Category: Fly Patterns (Page 2 of 2)

Posts about fly patterns.

The Last Good Country – Part 1 of 2

July 17, 2025 / stflyfisher

It’s great northern air. Absolutely the best trout fishing in the country. No exaggeration. Fine country. Good color, good northern atmosphere, absolute freedom, no summer resort stuff and lots of paintable stuff.
—Ernest Hemingway to his friend Jim Gamble, 1919

I recently got a chance to escape the rat race and spend a glorious week on the Bighorn River in Montana. It’s the second time I’ve gone, and once again I am already missing it: the broad khaki river valley marked by clusters of green and gold cottonwood, the high desert mountains, and the red cliffs that bound the river. Of course there are many rivers in Montana and great trout fishing, but the Bighorn has found a place in my fly fishing soul; a soul that needs rekindling with future visits – hopefully lots of them.

This blog post is in two parts – Part 1 covering the first 4 days of the trip and Part 2 covering the remainder. The first part of the trip was unguided – the second part was done with a great outfitter and each day’s fishing was with a guide, fishing from a drift boat.

My brother-in-law Jeff hanging in our drift boat after a stop for shore lunch.

As I have been drawn to the Bighorn, so was Ernest Hemingway to the woods, lakes, and rivers of Northern Michigan. His family purchased a cottage on Walloon Lake and summered there every year from the time of his birth. The place made an indelible impression on Hemingway: one that shaped him as a man and provided a well-spring for his work as a Nobel prize-winning writer. Hemingway referred to Walloon Lake and the surrounding area as “the last good country”; a place he held near to him even later in life as he spread his wings and set up shop in more distant locales like Key West, Bimini, Kenya, Idaho, and Cuba. One of Hemingway’s great short stories, “Big Two-Hearted River” takes place in Northern Michigan, and it is one all anglers should read.

I first fished the Bighorn back in 2007 with my brother-in-law, Jeff. On that trip, the two of us fished for 3 days with the same guide (who still guides there – Ryan Stefek), and we experienced incredible fishing, mainly through nymphing. I was somewhat new to the game of nymphing, armed only with the basics. I knew how to mend and at least attempt a drag-free drift. I learned a lot of skills from our guide, among them how to keep flies clean, how to set on any hesitation of the indicator, and how to do the reach cast. As I recall we caught 20+ good quality browns and rainbows a day, with double hook-ups on the drift a somewhat regular occurrence. I landed a few big rainbows too, some in excess of 20″.

As good as the fishing was, I had not returned since, but Jeff had, fishing with a regular group of anglers over the next 10 years. These anglers found Eastslope Outfitters, a husband-wife fishing and hunting business catering to anglers and hunters in the Bighorn valley. Jeff had invited me along several times, but I declined for myriad reasons. That was a mistake.

I finally accepted yet another invitation way back in January of 2017. Reservations were made for the mid-September trip that at the time seemed so distant. Time passed: the month of August was consumed with preparation – prepping new lines, assembling leaders, and lining up my rods. I brought with me a favorite nymphing rod – my 10’6″, 4 weight, Cortland Competition Nymph rod with a double taper 3 weight line. Added to the mix would be my Scott A2 9-foot 4-piece 5 weight for dry fly duty – this was the “veteran” rod that had served nymphing duty and a little dry fly duty on my previous trip. But suddenly I was confronted with a streamer rod void.

