Category Archives: Saltwater Fly Fishing

2021 – Another tough year

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2020 totally sucked between the Coronavirus pandemic, lockdowns, wildfires and finally Lira injuring her knees so I had hopes 2021 would be a huge improvement.  As I write this we are pretty much back in the same place we were in winter of 2020 with the new omicron variant raging in Seattle and the rest of the world and the obvious impacts of climate change hammering us with snow and, for Seattle, extreme cold.   The year has been full of pandemic canceled plans but has some bright spots with Lira making a full recovery by summer time and taking on new challenges this fall.

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What I do when everything is flooding

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The weather has gone to hell rapidly this fall and today we are on the third big storm and flood of the last few weeks, kind of crazy.   Not much fishing opportunities around here at the moment so what is a fisherman to do?  Well, over the last month I’ve managed to get in some great fishing off Catalina Island in SoCal and several good hunts to gather food as well as fly tying material.

Cooke Canyon Pheasant Hunting

IMG_9353In mid-October Chris and I went over to Cooke Canyon to go on the first bird hunting trip of the season.  We had pretty much perfect conditions, sunny and calm in Ellensburg with short-sleeve weather.  We started the morning doing a bit of trap shooting and I SUCKED to say the least, I think I hit 3 clays in about 30 shots, not a good percentage.  Chris, on the other hand, was spot on hitting about 95% accuracy so between the two of us we stood a chance.   We hit the field and did indeed find birds and get some, we ended up with five of the seven birds that day, not bad for a first trip out of the year.  I vowed to hit the trap field.

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I Don’t Practice Santeria…

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Jeff and I arrived in Miami late on Sunday night for our fishing trip and after leaving MIA headed to the nearest Publix to get food so we could make lunches for the week.  In the fruit department I was reaching for bananas and Jeff nixed that idea.  OK, bananas are bad luck on the boat but isn’t it alright to have one for breakfast?   I wasn’t going to take any chances on this front so decided I could live without a banana for the week.

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Biscayne & Islamorada Trip

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Late afternoon tarpon battle

Jeff and I had not fished together for about a year and a half and I never made it to any flats in 2012 so we decided to put together a short trip to South Florida to get together and escape the Seattle and DC winters.   The plan was to fish Biscayne Bay and the Everglades since they offered the best bet in the winter months for finding fish.    Of course I was keeping an eye on the Miami weather weeks in advance and things were looking great until a few days before the trip when a cold front was suddenly scheduled to hit mid-week.   Well, the weather gods had other plans is store which is typical of most of my trips to Florida.

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San Diego Bay Winter Fishing

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Winter Bonita

Since we were spending a winter escape week in Orange County I decided to get in a day of fishing in San Diego Bay since I hadn’t made it down there last year when we were in the area.  My expectations were a bit low compared to numerous trips in the past since it was January and there had been a lot of cold weather up until yesterday afternoon.  I met Peter Piconi of the SoCal Fly Fishing at 8:00 at the Glorieta Bay launch and quickly got loaded up and off the dock.

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Andros South – Nov 2011

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Andros South Lodge

When winter was lingering on well into July I was having an email exchange with Capt. Bruce Chard in Big Pine Key and was complaining about the weather and said I’d need a bonefish fix one day soon if it kept up. He replied saying he had one spot left for his November trip to South Andros and a spot left on the charter flight out of Launderdale that could actually make the travel acceptable. I signed up for a week at Deneki’s Andros South Lodge and the opportunity for sun and warmth in November.

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