a skip in my step and I was thankful to have met such a beautiful gamefish. I will be sure to return next spring, hoping the timing is in tune with the spring migration and maybe too, in time to meet my apparent fly fishing clone, the legendary Jeff Lowery.

Winter Storm

February 13, 2026 / stflyfisher

For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

My phone buzzed with an incoming text while I built a fire in my fireplace. It was my cousin’s husband, John.

“Did u get much snow?” John texted, in his characteristically straightforward prose.

I responded with a picture out our back french doors.

We parried back and forth a bit, John taunting me with the 50 degree weather he was having in North Carolina and his plans to fish. “Should have some luck with the bass.” he texted.

I replied simply with “bastard!” and added another log to the now growing fire. Then I poured a glass of Langevulin and settled down to the business of rod wrapping snake guides on an 8-weight fly rod I was building.

Outside my little study, the wind howled and the white stuff was flying nearly horizontal. The temperature had been falling by the hour since morning. Snow piled high on the ground and blew in tall drifts. And the more I thought about the winter weather, the more thankful I was for being trapped by it all.

These days it seems that almost no matter where one lives, there’s an open fishing season to be had. On the one hand, it is nice to be able to get out and shake off the rod rust. The abundance of flexible fishing also provides ample opportunity to fish for species that were once closed to a strict calendar date. Trout, back in the day, were off limits from October through March, the opener dependent on the state. Bass season was also closed through winter. But for me anyhow, the true depths of winter provide a fishing respite in a way – a time to step back, work on gear, re-stock flies, build fly rods, make plans, do maintenance and repair, inventory tackle, and set goals for the year ahead. It’s time to do work the work of Stephen Covey’s 7th Habit – “Sharpen the Saw”.

Covey’s 7th Habit is all about the critical importance of self-renewal. The analogy is the saw – one can use a saw until it dulls. Further sawing just increases the workload and the wear until the sawyer is exhausted, the work utterly inefficient and now ineffective. By my way of thinking, time off from fly fishing is a necessary thing, just as rest is important to effectiveness during our hours awake.

Beyond that, there’s something to be said about absence making the heart grow fonder. When I was a boy, I would look forward to Opening Day through what seemed like an endless winter. The anticipation of that magical day just sweetened the experience all the more. It made one savor every aspect of it – waking early to the smell of hot coffee, and eggs and bacon – the chill of the air, the crunch of the remaining snowpack, the taste of the lunch packed, the anticipation as I drifted a worm through the dark waters of a pool, and the tug, that blissful tug of a trout.

As is said, to everything there is a season. Perhaps we should get back to spending more time on sharpening our fly-fishing saw and storing up that wonder and anticipation of another day astream…

Captain Greg and the Montauk Monster

December 7, 2022 / stflyfisher

“Even a fishless morning can still be a great day because of the experience earned and knowledge gained. Count the hours, not the fish. Be an observer, look for things, think about what’s going on around you, work the structure and remember that time on the water builds casting and fishing skills.”

Bob Popovics

I met Captain Greg Cudnik at the Barnegat Light marina, where his 25-foot Parker, “Endless Summer”, was docked. It was “Oh-dark-thirty” and the air was unusually warm for November. On past trips, I would have been dressing up with foul weather gear and layers of warm clothing, but not this time. The ocean water temps were still in the 60’s, 10 degrees higher than normal and air temps and weather had been unseasonably warm.

“It was really blowing at my house”, Greg remarked as I got my gear out, implying some concern about the day’s fishing prospects. It was definitely breezy at the marina, but I was hoping the fly-fishing gods would mediate that for this trip.

We geared up and headed out in the early dawn. Captain Greg powered the Endless Summer into the inlet as the ocean poured into the bay at peak flood tide. I had two10 weight and two 9 weight fly rods rigged and ready, the former with T-14 and T-17 sinking heads and the latter each with a floating line and intermediate line.

An Atlantic Menhaden, aka as “bunker”. These baitfish can exceed 6″ in length.

We began casting the sinking head rigs and large bunker patterns as there were bunker everywhere. They were so thick in places that the water took on a purple hue where these baitfish were concentrated. Bunker are filter feeders and a prime source of food for striped bass. The stripers will at times crash through pods but are more likely to sit below them waiting for an errant or confused bunker to stray from the protection of the school. A common technique to catch very large striped bass is to live line bunker, and that’s what most of the boats out around Barnegat Inlet were doing. Indeed, last year in late November I caught a 40 lb bass with Captain Greg using that exact technique, after several fruitless hours of dredging with a sinking line and bunker fly. Admittedly, I had given up the ghost that day…

And so, on this trip I was out for another go, trying to get a larger bass to come to the fly. I’d had plenty of success in the past with nice schoolie and schoolie-plus bass, as well as some very nice bluefish, but a solid striper had eluded me.

