Normally I don't get a thrill sitting behind the vise. Tying a quantity of only four of each pattern drives me absolutely crazy. On the other and, I enjoy the craftsmanship of a good looking fly, especially when it's hanging at the end of my tippet - it's a dilemma! Every now and then, I can force myself into it though. And to be honest, this time it wasn't that bad either. I focused on meat - that means big flies for some big fish. Some Dorado-fly-like-pattern for Pike, some cookies for Tarpon (love it) and some bonefish bugs - something to fill up the boxes quickly. It all started with a bunch of flies that I promised to Gordon Sim and from then on, I couldn't stop playing around with Tarpon Toads. I tied them in different styles, different head shapes and some unusual colors (Toad Squid - White-Pink-White - Night fishing) Here are some impressions.

Deerhair Toad

The basic pattern is based on Gary Merriman's Tarpon Toad. Chartreuse Marabou for the tail, a rabbit collar and a head out of Bass/Deerhair...some eyes, that's it. I have shaped the head toad-like , leaving some strands of deer hair on top to blend in with the rabbit-collar - a little bit like Diana Rudolph's Fishalicious. Hook is an Owner's AKI (2/0) although I would love to tie some on Varivas' 2600 V.

Messy Toad

Again, a pattern based on Merriman's Toad but this time with a head made out of a blend of Fox, Bucktail and some Deerhair. Carefully placed in a loop and then twisted, the only thing left to do is wrapping it around. That's it. I like the rough appearance of that bug - it resembles SS-Flies "Fox Fur Tarpon" a little bit. The impact- and sinkingrate is silent and slow, should be a good sandy bottom laid up fish fly. Tied on Owner's AKI 2/0

I find my mind wondering more recently. It tends to drift off into the distance to a far off location. The place is filled with large, beautiful, and wild fish tempted to flies on seemingly every cast. A smirk spreads across my face like I just won the lottery. However, that face tends to fade away as I realize my surroundings. Usually, this is in the midst of a casual conversation with a friend. I find that I have no recollection of what was said, but I can account in detail, every facet of the fish I just hooked in my imagination. This is probably the closest I'll come to some of my dream destinations. For now, I just settle for whatever is a suitable driving distance away. 

Settling isn't such a bad thing. One can dream of dorado, sea-run browns, migratory tarpon, or giant catfish all they want, but it isn't fishing. So I head out into the fray and find myself getting excited for some of fly fishing's moments. In order to do so I am getting in touch with my roots: fly fishing for wild trout on the scenic rivers and streams of the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The moments are not far and few between. They are everywhere. 

One doesn't have to travel far to find the finer things. Our surroundings provide an endless backdrop in which we play our game. Whether it is an early morning fog enshrouding anglers in a ravine, or the smell of a shower of rain upon old growth forest. It can be a hatch, with thousands of mayflies littering the surface of the river. It can be the golden hues of a brown, the dashing red cheeks of a rainbow, or the fine vermiculate patterns and bluish halos of a brook trout. It can be a group of anglers sharing in their love for the sport. It can be someones first time fly fishing. The first time they caught a fish on a fly they tied themselves. Or it can simply be, being there. In wild place, free from the obligations of society.

The sport is filled with potential and an endless amount of knowledge, technique, places to go, and species to catch. The moments are all very similar and you can find them anywhere, even close to home. 

Since I did well throughout December I was lulled into a false sense of security regarding January. Midway through January I all but threw in the towel and was prepping myself for failure. I fished for three weeks without seeing a single glimpse of gold. With one week remaining I decided to put in some overtime and continue my pursuit into the night. I abandoned my favorite haunts and returned home to the birthplace of my addiction. I arrived to discover that 9/10ths of the tiny retention pond was covered in ice. Taking a few casts, I slowly worked the edge of the ice treating it like an undercut bank. I connected on the third cast and brought my first of 2012 to hand.

