"Treat" of the Week

I have been thinking about the right forum to present the back story on how why I don't have any pictures to show for my last trip into the everglades and I figured "Treat" of the Week has to be my best venue. 

I already shared the majority of that day with you, including showing you the fly I was throwing "Hunting Season." But, if you need a refresher you can always hop back to the blog "Baby Tarpon in Flamingo." 

So it was nearing the end of our morning and we decided it would be best if we tried to get up in one of these creeks that was pumping water out. Figuring if tarpon were around they would be chowing on the baitfish flooding back out into the bight. Well we were correct only it was super tight in there. We are talking 12 feet of creek and a 4 foot wide boat with overhanging mangroves and other nonsense. I was stuck roll casting for rolling tarpon, it just wasn't a successful plan. So I gave Chris the bow of the boat to go after them with a spinning rod and weedless tube pattern. I sat back and watched as he jumped off one more good sized tarpon and missed a big snook. We were on our way back out into the mouth when I decided it would be a good idea to stand up on the poling platform and start casting (it wasn't). Well I'm up there for a couple minutes and I think I said something to the effect of "I could get used to casting from this high up." It was right about that time where the boat went from a meager 2 miles per hour to a dead stop and I was in mid cast on the edge of the platform.. 

The next thing I know I am waist deep in everglades muck, my crocs are buried and my phone is vibrating in my pocket.. Not good. I jumped back in the boat careful as I can be about the fly rod, which never got wet by the way, and rip my phone out of my pocket to see the flash... flashing. Welp. There goes that phone... 

The topper. I got out of the water and look to my left and there is about a 6 foot shark cruising on the same flat as us.. I guessed six feet because there was about a 4 foot gap between its dorsal fin and it's tail. That makes it about 6 feet long right? Right. 

"Treat" of the Week

This week I bring to you another installment of... More memorable moments. These moments are "firsts." These past years have been full of firsts, and these are just a couple of pictures that captured some of my "first" moments.

First Barracuda On the Fly

First Peacock Bass On the Fly

First Sunrise in Alaska

First Condor Sighting in Chile

First Brown Trout in Chile

"Treat" of the Week

This week I bring you... More memorable moments as I see them in my little world of fly fishing. 

Doubling up on 40+ inch Northern Pike on mouse patterns

Catching King Salmon on the Fly

Landing this Lake Trout on an 8 Inch live Rainbow.. (It ate the rainbow I had on the fly)

Fishing a Waterfall in Patagonia, Chile

There were fish in there it's not just a great photo.

Make each moment important, and you will remember it. 

"Treat" of the Week

Memorable Moments

I have put together a couple photos to go with some of the more memorable moments of the last couple years of fly fishing, this particular post is all about Alaska. 

Getting to take my Dad and Cousin (cupsquatch) fly fishing down one of the premier rainbow trout rivers in all of Alaska.

There are some Northern Pike in Alaska too.. 

Witnessing my first 10 pound rainbow.

The Sockeye Salmon circle of life.

All of this and more I have had the luxury to enjoy. Some memories are best shared. 

Plenty more to come in next weeks installment of the "Treat" of the Week. Feel free to share with us some of your more memorable moments of fly fishing! We'd love to see them!

"Treat" of the Week

Measuring Fish

How big do you think that is? 

Answer - Approximately 3 inches bigger than it really is. You don't have a tape measure, it's a guess why guess small?

How much does it weight?

Answer - Hard to say. What do you think? Yea that seems about right.

These are questions you will hear about every other fish on the river and ones you have to be prepared to answer, and answer frequently.

Look people hear what they want to hear, and they want to hear that they just caught a big fish because they are awesome at fishing. Chances are they aren't awesome and they got lucky but what does it hurt to blow a little smoke. 

Is that fish 18 inches no it's 20 inches because to an angler a 20 inch trout is something to covet an 18 inch trout isn't. So add a couple inches I'm not saying lie, well I'm not saying outright lie...  I'm just saying stretch the truth, and the trout. Don't bring a tape with you, nobody wants to know the exact measurements of their fish unless they are fanatical in which case they can measure their own fish.. 

"Treat" of the Week

I know it's been awhile and it's hard to really call this the "treat" of the week anymore... but I am going to do it anyway. 

This little "treat" is common sense for some, and for others a more difficult thing to master. It is however, basic guiding 101. 

What do I do when we aren't catching fish and everything gets quiet? You have to ask it because inevitably at one point or another whether it's a week long trip or a half a day at some point you run out of things to talk about and the fish get sparse. It happens, don't worry about it... I mean it rarely happened to me, but that's another story haha. 

Things to keep in mind.
1. Clients always can get better at casting, teach them something
2. Have a joke in your back pocket. Generally speaking keep the politically incorrect stuff for after you've got a good feel for your client. 
3. Share a story of some other fishing experience, pretend this day reminds you of that even if it doesn't. 
4. Pick out a really fishy looking rock, or "see" a fish rise. 
5. Talk to the fish "Here fishy fishy"

Definitely do not walk away and leave it in an awkward silence. The longer awkward silences go the harder it is to break them.

The hardest part about guiding is reading clients. Some like to talk more than others, some like to have their ego patted, some like to absorb as much knowledge as you have, others think they already know it all. It's essential that you can figure out how they want to be treated and handle it that way. If you can't read people and handle people well you shouldn't be a fishing guide, I don't care how good you are at it. If people don't like you, you will not go far in that business. 

Treat of the Week

This week's treat of the week is brought to you by one of the many flats that I had the opportunity to fish while I was down visiting Brian in the Keys.  Everything was going fine and I was catching the usual barracuda while stealthily wading to cast at each new patch of mangroves.  Down here you never know what is going to come out of the mangroves to chase a fly.