I own several great streamer rods but they are all 2 piece 7 weights. I needed a 4 piece 7 weight so I could pack all my rods in a duffel bag. I considered building a 4 piece 7 weight, but time just ran out on me. I looked over alternatives and read an interesting post on the Bighorn Angler website about their favorite gear. Tucked within the words of wisdom in the post was a blurb about the 9 foot 4 piece 6 weight Helios 2 being a really great streamer rod and a good back-up nymph rod. This rod is built for saltwater use as well and has a fighting butt. That made it even more appealing – a very light fast action (tip-flex) rod I could fish streamers with and use double duty for light saltwater use (a great rod for ladyfish, redfish, sea trout, and pompano). And so, I purchased one…

Trip preps were made in January but August came quickly. I began to get my gear in order in the weeks ahead of my flight. Lines were checked and cleaned, leaders were replaced, and a book on Bighorn River fly fishing was purchased and then read and studied. The book, Fly Fishing the Bighorn River, by Steve Galletta, proved an excellent guide to fishing the river. Jeff and I would be fishing the first 4 days on our own, and while Jeff was very knowledgeable of the dry fly game, I wanted to be ready to do some nymph and streamer fishing as well.

Steve Galletta’s book on fly fishing the Bighorn proved well worth the read. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to fish this terrific fishery.

We arrived in Billings on Saturday and I was immediately surprised with two things – the high heat and the haze in the air as a result of forest fires. Our outfitter had warned to be prepared for anything, from high heat, to freezing and snowy conditions, and everything in between, and that advice would prove right on.

After picking up our rental car and stocking up on beer and liquor (Fort Smith is dry!), we drove the 1.5 hours to Fort Smith where Jeff had set up at a nice motel room. We checked in, picked up some dry flies at one of the fly shops, and headed out in hopes of cashing in on the evening black caddis hatch. We fished from the 3 mile pullout and while the black caddis seemed to be hatching just fine, the trout were either busy subsurface or not interested in this epic hatch. It would turn out that the black caddis dry fly action never really turned on. Locals, including guides and fly shop staff had no explanation for the lack of surface feed on this prolific hatch.

We returned to our motel room, drank beer, and readied for the trico hatch, an early morning hatch that could involve millions of these tiny mayflies and lots of trout hungry for them.

Brother-in-law Jeff, relaxing on a hot evening after setting up for the morning trico hatch.

That first morning of fishing was every bit as good as I could have hoped it would be. Jeff and I arrived at the access point a little late compared to what we’d do the next few days, and combined with being a Sunday, the parking lot was already pretty busy for 6:30 am. We fished our 5 weight dry fly rods with a 9 foot 5X leader. Attached on the business end was a size 20 spent-wing trico followed by 12″ – 18″ of 5X tippet and a trico CD emerger.

The tandem rig worked well but visibility was difficult in the early morning darkness. We would later fish a dark trico CD emerger followed by a white winged trico emerger. The dark / black lead fly was often easier to see. Regardless, fishing a tandem rig increased the odds of watching the drift and obviously increased the odds of an eat.

Jeff with a nice “trico” brown. That fly rod is one I built for Jeff.

Jeff was off to the races the very second we were rigged up at the car and and it wasn’t long before we were huffing down a dusty trail that wound along the river. It was already on the warm side – in the 70’s – and we had decided to wet wade. We came around a bend in a river braid where the river had gouged out a nice deep bend pool. We were a good 6 feet above the water and looking down I could hardly believe my eyes.

A nice male Bighorn brown caught on a #20 trico dry…

From my perch on the elevated bank, I could almost touch a pod of nice browns with my fly rod as they gorged on the spent tricos drifting down the river. We quickly and carefully descended on the feast and I hooked up but then lost a solid fish as it fought in the heavy current below. We moved upriver and began to cast to steady risers. The action lasted 2 hours, waning in the last 30 minutes. The sun climbed and the morning heat began to press down on us.

Looking upriver at a tailout where browns and rainbows feasted on the early morning trico hatch. Note the big mats of aquatic grass – signs of the water’s fertility.

We enjoyed a late breakfast at “Trico’s”, appropriately named, and then wandered the fly shops in “downtown” Fort Smith. I stocked up on some nymphs I had read about in Steve Galletta’s great book, namely the poodle sniffer and the split case PMD. Both nymphs would turn out to be outstanding patterns and helped me dredge up quite a few browns and rainbows in the hot afternoons. Both flies featured triggers – namely the green wire on the poodle sniffer and the bright yellow spot on the PMD.