It was a chilly start to February but temperatures steadily rose into the mid 30’s by the second week. I was seeing carp in good numbers but getting my fly to them was a different story. They were concentrated far out in the middle of the lake in its deepest section. They were slowly moving around but showing no signs of feeding. I needed to be persuasive. Conditions that day were so horrendous I ended up driving back home to get some heavy artillery. Winds were sustained at 30 mph which made long distance casting a joke. At home I grabbed a new arsenal of rods and lines and headed back to employ some unorthodox methodology. That afternoon, the technique “Skagit Carpin” was born. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the results. I only caught one fish that day, but a one fish day is a good day. 

Interestingly enough, carping in month of March made me miss the hardships I endured back in January and February. Spring was definitely here. Large shoals of carp were now staging in the shallows. Amongst the shoal, small groups could be found cruising, tailing, sunning, you name it..they were doing it. It was chaos. Making the transition from seeing one fish per day…if I was lucky…to being presented with a carp jamboree was pretty mind-numbing. It took a few blown opportunities but I gathered myself and soon began to dissect the small groups one by one.

The fast and furious action of March has continued into April. Multiple fish days with double digit hook-ups are becoming more common.  

-Adam

After four seasons in Argentina and a lot of private fishing, there's one thing I've learned for sure in chasing anadromous fish. Chrome is king! A chrome fish is the ultimate indicator for it's origin, as fresh as fish can be. An absolute chrome fish has lost almost nothing from it's strength that it gained out in the sea. There are one million nicknames to describe it but to boil it down to the very essence: Most people they just care about the prime time and especially the early runs. It's a common misconception that these runs are the strongest. Talking the Rio Gallegos for example. At the time when all major operators are closing their lodges and gates for the next season, the river is always full of fish. The late march and april run is one of the strongest in terms of numbers and sizes during the whole season. Another big pro for the late season, one is fishing almost all alone! The odd colored fish will still be taking ones fly, but is that really that bad? I've seen grumpy old male fish, resembling an old browntrout, knucklebusting experienced anglers and leaving them behind with straightened hooks and broken lines in total amazement. Hernan, one of our Guides and myself, we've fished our section of the river for a couple more days, before we were heading back home. The result on two rods could have make an entire week with more than 50 fish up to 21lb.  Just the two of us in pretty much three and a half days of fishing! 

Here some images from the end of the season. More to come so stay tuned.

I am on my way back to Germany now - see you in a few days.

TL,

Steph

For the very first time in my history I was hesitant trying a new species. My time in South-America was limited and of course I was seeking for something outstanding to finish the season in Las Buitreras with a bang and some good shots. Dorado was not quite on my list but I am glad that I took the chance anyway. To sum it up, I would place Dorado fishing right after saltwater-fishing in my all time favorite list. My 2nd attempt on those golden beasts was even more productive, both picture and fish-wise. Here some additional pictures.

It was a real pleasure to see the 890 Cross S1 from Loop outperforming all other setups! What a flawless performance both in fishing and casting chunky flies all day long. A 20lb Dorado was the biggest reward for this time but the sweet taste of being part of the equipment research team will a last much longer...

The first image shows the process of taping and the result. We've got a lot feedback from people all over the globe, asking for the reason of taping over a prime-cork handle. Well, first of all, it looks really mean. 2nd, it is very comfortable indeed. Dorado fishing means a lot of casting - a lot! If you are not fighting a fish, you are pretty much casting all day long, every single minute. Even the best cork will cause some friction after a while - in other words, you'll get some blisters. I've got some and I am used to cast all day long. With that tape, not even a single one. The best thing about it, it's not sticky at all. After the Dorado trip, I just unwrapped it and voila, the classy design on a cork handle remained absolutely untouched.

...and the beat goes on! Here another cover plus some more in the line. The famous Chasing Silver Magazine is showing the flank of a Rio Gallegos seatrout illuminated by the last rays of light. 

