Go West, young man

August 17, 2013
Coldwater, Exploring, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Food and Drink, Freshwater, Wade Fishing
1 Comment

Just got home from a whirlwind Western vacation with my wife and parents where we spent time in Utah, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho seeing as much as we could of Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks and the surrounding area.

On Day 1 we flew into Salt Lake City, stopped for lunch at a great little diner – the Blue Plate, then made our way toward Jackson, WY where we would spend the next two nights.

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While in Bonneville cutthroat country, I made sure to stop at a roadside stream where I might be able to catch a new-to-me species of trout. Sure enough, on one of the first few casts into a beaver pond I caught a beauty of a Bonnie. It would prove to be the only fish landed on the short outing, but it made it worth the stop.

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We continued through the Star Valley en route to Jackson, stopping to check out the Elk antler arch in Afton and the adjacent fly shop, Pioneer Anglers. After the town of Alpine, the drive takes you along the Snake River all the way up to Jackson, where we stayed in a creek side cottage run by the Alpine House, which proved to be an excellent place to stay for the four of us while in town. That night we checked out the town of Jackson and took it easy in anticipation of the Tetons the next day.

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Yakin’ for Reds with Sportsman TV

August 7, 2013
Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Multimedia, Saltwater, Video
5 Comments

Back in June I had the privilege of filming an episode of Sportsman TV with host Greg Hackney that was focused on kayak fishing. Sportsman TV is a fishing show that airs locally on Cox Sports Television. I got the invite from Blake Gill of Massey’s Outfitters in New Orleans, one of our local Jackson Kayak dealers, who was generous enough to provide kayaks for both Greg and his cameraman/producer/jack-of-all-trades Jared Serigne. I’ve really enjoyed the new format the show has taken this year so helping them out was a no-brainer. Besides Blake and myself, Louisiana Sportsman’s kayak fishing guru Chris Holmes was also on hand.

Due to the presence of Tropical Storm Andrea in the Gulf, we decided the night before to head somewhere we could take cover from the relentless wind conditions we were experiencing.  As we got the launch that morning it was pretty evident that wind wasn’t going to be a factor, in fact it turned out to be a pretty awesome day. The only negative, for me at least, were the high tidal conditions we were experiencing.

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The water was high but we still had a really good day catching redfish. They were holding extremely tight to the grass. Greg picked up on that early on and wore ’em out. I think Greg really enjoyed his time in the kayak. It was his first time in one, but I’m pretty sure he outfished us all.

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I started the day off throwing topwater. I had a few throwback trout explode on my spook. One was right at the boat which was pretty cool to catch on camera. I picked up a couple reds later on and even ended up with a decent flounder to complete a slam.

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I’ve been holding on this report until the episode aired, which ended up being last week. I think Jared did an incredible job editing it all together, the episode came out really good. Anyway, check it out, let me know what y’all think:

Grand Isle again

August 6, 2013
Fishing, Fly Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Saltwater, Wade Fishing
2 Comments

I parlayed the trip down to Leeville for the Slamboree into a week of work on Grand Isle. Blake came down to fish on Sunday, unfortunately the wind that morning was relentless and forced an early exit from the water for us.

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The wind let up a bit after lunch and I made my way to Elmer’s to see if I pick up a few trout in the surf. I caught some trout, mostly throwbacks, but the highlight of the day was this juvenile Jack Crevalle that came on the fly rod.

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The next day meant the start of my work week and I found myself on an island full of these little guys.

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The tides were low and falling fast and had these little hermit crabs exposed on all the tidal flats. Low tides also meant potentially good sight fishing, so that evening I went back to where Blake and I had planned to fish and with better conditions I was able to boat three reds between 18-22″ long. They were tagged and released to fight another day.

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The next island I worked on was full of these black skimmers. They had a large nesting colony not too far from where we docked the boats. Most of their chicks had been fledged, but a few were still too small, including one stubborn guy who plopped down right in our work area.

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A storm forced us off the island a bit early, but fear not, that just led to more specks in the surf – this time off of Grand Isle itself.

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That concludes another fun filled week on the island. It must seem like I don’t do a whole lot of work while I’m down there, but I’m actually putting in roughly sixty hour work weeks while I’m down there. I’ve realized that the extra twenty hours I work is the time I had set aside to update the blog, so forgive the dead air.

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