http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/ Whether you cast flies on the river, inshore or offshore this forum is for you. Post fly fishing reports, pictures and videos. Discuss casting techniques and talk about tackle. Read and post fly tying instructions. en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:09:06 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/ http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/f141/dorado-suds-341253.html Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:37:42 GMT Endless Season Update 11/08/2009
REPORT #1188 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
East Cape
After several years of waiting for the opportunity, I finally hooked a dorado on the fly from shore. It wasn't a big fish. But I'll take it. I saw it chasing bait. At first I thought it was a roosterfish. But as soon as it ate the fly I could see it was all lit up in classic dorado fashion! Unfortunately, Colleen wasn't with me and I didn't have a camera. So I had to race down the beach some distance to get a photo. Hence, the dull colors on the fish. This one will be dinner tonight. Courtesy of the ‘mono lisa’ fly on 20lb. fluorocarbon…Lance Peterson.

The yellowfin, dorado and sailfish are all very close to shore. Lots of sailfish spread from the north to the south within three miles of the beach. Larger tuna to 100 pounds outside under the porpoise, but most anglers are opting for the smaller fish closer to shore, from the light house south. Fifteen to thirty five pound yellowfin are all within one mile of the beach. Dorado from five to twenty five pounds are mixed in with the yellowfin. Inshore fishing is very good, with very light fishing pressure. Big roosters, pompano, sierra (early), pargo and huge schools of jack crevalle are all biting aggressively.

Current East Cape Weather http://tiny.cc/EastCapeWeather303

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

Strong winds plagued offshore this week and continue to produce rough seas. The dorado, tuna and wahoo catches have been decent, with our clients, Jeff Dean and friends, catching limits of wahoo, tuna and dorado. In the bay, they limited out every day on pargo, grouper and corvina.

So far, the billfish action has been sparse with only an occasional blind strike. There’s still very little bait around.

The Success, on a multi-day trip, had sixty wahoo and limits of tuna and dorado for eight anglers…Bob Hoyt.

Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

The clean water is only one or two miles off the beach, with the 84 degree deep blue water six to seven miles out. For the eight to ten boats fishing every day, it does not matter if they choose the blue water or inshore, they are experiencing some great fishing!

The boats are releasing between two and three sailfish a day each, and like last week, the counts would be higher if the dorado wouldn't beat the sails to the baits: Each boat is also getting four to five of the twenty pound class dorado a day.

Inshore is just as exciting, especially using light line or a fly rod, with a lot of sierra, roosters, and jack crevalle. Adolfo, on the panga, Dos Hermanos, said each day the boats are each getting between 12 to 15 of the smaller jacks (from two to five pounds), five to six large roosters (averaging about 35 to 40 pounds), and as many of the smaller sierra as they want for ceviche or evening dinner

The following is a quote sent to me on Wednesday by John Carroll of New York. He and his wife, Erika, fished with Luis Maciel on the Gringo Loco.
“We had two great days---Monday and Tuesday. Monday we went out for billfish and caught four sails and two dorado. Two sails were 90 to 100 pounds and two were juvenile. The dorado were small in the 10 to 15 pound range.

Because of the very calm weather, Luis suggested we go rooster fishing yesterday. Ran a good ways south, 30 miles by my ‘guesstimate’, but the roosters were not there. Had one runoff on a live bait but lost it. Picked up one dorado at the mouth of the bay on the way out and caught another five or six on the way back; same size fish with one larger one in the 25 pound class. Going offshore again tomorrow for billfish…will let you know that report before we leave on Monday.

Thanks again for hooking me up with Luis and Jorge. We're having a blast with them.”

Clients fishing with Mike Buckley and Francisco on the Huntress had a great day on Wednesday. They got fifteen yellowfin tuna and two sailfish and they were back at the dock by noon.

Jose Pino, down at Puerto Vicente Guerrero, told me there are a lot of roosters on the beaches down there, and a lot of dorado just a couple of hundred yards off the beach. We will be going for them tomorrow with the fly rods…Ed Kunze

Current Zihuatanejo Weather http://tiny.cc/zihuatanejo582

Cabo San Lucas

A black marlin was reported to have been caught on the Gordo Bank during the Western Outdoor News Tuna Tournament that ended up weighing over 650 pounds. That was the only large billfish this week. Most of the action was on striped marlin and a few sailfish. There were fish found scattered about all along the Pacific side with no strong concentrations anywhere.