Photo: Stephan Gian Dombaj 2009

Our last bunch of cover-publications was just a few weeks ago - check them out:

http://www.flyfishingnation.de/2012/03/16/bonefish-tarpon-trust-cover/

As every year, there is always a first round coming into the season. But this year, it was exceptional. Due to jumping temperatures from about 5 to 20 degrees Celsius, we had the chance for a perfect “first shot of 2K12”. This heat fueled the metabolism of the fish urging them to feed excessively. For example little caddis-flies with and without a shell were taken like candy. Other imitations yet, were ignored completely. Peeping-Caddis and tungsten-emerger, were also winners of the weekend. Except two of three fish that went crazy on a stimulator. Rainbows, brownies, chars, and graylings were on the list. With a good friend in my side was that a feeling I have been waiting for way too long. Everyone who is as fish-greedy as we are knows what I’m talking about.

by Matthias Münter

Close to the paraguayan border one will find himself surrounded by Tucans, Monkeys, Crocodiles and a magnificent jungle, on a boat-platform – floating down the river and continiously covering sumerged logs and structure close to the bank. At a given time, in the right spot, a ferocious gold bar will rip the fly line out of one's hand and ring the bell for a violent fight on a lightweight flyrod. Acrobatic jumps, heavy deep pumps and blistering runs...they offer the vast porfolio of dirty tricks to get rid off the fly. But it's not only the Golden Dorado that is worth coming here. Besides the beautiful and rugged countryside of north Argentina, it's Yellow and Silver Pira Pita, Pacu, Tararira and Piranha that will show no mercy or restrains to tear the last piece of thread off the hook. This action loaded adventure demands full attention at any time. Every single landmark or spot can get you into trouble. With an average of 15 landed fish per rod/ per day and a fair chance to hook into 15-25lb fish every session one will enjoy and appreciate the little siesta break at noon even more...

Stephan Gian Dombaj

Ladies and Gentlemen, Guerillos and Followers of this page!

I am more than stoked to announce another covershot! No. 26 already this year, but this one is something special. We care about what we love and that's why we are supplying organizations like the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust with an unlimited amount of images. Conservation is king... check them out:

www.tarbone.org

It sounds stupid if I start like that, but one of the good thing amongst many others of being here in Argentina for more than 3 months is, having one of the best seatrout rivers literally in my backyard. Changing day for our clients is saturday, that means I can sneak out and check out the river. Almost exactly one year ago, we've had a flood that washed us out for 2 days - that was the time when Stefan Franzmann arrived here in Buitreras. The first fishing we did together on our watershed was right after the peak of the flood, when the water cleared up a little and most of the weeds and plants were already washed down the river. At that time, it was Nanchi who hooked into the first fish in Molino which happens to be a cracking fresh 15lb buck on a Yellow Yummie. Right after that we went on to "75" where I took the first turn picking Nanchi's combo from the rod-rag. Nanchi himself was sitting in the front of the truck, watching the scene with his boots hanging out of the window, whereas Stefan was leaning at the back of the truck, eagerly following my presentation. It was my second cast into the hotspot as I got connected. The fight was unspectacular and I exclaimed not to bother since I firmly believed that this fish would not exceed 8lb. It turned out to be a 19lb egg wagon! Very sweet.

Well, back in time, pretty much one year later we were standing again at the bank of Rio Gallegos. Nanchi, Stefan and I, the tres mariachis! Again it was Nanchi who hooked into the first fish in Molino and we were starting to fool around about last year's events. Unfortunately he lost the fish after it showed up on the surface, numbing all impressions by its size. Fuck, it was big! As this impression passed my mind, the hook came lose. Nanchi's facial expression was a borderwalk between horror and agony - I know what it feels like! History takes its course, so we went up to 75, staging last year’s scene again. Nanchi was sitting in the front of the car, Stefan leaning at the back of the truck and I was grabbing Nanchi's combo... Stage was ready and so were we! The only thing that was missing was the star role. Pretty much the first drift into the host zone straightened up and I jumped a mid-sized fish that came lose on the leap. Good start and fair enough considering to what happened to Nanchi before. It was not over yet though. My second attempt was even closer to the bank, presenting the fly on the outer edge of the hot spot close to the far bank. Pretty handy situation for a streamtip because it enables me to slow the belly down whereas the tip is going down and dirty, once the bomb is placed at the bottom of the pool all it needs is a simple downstream mend to speed up the fly. In ideal world, the fly rolls down to the bottom of the pool, unrecognized by the bunch of fat chromers sitting right in the spot - as soon as one mends the line downstream, the floating belly speeds up and lifts the fly on a ridiculous and deadly ascent that triggers a reflex strike. The script for this scene mentioned in the sentence before has proven to be god damn accurate. An interception half way the presentation, hookset and heavy pumping right away. Picking up last year’s slap stick, I announced the presents of a 9lb fish, knowing well that this fish was even heavier than last year’s 19lb buck. As already mentioned somewhere on this page, the 20lb + females are kinda sluggish because they don't want to risk their precious freight. After two minutes, one of the fattest fish that I have ever seen was landed. The scale stopped at 22, something lbs. We repeated the scene, we did it! Just more spectacular, bigger and better... Looking forward to next year's Saturday bash right after the first flood! Tight Lines, Steph