I fished a large bunker fly deep along the north side of the jetty to no avail for over an hour. Captain Greg was “feeling” a change to topwater and wanted me to try a large popper. I had a big-bodied bug made for saltwater and tied it on to my 9 weight floating line rig. To my delight, not much casting was needed to fish the popper over the submerged rocks of the north jetty. The flood tide had set up an ideal drift along the jetty. Greg expertly positioned his boat ass-end and “up-current” to the submerged rocks. The flood tide poured over them, creating big standing waves and a perfect ambush site for the bass that so love turbulent wash-water and rocks (in Maryland, stripers are referred to as “rockfish”). Any bunker that strayed too close to the hydraulic set up by the flood tide was surely going to get carried away over the rocks, banged up, and disoriented. Smaller baitfish have a hard time holding in such fast, turbulent water and they are prime pickings for a big, powerful, bass. All I had to do was occasionally cast over the submerged rocks, popping the bug up current, and then let it slide back over the rocks. At times all of the fly line was off the rod tip, with me using the backing to pop the bug.

We worked the length of the submerged jetty and after a time I got a slashing strike that missed the popper. Greg expertly held the boat in position as we drifted along and then I was onto something very solid, followed by a powerful run that caused my 30 lb dacron backing to tangle around my wrist and come tight with no give. I scrambled to untangle at the risk of injuring my wrist as dacron under strain can be sharp, but before I could clear the line, it popped, and went slack. This fish had broken the backing and not at the backing knot! My heart sunk for losing such a fish as well as all of my floating fly line, my leader, and the popper.

After collecting myself, I broke out my 9 weight rod rigged with intermediate line. Greg went through my fly box and found a large white streamer. This fly was tied on a 6/0 short-shanked hook with a spun deerhair head tipped with scarlet red. two big eyes, and a body of long white hackle and white ostrich herl, a good 6″ in length. I couldn’t recall where I got it or what it was named but Greg felt it would be a great choice to fish just under the surface. Greg added that often times big muskie flies do well for stripers.

I fished this big streamer like I had the popper, casting it to the rocks and letting it slide over them in the flood tide, then stripping it back in with erratic movements and letting it slide out again in the frothy wash of the tide. We slowly made our way towards the beach and parallel to the submerged rocks. It wasn’t long before I was onto something solid. Backing stripped off the reel in head-shaking surges, my 9 weight bowing to the submerged jetty, as the fish hung close to the rocks.

It took a while, but slowly I gained back my fly line. Greg had the net out and with one good sweep landed my personal best striper on the fly.

After releasing this striper, we returned to our station along the rocks. It was not long before I was into a nice bass again…

Hooked up! Note the large standing waves where the flood tide races over the submerged jetty. Barnegat Light stands proudly in the background.

As with the prior fish, this bass held heavy in the wash but over time, it was landed and quickly released.

A second nice striper in hand with the Montauk Monster placed perfectly in the corner of the mouth.

We continued to fish the remnants of the flood tide and I tied into another good bass, but the hook pulled mid-way through the fight. After that the bite turned off, even for the live liners fishing near us. I suspect the change of the tide had something to do with the shut-down.

Bass on the fly. That’s a TFO BVK 9 weight blank I built that’s served me well fly fishing, saltwater. The standing waves are from flood tide current racing over submerged jetty rocks. The boats in the background are fishing the inlet.

When we got back in after this great trip, I promised Greg I’d dig up the name of this fly that served us so well. The movement in the water was, as Greg would describe it, “Sexy.” At 6.5″ in length and mainly white, it surely matched the large bunker that schooled above the bass. Driving home the next day, it came back to me: I’d bought it online through Orvis – it was called “The Montauk Monster.”

The Montauk Monster had proven itself. After doing some research on this fly I found that it is the creation of Joshua Fine, a veterinarian. Fine is a featured fly tyer for Orvis who reportedly put a tremendous number of hours in developing this fly at the bench and in field trials before he came up with the winning combination. After all the development work, Fine reportedly what maty have seemed like an eternity tying samples and creating the material list and technical drawings for Orvis. The ostrich herl compresses when wet which makes it easier to cast. Though I didn’t do a ton of casting with this fly, it did appear to be a much easier cast than the bunker fly I was fishing earlier that day.

Motivated by the fly’s success on our trip, Captain Greg tied a few for future trips and the results were inspiring.

Greg’s initial tie of the Montauk Monster

In fly fishing there are two general schools of thought as to effectiveness, one being that fly selection is of primary consideration, the other being that proper presentation is more important than fly selection. There are times when one or the other on their own can make the day, but in my experience it’s usually a blend of the two. The right fly fished poorly generally won’t work, nor will pure presentation when the fish are on a specific bite. On this memorable day with Captain Greg, I’d say we fished correctly in terms of the method, location, and tide. And, we also had the Montauk Monster…

Category: Fly Fishing Crafts

Tom Nixon and the Calcasieu Pigboat

Pompano on the fly…

Winter Storm

Captain Greg and the Montauk Monster

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