Fished in a tandem rig below a few split shot and an indicator, these nymphs seemed to outfish the standard scud and sowbug patterns more typical of Bighorn nymphing. Black caddis were certainly around in the evenings, so I figured a pupa pattern would definitely be about in the afternoons, and PMD’s (pale morning duns) could be seen hatching in the afternoons.

On successive hot afternoons I had some beautiful sections of the river around the access all to myself, save a few drift boats passing through. I found a nice run on a river braid that featured fast water entering into a deep hole with an undercut bank. This too was heavy water but not as fast as the main river section it fed.

The upper end of the run. Farther upstream was very fast water.

The lower end of the run where it rejoins the main river channel. Note the weedy frog water in the foreground.

Rigged with a split case PMD as my anchor fly and a poodle sniffer on the trailer, I worked my nymph rig through the fast water at the head of the run. I adjusted my indicator for the depth, and it wasn’t long before the indicator plunged forward, and a nice rainbow launched out of the water. As fast as it was on, it was off. What followed was steady action. I worked the run from head to toe and there was no shortage of affection from browns (the majority), rainbows, and one stocky whitefish…

This rainbow could not resist a split case PMD

The only “whitey” of my trip. On my first trip on the Bighorn, my first fish was a whitefish. I remember our guide lamenting – a curse on the trip. In both cases, whitefish actually seemed to bring good luck for me, anyhow. And so I welcomed this one…

My first day of nymphing proved excellent – my second day was even better, with 15 trout landed and quite a few lost.

The dry fly fishing also got better. On the following mornings, Jeff and I were up earlier, walking to the river in the dark with the moon high above. Being prepared the night before and rising earlier meant choice fishing locations. Wading wet was delightful, and easier, but the first hour or so was pretty chilly. Most anglers who dressed in waders enjoyed the morning coolness but wilted as the sun climbed high in the morning sky. Daytime highs were hitting the upper 90’s!

Jeff casting to early morning upstream risers. He loved the rod I built for his 60th and it showed in his tight-looped casting.

We had the dry fly fishing dialed in nicely by the second morning. Sometimes the trout would school up in big pods and just wander back and forth across the river, slowly pushing up river, snouts up. It was an amazing sight that made one’s hands shake and fumble with excitement when tying on a fly…

Another beautifully marked Bighorn brown…

The fish were not spooky when in “full feast mode”. With just a little stealth, one could easily approach behind a working pod. Most times, even hooking up did not put the pod down.

Jeff and I fished the river on our own until Tuesday – we then moved from our hotel room to the Eastslope Outfitters lodge. The last time I had fished the Bighorn with Jeff, we started off with guided fishing and ended up with a day or two fishing on our own. I felt good about our first few days of fishing success and now looked forward to fishing under the tutelage of Bighorn River experts.

Part 2 of 2 follows…

Stockies

April 30, 2023 / stflyfisher

The abundant and willing sunfish might well be the gateway species for almost all fishermen, but one could argue that stocked trout – “stockies” – hold that honor for the fly fisher. Just the thought of them ushers in memories of chilly mornings and swollen creeks colored up blue green with snow melt, and perhaps too, the aroma of bacon, eggs, and coffee before heading astream.

So many moons ago I shivered before flowing waters on the early morning eve of opening day, huddled under a coat too big for my teenish frame and in baggy waders, patch worn. At the crack of sunrise, I tossed a weighted nymph upstream and followed it with my rod tip as an older gentleman, a friend of my parents, suggested. He was upstream of me and watched me between his own casts, correcting me in an encouraging way. I endured his success, as he caught one stocked brown after another, while my own drifts carried untouched. But finally, on the verge of giving up in frustration, a 12″ brown’s take jolted my fly rod and clinched my love for these novitiates of the trout world…

I grew up from there, as most of us flyfishers do when we get serious about this sport. Once one fishes fabled waters and ties into bigger and wily wild fish, stockies fade away for some fly fishers, the looked down upon sand-lot players in the shadow of the big leagues. But not so much I, and I suspect a few others as well. Stockies are mostly pursued by spin anglers armed with panther martins, phoebes, salted minnows or worms, but dotted among these anglers will wade the occasional fly fisher, immersed in a veil of memories of long-gone opening days.