The trailer eased down into the river slowly releasing the jet boat into the high, emerald green water. The sun was ascending over the mountain and illuminating the river's path between hills of leaveless trees. In the distance an immature eagle dove off a limb and swooped down over the water only to miss the intended target. We were after the same quarry, armed with an entirely different set of weapons to take our aim.

As we eased off into the flow, the trolling motor was frozen in place, a product of the really low temperatures. We fired up the propane tank on the bank and dumped steaming coffee to disengage the motor from winter's icy grip. From there we drifted into a lane along the bank. With the high flows and a half dead trolling motor, the current moved us at a brisk pace making it difficult to keep the flies in the zone for the necessary time period. However, we made the most of the situation and had one hell of a time in the process.

We pounded the banks with large streamers and intermediate sinking lines looking for something big. Throwing streamers and stripping lines back to the boat, the ice accumulated quickly and our fingers paid the price in the early morning cold. Another obstacle, was the water clarity at about 10-16 inches. This meant that we had to get the flies in front of the fish's face and hope that in the low temperatures they'd be willing to give chase. 

The moment came an hour into the morning. I had my flies running deep and I used the current and a deep belly in my line to swing six inches of articulated awesomeness close to bottom. The reward was the largest resident brown trout of my life. To the tune of 26 inches. I thought I easily had the fish of the trip. I knew we would catch some other nice fish, but I wasn't expecting for 26 inches to be beat. Awhile later, I was proven wrong. My buddy Tyler Nonn, Alaskan Guide and owner of Tidewater Charters in Elkton, Maryland, caught another hoss brown estimated at 27-28 inches. Quite the haul.

As the eagles struggled from above to find quarry in the difficult conditions, we casted endlessly below. We were occasionally rewarded with a nice fish or a tantalizing follow to the boat. Every now and then, a large brown would explode from below only to miss the intended target. We left with some nice fish and the images of the ones that got away are seared into our memory, until the next time we get a chance to go back. You can bet, we will. 

-Mark

Nature takes it's course. Doing what a man has got to do reveals it's ironic justification in these simple words. It's my nature to ambush iridiscent fish with a flyrod and If you give me just a glimpse of hope or the chance to cast at a fish, I will surely make the best out of it. Sure thing! It was one of these days, Mawill, Sean and Con were fishing Cantera from the left bank as the harsh downstream wind died off. Several good size chromers were showing themselfs frequently but our flies passed by unrecognized. As I announced the famous last casts, Sean replied that he want's to give it another 5 minutes. Mawill, who was effortlessly covering the entire width of Cantera with a 6weight single handed outfit was about to reel in, when I asked him to give it a couple of casts. The Miller's Electric Leech, the fly that was choosen earlier to be the missing link to the fish, was still hanging at the end of the 0,26mm tippet. The custom built rod performed flawlessy on my first short casts to figure out the weight – the 2^nd long cast that has been send to the far bank moved a fish but nothing happened. Re-casting and aiming for a presentation a little further upstream triggered a touch and then a violent take in the swing. Already pitch black outside, the first leap and splash of water left me with the impression of playing a fish that could most likely be my biggest seatrout period - that means, adding some more weight to my 11,3kg fish that I've landed 2 seasons ago on a 6weight Opti Switch Rod (0,22mm tippet). Facing the agony of this situation, Mawill informed me that the leader might have a windknow or two... the cherry on top. All four of us where trying to guess the weight of the fish at the end of the line and since it was almost impossible to move it on the 6weight, we were quite excited to hear it leaping close to the far bank. Massive body impact! Time to chance the game for our good – running downstream to bring the fish out of balance, crossing over and lifting it from a low angle over its neck. Mawill backing me up with the net and I were standing now on the far bank whilst Sean and Con moved the car to illuminate the bizzar scene. First time the paddle showed up in the blinding lights of the car, Mawill reacted quickly with the net but missed it. More pressure and the fish came again, slower this time – when it slit gently into the net, both of us where yelling and jumping all over the bank. The fish was not as big as estimated though. The scale tipped 17 ½lb. before we released that bad ass male fish. That makes 8,75lb per person because half of the work was done by Mawill. Freaking Optimus-Trout kicked my butt big time! Yet again, Cantera has proven to be giving – especially when Sean, Can and I are aligning. Welcoming Mawill to the Cantera Big Fish Club, it was odd enough to see that the Pool is taking turns on it's members. Apperantly it was my turn. The guide's turn...