The big news on the tuna front was the capture of a yellowfin during the first day of the W.O.N. Tournament that weighed 383 pounds! That fish was a real toad and was reported to have been caught while fishing with a live bollito on the surface at the Gordo Banks.

Dorado have slowed down a little overall, but a few boats are continuing to do extremely well when finding debris on the surface. One boat found a dead turtle and loaded up on decent size dorado averaging 20 pounds. For the most part the numbers are down - a good trip is five to ten fish and the average size is now down to 10 pounds. During the Tuna Tournament there were only two dorado weighed in over 30 pounds.

The wahoo bite was good for the boats that targeted them and for everyone else it was an incidental catch. I have one friend that managed to get 15 wahoo in three days, losing a lot more than that, with the largest one being 85 pounds. During the Tuna Tournament the largest to come to the scales was 61 pounds.

It appears that the size of the roosterfish shrinks week by week. The week before last they were averaging 5 to 10 pounds and this past week anglers were lucky to get one that weighed 5 pounds. Other inshore fish have yet to really arrive. There are a few sierras being caught and an occasional small yellowtail, but neither in any numbers. …George and Mary Landrum
Current Cabo Weather http://tiny.cc/cabo191 ]]> Fly Fishing and Tying bajafly http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/f141/dorado-suds-341253.html http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/f141/cape-may-fishing-nov-1-nov-31-a-321447.html Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:28:42 GMT Tough start to Novemeber. Went fishing this morning with Steve from the fly club. I was all excited as it was suppose to be perfect weather, no wind and a normally good tide for fishing. We left the dock at 8:00 am with the tide right around dead high. I knew it was going to be a tough... Tough start to Novemeber. Went fishing this morning with Steve from the fly club. I was all excited as it was suppose to be perfect weather, no wind and a normally good tide for fishing.

We left the dock at 8:00 am with the tide right around dead high.

I knew it was going to be a tough day when I saw the water in the marina. It was very brown and it was the top of the tide. (not good)

We headed to the back bay hoping to find some larger stripers that normally move into the back this time a year and figured the full moon tides would make it the right time.

Water was really ugly every were we went with about a foot of visibility. Did find one area were we had 2 to 2 1/2 feet of visibility. We worked it hard and Steve caught a 15 1/2 striper on a pink/white jiggie.


We tried some creek mouths were the water was half way decent but with the strong currents coming out they were soon very muddy and had a lot of weed.

Steve got another little guy off one of those on a small green/white clouser.

We moved to a couple of points that had nice rip lines, but again clarity and weed were a problem. Steve got one more 17 incher here.

Myself, I had two hits and no hook ups on the day. We had 57 to 60 degree water and with all the bass that were around last week, it was very slow. Even with the poor water conditions we should of had a few more fish if they were around in any numbers.

With nothing other than few spearing and glass minnows around, I think the fish coming in look around and seeing very little bait, they are out with the next tide or two. The fish we are catching have sea lice on them so they have to be coming in from the ocean.

After 4 hours of slow fishing, we had enough and headed in. ]]> Fly Fishing and Tying CapeMayRay http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/f141/cape-may-fishing-nov-1-nov-31-a-321447.html http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/f141/dancing-trout-282013.html Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:49:44 GMT Image: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_54y7o7P0PPE/SuG0XYtt35I/AAAAAAAAD-A/26xADL0m4wE/s320/RedRider.jpg It was opening day 2003. My friend John Armstrong drove up to Wisconsin to fish with me. John is a Pennsylvania angler displaced a couple times over due to job changes. John called me 4...

It was opening day 2003. My friend
John Armstrong drove up to Wisconsin
to fish with me. John is a Pennsylvania angler
displaced a couple times over due to job changes.

John called me 4 times on the way up
and interrogated about the weather
conditions. The 4 degree weather up
here was really not very inviting to
a Georgia native.

John and I have been fishing buds for
quite some time. He use to manage
Madison Outfitters on Madison's west
side. His wife works for Oscar Mayer.
One fine day in September 2002 John's
wife was involuntarily moved to the
Atlanta office.

To make a long story short...
John had to drive 11 hours to fish with
me now. John has done that least once
a year since his move.

John rolled in the Friday night and we
prepared for fishing. I was amazed at
how many pairs of long underwear John had
brought with him. He was going to wear 2
pairs along with fleece wader liners. I
told him he would look like the little brother
from The Christmas Story movie after he geared
up. The one with the Red Rider BB Gun theme.
I wondered if he would even be able to put his
hands to his side.