I’ve been driving the same hour-long commute to work for some 12 years now and while most would consider it a tiring slog, it’s made brighter in that a good portion of it takes me aside a pretty little flow that snakes its way on a journey south to the Susquehanna River from its marshy headwaters far north. It’s there all year for me, but in spring, it sings a siren’s song, beckoning me to fish. This spring was no different and knowing it would soon be stocked, I spent the part of a day pulling my gear together to have on hand in my truck when Mother Nature was in a good mood. That day came one weekday afternoon when the creek levels had mellowed. The skies were partly cloudy, the sun peeking out here and there enough to warm the afternoon into the low 50’s, though snow was still clinging to the brown earth. I snuck out of work a little earlier than normal that day like a school kid cutting class and soon arrived at this pretty little creek. To my delight, it was void of any fishermen.

I rigged up not my finer custom 4 weight with its dark green glossy blank and bright hardware, but my St Croix 7.5-foot 4/5 weight. This sturdy little 2 piece has always been perfect for plying stocked waters – a bit worn from use, but no worse from wear, the once-gleaming finish of its dark blue blank and wraps a dull blue, the Fenwick-style grip yellowed and pock-marked from years of use.

There was a jump in my step as I left the truck and followed a twisted path creek-side. The creek ran to the banks, still with the tinge of verdant green of snowmelt. The sun lit the water enough that little black stoneflies were about, flying, if you could call it that, and dappling the water with their clumsy flutter and just occasionally prompting a splashy rise.

I chose a streamer for my fly – a picket pin up-front and a white marabou streamer running tail-end Charlie. I pinched a small shot ahead of the lead fly and pitched the rig across and upstream, mending as it passed, giving the flies short crisp strips as they swung across and below me.

Stepping and swinging down the head of the run, I picked up a bunch of 1 year olds, striking and battling with the vigor all brown trout bring to the fore. And then, casting into a deeper roiled run, I felt a better take. The brown writhed snake-like in the depths, flashing a bit of butter brown, then dug down into the current putting a pretty bend in my 4-weight rod. I landed it and admired it, and continued on, collecting a few more of these two-year olds, amidst a bevy of their younger, slighter brothers, too numerous to count.

Stockies beckon us out in the uncertainty that is Upstate NY spring weather, well before softer May late mornings lure us astream. They put some urgency behind combing through our gear, long forgotten in winter’s doldrums. They hasten us to open fly boxes and get to the tying vise. They force the examination of our 3 and 4 weight rods and reels, our boots, waders and all other manner of the gear we pack, and usually this surfaces at least one issue needing attention.

Figure how many hours you work, attend to family, home, and life’s basics – sleeping, eating, exercising – and stockies prove a bargain in the world of fly fishing. We’re not talking a lot of prep – simple rigging, typically just a floating line and maybe an old leader that can get one more use with a bit more tippet. The put and take creeks are abundant too, and these days the added bonus is that us “artificial lures, catch and release only” fishermen can get out to a bit more solitude before the crowds appear on the traditional opening day.

Some of these small, stocked waters carry the lure of an occasional holdover, smart enough to evade the previous spring’s onslaught. One cold March morning I happily recall a wet fly I swept down into the dark depths of an undercut tree and the solid stop of the fly. My hookset was poorly timed, but good enough to light the darkness of the undercut with the flash of a bigger trout than this creek had ever produced. Short-lived though that hook-up was, it seemed a good way to end a nice morning of numerous 1- and 2-year-olds, brightly colored, ragged-finned, and ever ready to play and a perfect transition to warmer days and “better” trout.