It is week number four here in Las Buitreras and we are facing the peak of the toughest drought that this area has seen in 15 years, which makes for inconvenient circumstances to swing some fur for chrome… circumstances that require a bunch of restless souls, firm believers, die hard fishermen and women or simply a group of Vikings! The dusty line at the horizon tells me that they are about to arrive. You better watch out Seatrout, ’cause these Vikings have traded their axes and speers for rods and reels…

As first leaders and flies hurtled unrecognized past their target, it was time to re-think. Flies need to be small and fast during daytime but big and hefty in the early and late hours. The norwegian double team and long term regulars, Bent and Sten, turned the adverse conditions to their advantage. Whilst Stan fished his way through pools, providing the top rod, it was Bent who backed him up with a personal average of 12 ½ lb. Well done guys! Performing under tough conditions shows character.

Per Frier, a well known face amongst chrome camps around the globe and one of our dearest guests from the very first year on, has seen this water in every shape. His extensive knowledge of our section allows him to keep the faith and fish though  tough conditions. Another average over 10lb. at the end of the week for him. Veteran status confirmed! Bring some more water next year.

If you wonder why Patrik Johannson’s images are displayed in this weeks report, I can assure you, everything is alright. Before he heads up to the northern part of Argentina to give those Golden Dorados in our 3^rd destination a hard time, he stopped by for another week on the Rio. The legendary pyjama will be displayed for public audience from 13-15 o’clock – every siesta!

First-timers Andreas and Tony were here seeking solitude without loneliness, as Mel Krieger used to say. Tony who happens to be the Loop Competition winner, has witnessed the incredible power of Loop’s field test targets. It’s good to know that the tackle has been tested under the most rugged and spectacular proving ground that a fly angler could imagine.

Frenetically trying to keep up with his son Markus, it was Thomas Hjelm who had finally caught the biggest fish of the week. A spanking fresh 14lb hen out of C-Pool! All the the hard work eventually paid off. Of course he’s also taking credit (at least 50%) in both of his son’s 12lb and 13lb fish that Markus had landed at the beginning of the week.  Stoked by this impression, Thomas went on to Jurassic to show those rugby Rainbows a thing or two.  Chrome, the only aphrodisiac that works everytime.

Well, is there any better way than finishing the week with a river-side Asado (Argentine BBQ) at one of our most productive pools, El Henrik? Two crucified lambs over an open fire, fine vino tinto, some bottles of river cooled beer and good company. If that’s not viking style, I don’t know what is…

Water

The miraculous Rio Gallegos watershed in all its beloved structural splendor can be both a curse and a blessing. First of all, the idea of catching a sea-run brown trout or seatrout up to 28lb+ on a single handed floating or intermediate line is a prolific weed; once planted it is hard to eradicate.  One only needs to speak with Rio Gallegos regulars who come back time and time again. Due to the overall quite shallow structure, the Rio Gallegos offers a vast variety of pools, runs, cuttbanks, ripples, deep and slow streches etc. – on the other hand it is vulnerable to  low water. The main factor affecting low water conditions is the water temperature, which can rise up to 18 degrees celsius.  High temps put the fish in the redds down and causes fish on the run to reverse migration towards the cooler water of the estuary or coastline.  The driest january since more than a decade and we were still catching cracking fresh fish. 100% of the fish were chrome – every single one of them! Yet again, Las Buitreras turns out to be the top location, even under very though conditions.