When you are wading the flats you want to keep your eyes constantly moving for cruising shadows.  Today just happened to be a shadow that was a little bigger then the rest!  I looked behind me and I could see a huge shadow swimming a little too close to me while I was wading.  Sure I had watched 2 - 3 foot sharks check out what I was, but they did so in a harmless and controlled manner.  This shadow was way bigger then anything else that I have seen up to this point.    

What I had also forgot to mention was that that day was a little cloudy with a slight breeze.  When the sun goes behind the clouds you aren't given as clear of a view into the water and when the wind picks up it also camouflages the visibility even further.

Anyways, back to the story.  I am wet wading and this huge lurking shadow is being too curious for comfort.  I make a quick decision once the sun goes behind the clouds and the wind picks up.  Now I am left completely blind to where this thing might be swimming.  I had a mangrove system that I was fairly close to so I walked over slowly to the mangroves, climbed up and perched myself like a gargoyle to get a better view of this shadow.  I waited a few minutes and never got a chance to see what exactly this thing was. Which made matters worse because all I could think about was this shadow for the remainder of that day.  

I'm pretty sure it was a shark, because before I had seen the shadow I heard it's tail slap on the waters surface letting me know of it's whereabouts.  I will never find out what exactly it was but I knew I was at ease perched atop the mangroves.  

On that day you won shark, but we would get revenge the next day when we hooked into several of your friends on the Patch Man Do!               

"Treat" of the Week

This weeks treat was an inspiring story to me. Tim Welch was visiting Cusack's Alaska Lodge for the first time in 2010, he has since been back, and he fell seriously ill. He was having a great week of fishing when one morning he woke up and knew something wasn't right. Several hours later he was feeling worse and Bob flew him to the hospital in Iliamna, where there they decided to fly him to Anchorage. In Anchorage they diagnosed him with a severe arrhythmia. The cure for which was to stop his heart and shock it back into rhythm. Any normal person would just be thankful to be alive, but Tim wanted to finish his fishing trip!

He came back to the lodge that evening on the last flight from Anchorage and went fishing the next day! He caught a lot of big fish the next few days, but you could tell his appreciation for everything had changed. He is the one who took the picture of me that marks our "Treat" of the Week. Tim came back to the lodge in 2011 and had another amazing trip. It's just incredible to see his new outlook on life, knowing full well if he didn't get help that day he may not have made his second trip to the lodge. 

I hope you enjoy the compilation of pictures from Tim's 2 trips and one short video of Tim on the same day he got back from the hospital!

"Treat" of the Week

This weeks "treat" comes through as one of the toughest clients I have ever had. It really wasn't because he was a bad fisherman or even a bad guy. This was one of the nicest guys I've ever guided and he caught a lot of fish too. 

The real problem I had to deal with was that this particular client had Alzheimer's. 

This made my job tough for a number of reasons. The obvious of course was that he couldn't remember me all the time or why I was there. He had trouble remembering where he was, or where he was going.  The toughest was that he couldn't remember how the fishing was that day. Since, he didn't remember what he caught he told all his friends every day that the fishing sucked even when he spent the entire day landing fish! I had to remind him, remember that fish through that run and show him a picture or two. This was day in day out for an entire week. I felt bad for the guy but it was unbelievably frustrating to have to convince him that he was having a great trip! 

"Treat" of the Week

I don't know what spawned this memory in my mind, but I knew I had to write it all down... 


I guess I was thinking about South America and the clients and the people when all of a sudden this group of 6 anglers popped into my head. All 6 were together, they were from different parts of California and all doctors, either M.D. or Ph.D. One of them was the head of the university of California I believe. Anyway that stuff isn't important, what is important is how bad they were at fly fishing. 


These six guys all obviously come from a lot of money so they are used to people giving them things. Well the fix down in patagonia don't care how much you make, they care about how well you can cast. Well the truth of the matter is only one of these guys had ever hulled, and 3 of them couldn't cast past the oars of the boat. One guy went as far as to trail his fly off the back of the boat for most of the float down the river... What's worse is these guys expected to be catching fish. I was literally changing up their flies every 15 minutes because "this must not be what they want.." Meanwhile, I'm thinking if you could cast more than 10 feet maybe you would catch a fish or two. 


I was coming fresh from Alaska, where the worst anglers catch fish because the fishery is incredible and the fish are hungry. In Patagonia, you have to actually have some skills to throw 30-40 feet in wind. It wasn't the case for these guys and because of it they left averaging about a fish/ person/ day... Imagine that, 8 hours of floating, knowing there are so many fish out there to be had, and netting 2 fish a day. Bliss....

"Treat" of the Week

I know this is a little overdue but get over it I have been busy assembling an entire Ikea apartment. (They make great stuff by the way!) 

The "Treat" is a throw back to the last time I was in the Florida Keys. We were in Key West on a family vacation and we of course brought our gear hoping to slip away a couple of days and hit some of the flats up. My uncle was leading my brother and I through some back trails along the coast when all of a sudden we came to a clearing where Key West lived up to it's name.

There was a little scramble in front of us at first I couldn't figure out but then when we got a little closer I figured it out. I'll let you decide for yourself what you think was going on here. There were three men in three different positions/locations:

• Man 1: Sitting up against a tree pants unbuttoned hand down said pants
• Man 2: Naked, lying face down across the path (My Uncle stepped right over him.. we went around)
• Man 3: Also naked sitting 50 feet away in a beach chair

The fishing turned out to be mediocre that day, yet it will still be a day I will never forget. Although sometimes I wish I could.