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…

Fly fishing in Jerry’s front yard…

August 3, 2022 / stflyfisher

“The house was built on the highest part of the narrow tongue of land between the harbor and the open sea. It had lasted through three hurricanes and it was built solid as a ship.”

Islands in the Stream

Ernest Hemingway

It was mid-April and my wife and I were in Destin, Florida, our “happy place,” but I was not completely happy. The weather was sunny and mildly warm, with the winds out of the south at 15 to 20 mph blowing across the gulf – a huge fetch of water – and the surf was up. Rip tide warnings were posted in the weather forecast and the surf flags flew the dreaded red, doubles no less, standing straight out in the wind, as in “stay out of the water.”

For flyfishers of the Emerald Coast, April can be an incredible time to fish for pompano which are migrating northward along the Gulf and Atlantic coast of Florida, searching the warmer coastal waters, and on the feed after spawning in the Gulf, offshore. Pompano will move seeking their ideal water temperature, moving inshore from the Gulf after spawning for warmer coastal waters above 68 degrees and then moving north ever-seeking water in the 68-to-75-degree range, not too hot and not too cold.

It was pure torture for this flyfisher, knowing the fish were there and not being able to get to them with the high surf conditions. So, I monitored the weather daily, viewing the beach cams and hoping and praying to see a drop in wave height and action. Unfortunately, as long as the wind remained blowing strongly out of the south, the surf just continued to build and get dirty, another condition that can turn the bite off for pompano.

After a week of this, I finally noticed a change in the forecast that predicted a wind shift out of the north. On the Florida panhandle, northerly winds translate to lower surf, and better access for fly anglers who generally must wade out to fish from the first bar. Conventional anglers need only wade out to cast a long line, anchoring their baits, then retreating to the beach where they can wait for the bite while basking in the sun on the beach.

Meteorologists get a bad rap for forecast accuracy but Weather.com was right on the money when it forecast a wind shift. Early the following morning I stared in disbelief at a surf that was almost as calm as a mill pond. The surf laid down to the point where I was wondering if what I saw on the beach cam was a still picture in place of the usual video stream. The winds were still on the breezy side, but I could deal with that. A coffee or two later, I saddled up in the golf cart, gear at the ready, my 8 weight TFO BVK home-build strung up with a 350-grain intermediate sink tip line and 5-foot leader, with a pink and white clouser, size 4, on the business end.

A pink and white clouser – a terrific searching pattern to use for pompano, as well as redfish, ladyfish, and sea trout. Like rainbow trout, pompano like a little bling.

I parked near the beach access and made the hike eastward beyond the hotel beaches where swimmers and sun-bathers were already taking station. Soon I was striding at a good pace along the wet sand, eyes on the water for bird play, signs of fish, and surf structure. The water was crystal clear and the white sand bars stood out in contrast to the emerald green and deeper blue of the troughs.

Beautiful Destin – looking westward to where I was fishing. Note the first and second bars and the trough between them. Often times the pompano will cruise that trough and come up on the first bar in search of food.

On my way, I stopped and talked to a spin angler, hoping he’d gotten into some pompano. He was fishless at that point but reported a good knockdown on his rod soon after his first cast. I remained hopeful as I continued eastward, pausing at a spot where the last house on the beach stood – a massive single floor mansion that had the look of a bunker – it’s outer skin concrete white – dotted with a series of magnificent windows looking south over the beach and to the expanse of the gulf. Beyond this house was the Topsail Hill Preserve Park and miles of unoccupied beach. Normally I would continue on to a place where I had done very well on previous visits, but this place looked fishy, and the first trough took an appealing curve in close to the beach. I decided to drop my pack there, under the stony gaze of that mansion, and give it a try…

I waded a bit beyond the first bar, waist-deep in the still relatively cool clear gulf surf, fanning casts out to the deeper water off the edge of the bar, then stripping the fly back in short erratic retrieves. A few skipjack, smaller but very aggressive surf dwellers, would annoyingly attack the fly and sometimes hook up. But after a few minutes I finally came tight to what would turn out to be my first of over a dozen pompano, with half as many lost. As typical with pompano, the take was solid and followed by some spastic headshakes and then the launch of a fish with drag-strip speed.