Stephan Dombaj

Camp Manager - Las Buitreras

• Top Rod: Sten Ruud (6)
• Biggest Fish: Thomas Hjelm (14lb hen – C-Pool)
• Top Fly: Copper John
• Top Pool: C-Pool
• Fish Over 10lb: 11
• Silver Fish: 100%
• Average Weight: 9,7lb.

Amidst the thousands of salmon and steelhead charging up the tributaries each fall are the less desirable brown trout. Some anglers love them, others despise them. We look upon them as a positive by-product of fishing for steelhead in October, November, & December. If you target steelhead, chances are you will inadvertendly hook many brown trout.

Most of these fish are large. They tend to average between 3-6 lbs. and it is not uncommon to land several fish each year in the double digit range. If your really lucky, you'll break the twenty pound barrier. A few years ago, the world record brown trout came out of the Big Manistee, a tributary of Lake Michigan and tipped the scales at 41.7 lbs. 

We have a habit of catching brown trout on our annual steelhead trips at the ends of November and December as we fish the holidays with friends. Almost all of our catches are post-spawn fish that have lost several pounds and are extremely aggressive in their attempt to pack on weight to refill their frames as they drop back to the lake.  

Field Report – 14.01.2012 – 21.01.2012

Stephan Gian Dombaj

WELCOME TO THE ESTANCIA LAS BUITRERAS

SUCH A LOVELY PLACE

SUCH A WINDY PLACE

LIVING IT UP AT THE ESTANCIA LAS BUITRERAS

GOT TO CATCH THE TROUT

WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT...

The chorus of our unoffical anthem. A tribute to the Eagles and their world reknown song, "Hotel California,“ performed by Derek Taylor and Juan Manuel. If you hear that tune resounding from the inside of our house, you know that the Baker group has arrived again to shuffle the deck.

Even if tough droughts and floods conspire against the Bakers, they'll still come out standing. Knowing the watershed of Rio Gallegos probably better than anybody else from abroad, they have seen it all: tsunami like floods, desert dry periods, & winds from all directions. Their vast knowledge is a guarantee that water based difficulties culminate in flawless execution.

After 13 years (!!!) of fishing this magic river, there are still secrets to be found. This week's task: unraveling the mystery of our "Outer Limit“ pool that tends to be a hostile spot for exceptionally smart fish. After five sessions where our anglers were tricked by a fish, it turned out to be a big brown trout with an appetite for violent charges and attacks on intruding fly patterns. Named Gordon, our pet sea trout is waiting at the bottom of Outer Limits to collect one fly after another to boost our fly shop's income. This myth got busted...

Missing the magic 20lb mark by 1.5lb, Paul Arnott did not only claim the biggest fish of the week (18.5lb – Jykse Bank) and the top rod position with 7 counters, but also the $100 reward for each bounty hunter task. Congratulations!

Water

The predicted heavy rain showers in the upper valley of Rio Gallegos and it's headwaters, close to Puerto Natales, were supposed to blow the river out for a couple of days and sweep away the weeds making those esturary fish come up. However, that didn't quite happen. With a new group of anglers in town, they ended up facing the same difficult water conditions. The week started with a dropping water level from -25cm to -30cm before it rose again to -25cm (our predicted so called flood) which instantly affected the catch records. The lower water level is also impacting the spawning run. These side effects are causing a lack of activity during our daytime sessions. Harsh water temperature (from 12°C in the morning up to 20°C at noon...) and atmospheric pressure changes are slowing our chromers down. Still, our beats are delivering fish, thanks to our excellent guides who are adapting to these quite technical circumstances with every inch of more or less water. Apart from that, fish are head and tailing in all major holding pools. If one triggers a reaction, the odds are 88% for a spanking silver torpedo pig.