We hit the stream at 8am. We parked his truck at
the beginning of the area and we planned on fishing about
2 miles up to a very deep hole. I called the final
hole the sewer hole. It had a large spillway and was
the first obstruction on that waterway. It was a perfect
wintering hole.

We were having fair luck and John could put his arms to
his side. I still tormented him and kept saying.
"You will shoot an eye out with that thing." The temperature
did not get warmer and the robin's egg blue sky didn't help
at all. We were cleaning ice out of the eyes about every other cast.

John had never fished this stretch before and was growing wary
due to the slippy banks and excessive clothing. I told him we would
go back to the truck after we fished the last hole on the stretch.
I told him it usually held a big one.

The end is in sight. John sees the hole and thanks me for not letting
him turn back. He has a little more spring in his step now and the
prospect of a big trout is very real. John said he need to change
his leader and his entire set up. He wasn't walking all this ways to
hook a big one and have it school him. I watched as John put a new
11 foot leader on. He was using 3x before but switched to 4x here with
an indicator.

John's rig has a size 6 hornberg on the end. A brand new leader without
tippet tied to it. There is moldable tungsten placed above the fly about
12 inches. Tungsten not a split shot..John said. The split would cause a nick
in the line and a decent trout would break off. The last part of the rig was
a bright orange stick on strike indicator at 8 feet up the line.

We made the battle plan. John was out in the water to about his crotch.
He was hesitant to go any farther due to the extreme cold conditions.
He had the left lane of the hole. I was to block the trout if he got one on
that would try to escape out the right side of the hole.

John is a pretty good caster and has his hornberg up in the sweet spot
below the spill in short order. John explained to me that because of the
cold the trout would be on the bottom holding tight and any fast action
by the fly would be ignored. John called it the dredging method. John
even paused a couple times for long periods during the retrieve.

I can remember it like yesterday. John is at the end of his retrieve
and just taking the fly out of the water. He is telling me he calls the
last part of the retrieve the most important. In cold weather conditions
like these when he takes the fly out he does what he calls a Shake and Bake.
The action mimics a bait fish swimming to the surface. It is a slow upward
lift of the fly and pauses and stutter shakes are used as the fly exits the water.
A very slow meticulous thing.

John is an excellent teacher. He is looking right at me when he is talking
and explaining the Shake and Bake. He just had told me how important it is to
watch the fly come out of the water because lots of times a big one will hit it
at the very last moment as it breaks the surface. John readjusted his view on
the fly as he did the final lift.

It was like it was choreographed to happen. John slowly did his Dance
With Trout and the surface erupted as his fly hit the surface. The surface
was alive with a big trout directly at John's feet that had NOT been tired
out by a battle. The trout was on about 4 feet of line and giving all it had
to escape from his captor. It got off the surface for a moment and tried to
dive and run out the side of the hole. John reached for his net and did
a right side step all at once. He lunged at the trout with his net fully extended.
The only problem was that to John's right was about 3 feet deeper and when
John side stepped his right foot found nothing but deep water and John
fell over like a tree.

It happened in slow motion it seemed. There is John with that nice brown in
his net and he stands up out of the water and one side of his body is wet and
I can see the ice forming already on his clothing. John is shaking uncontrollably
but still wants a photo taken of the trout and him. One photo and off we go on
a full jog back to truck.

We are about 150 yards back towards the the truck and we come up to a
dairy farm. We are talking all the way. John doesn't know if he can make it all
the way back to the truck being wet. I suggest to find the dairy farmer and warm
up in his house or maybe John should find a warmer place in the barn and I would
run and get the truck. Luck was with us a little this day and we found a farmer right
away and he gave a ride to John's truck. We sat in the guy's truck for a while so
John's truck could warm up.

Out John hopped and went directly
to the back of his truck to his
bin that had his extra clothing
and long johns in them. John
stripped
down to his birthday suit right
there on the roadway and put on
warm clothing.
The farmer bid us a fond farewell
and John and I looked at my digital
camera while
sitting in his truck while he warmed
up. I can remember him saying. I sure
the heck hope you got a good photo of that
trout with all the DANCING I had to do.
The photo turned out fine.

Later that night I can remember us
sitting in a local watering hole and
reliving the experience and sharing
the photo with the bar patrons. John
said at the end of the night: "This is
what it is all about........Fishing
with good friends......catching big
trout.....sitting around talking smart
with whoever will listen and Dancing With Trout.

]]> Fly Fishing and Tying spinner http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/f141/dancing-trout-282013.html