A beautiful pompano of good size. These fish are terrific gamefish on the fly rod, having tremendous speed (note the forked tail), and using all of that deep side profile to their advantage in the fight. They also are wonderful on the grill, with firm slightly oily flesh and a skin that crisps. Amazing table fare.

I landed that first fish under the gaze of a few beach-combing onlookers. Much to my delight, the bite lasted an hour and a half. At times, large schools of pompano of 30 or more would cruise through, their silvery sides shimmering as they scavenged for sand fleas, crabs, and small baitfish.

The sand flea or mole crab, a favorite food of pompano, among other surf-dwelling fish. These crustaceans inhabit what is known as the swash zone, the wet sand area where the surf coats the sand and retreats. The sand flea can hold its appendages close to its body, allowing it to roll in the tidal currents and waves but it can also quickly dig into the sand and disappear from predators.

The fishing was on and off as the pompano cruised the trough – fast and furious one moment, dead the next, requiring fast casting when sighting an approaching school, almost always followed by immediate hook-ups.

Vlahos’ Marbled Sand Flea – a great fly pattern designed to imitate the real thing. I have used this pattern with great success – cast it out, let it sink, and let the surf move it about, interspersed with occasional strips and hang on!

My time fishing on the bar was as always almost magical in terms of the plethora of marine life seen, including sea turtles, rays, schools of big jacks moving through just out of casting reach, distant sightings of porpoise, and an occasional shark. On this day, one very large shark sauntered in, sinister black against the white of the sand bar, leaving me to slowly vacate his hunting grounds until he was well out of sight.

As in most of life, all good things must come to an end. Perhaps porpoises had moved in stealthily to drive the fish off, or maybe the pompano just moved on as is often the case with many fish of the surf, roaming endlessly for miles in their incessant search for food. The previous spring, I had fished this same bite but had given up in desperation with waves that occasionally broke over me as I fished the trough. On that venture I witnessed a pack of porpoises herding the pompano and playing with them like a cat does with a mouse, literally flinging the fish high into the air just 30 feet from me. At least I knew I had found the pompano, but who could blame them for ignoring my fly when fleeing for their life!

Having had more than a day’s worth of fun, I grabbed my pack and started my walk back to the beach access hidden in a morass of beach hotels and towering condos. On the way I stopped to speak with a spin angler who was set up with several surf rods. He was an older man, sporting a colorful shirt that worked hard to stay buttoned. We talked about the fishing and after learning of my success, the angler inquired as to where I’d found fish. I described the place, and this affable fellow immediately recognized it. “Oh,” he said, “that place belongs to Jerry Jones. I know Jerry through his son…” On he went with a long-winded oratory about his bountiful business connections, his southern drawl mixing with the cacophony of sunbathers close-by – radios playing, laughing gulls on the breeze, kids shrieking, water lapping up on the sugary sand. And all the while above his chat, the high-pitched whine of my fly reel played in my ear. The warmth of that late morning just sweetened the happiness of coming home after some solid fishing.

After politely disengaging the spin angler, I continued my homeward walk. It was close to noon, and the hotel beaches were crowded with vacationers from places like Columbus, Ohio, Ridgeland, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee – the heartland and the southeast- all basking in the warmth of the sun, adoring the brilliant Gulf waters, and enjoying a mere sip of the good life that attracts so many to such a place. Seeing them and thinking of my own short visit made me wonder whether Jerry Jones even stayed at his place and whether he knew what lay just beyond his very own front yard…

Category: Fly Patterns (Page 2 of 2)

The Last Good Country – Part 1 of 2

Stockies

Captain Greg and the Montauk Monster

Fly fishing in Jerry’s front yard…

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