S

Stephan Dombaj

Solid Adventures

Average size: 8lb

Top Rod: Paul Arnott (7)

Biggest Fish: Paul Arnott (18 ½ lb) Jyske Bank

Top Fly: Rubber Legs/Gridle Bug

Top Pool: Old Bridge

Fish Over 10 lb.: 6

Percentage Of Silver Fish: 88%

It's part of our nature and history to leave the save harbours behind to scout new unspoiled areas. A rumor about orange belly trout in two uncharted lagoons + a little creek that connects both waters, was enough of an excuse to set up a scouting team for a 2 day exploration trip. Close to the Andes, right at the border between Chile and Argentina, we found a pristine place full of rising golden-orange colored trout – average 3,5lb. We'll keep on scouting and let you, dearest reader, know how we get on. Tight Lines!

Due to the limited amount of aquatic insect life during the winter time, which goes hand in hand with the frosty water temperature, some fellow fly anglers find it hard to adjust their tactics to these circumstances. Especially when it come to picky fish, hence picking the right fly pattern. Just a very few lifeforms remain active once the temperature has dropped below a certain level (4 degress celsius) Scuds or gammarus shrimp are mother nature's answer. In comparison to most insects who are feeding on a veggie diet, Scuds are not only carnivorous but also well known as cannibals which explains, why they are still active where others are starving. The perfect diet to keep our bows, browns and grayling well fed and in good shape during the winter time. Any typ of gammarus will do the job but one has got to consider that the temperatures are also slowing down our target's metabolism. If you go down and dirty with those bugs, you'll sooner or later fighting one adiposed brute in a winter wonderand. Tight lines and dry socks, Matthias Münther

A push of cold water from the Andes was promising for the group that arrived at Las Buitreras Camp on Saturday to ring the bell for the 2nd week at the Rio Gallegos watershed. Hosted by Christer Sjöberg and Göran Andersson, anglers from all over Europe gathered together to share the great experience of desert chrome. Drinking it in, it always goes down smooth. Smooth is just the right word to describe this week's group. Apart from celebrating Don Chrillo's second 27th birthday with an asado that rose the bar for the very definition of the word feast, we've had several casting demonstrations on our weekly schedule. Not to mention, the great company that we shared over some fine bottles of Malbec.

It was a pleasure to welcome this week's host, Göran Andersson for his very first time at our estancia. As inventor of the underhand cast and leading force in scandi-style equipment development, he has proven the practical matter of his casting style to be deadly effective. This was born out of the cause that connects us all – catching fish. Göran shared his extensive knowledge about anadromous fish and the ways of approaching them with us. We shared and agreed upon the imprint that the Gallegos chrome bars left on him. Göran proclaimed,"...some of the most beautiful seatrout I have ever seen! Incredibly strong and well fed!“. His largest being a chromer that tipped the scales right above 16lb. Accompanied by several other fish, this placed him as the leading rod for the first couple days until a flu crossed his plans.

...a wink of fortune that our dearest Gordon Sim (El Gordo) turned into his advantage. Fishing almost every siesta at our home pool, he ended up as top rod with 11 fish, up to 16lb. Blaming fortune would be just too easy to explain his performance but the awful truth is: Gordon is an anadroums veteran and I bet everyone who has fished the Kharlovka the last 10 years will recall the name of the former Atlantic Salmon Reserve Camp Manager right away.

For sure, the greatest achievement and reward for our guides is the smiling face of a seatrout beginner. Sharing this unspoiled and untamed happiness is exactly what keeps us going. If you cross Graeme Baird's way these days, you'll know what I am talking about. In a beat alliance with Gordon, he managed to catch both his very first seatrout and fish on a flyrod ever. After a couple of sessions, a cracking 20lb chrome hen in Puesto! Is there any better way to get hooked on fly fishing? Congratulations and warm welcome to the 20lb Gallegos Seatrout Club.

The so called "20lb-chrome-smile“ is hard to wipe away, no matter how hard you try. El Henrik was this week's place to be, not only because Simon Purves hooked into a marvellous 20lb+ steroid bar of chrome, but that it took him on a nice 15 minute bull ride, before Hernan could land the fish. Not only his biggest seatrout but also his biggest anadromous specimen ever.

Patrik Johannson, one of our well known regulars, teamed up with his good friend Rafael, a bonefish guide from Venezuela (Los Roques) who happens to be a witness of both my accidential pelican hookup and the famous "mermaid-story“ at the beach of Grand Roques in 2008. Thanks to his well trained fishing eye, his very first freshwater experience turned out to be a path full of chrome and gold. Glad to hear that our rugby fish can cope with any bonefish on his archipelago. Thank you, Rafael!

As the week flew by, Lars fulfilled his predicted task of catching another 20(+)pounder with Diego. Do I really have to mention that it was Senior's once again? Whatever they do, they make it happen and it works. Well done, Lars! I will let Diego know to save one up for next year!

Our friend Howard Evans, had to postpone his trip to Argentina – Howard, the staff of Buitreras missed you this week. All the best for you and your family!

River:The push of water at the beginning of the week shuffled the deck a little bit. 5cm of more water was enough to boost our catch records a bit. The hot weather period and the drained out Pampa soaked the rain up like a sponge. Anyhow, fish were showing in all major holding pools – even under conditions that were far away from perfect. Even so, we still harvested chrome, an indicator for the remarkable density of fish in our beats. Yet again, 95% of the fish taken this week were absolute fresh, shiny, chrome! Fishing is a little more technical now but our guides have the right medicine to cure your urge for seatrout... Stay tuned.

Stephan Gian Dombaj

Solid Adventures

Average Weight: 9,28lb

Top Rod: Gordon Sim (11 Fish)

Top Pool: El Henrik

Top Fly: Black Salmon Fly (Silver Stoats and Green Butt)

Biggest Fish: 

• Lars Ivarsson (20lb +)                    
• Simon Purves (20lb +)                    
• Graeme Baird (20lb)

Percentage of silver Fish: 95%

Fish over 10lb: 14

As you, dearest reader, are one of our regulars, you've probably noticed that we were involved in LOOP's latest coup, the Cross S1 Series. It's superb modulation and the "springiness" plus it's well composed details  are one of a kind, this is just our idea of it. Finally it's the fish that tells the difference. Is there any better place to test the 5weight 9ft. Cross S1 than in the vast landscape of Argentina. A lot of wind! A lot, plus tough low water conditions (17ft. leader - 0,20 mm tippet) and most of all, big fish. Searun browns aka. Seatrout. Well here are a couple of images from our first saturday of fishing...

Hernan and Stefan were fishing both Upper Henrik and the actual hotspot El Henrik. My suggestion of picking up a 5weight got blown away by the howling wind. Stefan went right to the hotspot, Hernan to the streamy narrow channel in Upper Henrik. I picked up a place right below Stefan, where El Henrik tails out into another slower stretch that hold a lot of nice size brown trouts and every now and then a Seatrout. The structure of the pool has changed quite a bit since I fished it the last time and I was pleased to find another faster and deeper channel close to the far bank. The 5weight 9ft rod should be alright in case I get connected to a searun - Göran has fished that rod last week and I just picked it up from the rod-racks in the lodge. The weedline along the deeper channel looked just like the perfect spot to trick one of those marvelous Gallegos-Browtrouts. First cast in the estimated hotspot and a huge splash revealed a good size fish. "Upper 80s or lower 90s", raging at the end of my 0,20 leader. I screamed for Stefan and the net, but finally I managed to beach the fish myself bevor Stefan grabbed it. The measurements: 90cm and 15,5lb. A pretty slim fish but anyway  good fun on the 590!

Guerillos out there! Listen up! We've been celebrating Don Chrillo's birthday here in Buitreras (Argentina)  and we want to share some pre-feast shots with you guys. Tributes to Christer Sjöberg - founder of LOOP Tackle Design and passionate fly fisher who has substituted his entire life to the progress of fly fishing. Have a drink on him... Cheers Amigos,

Esteban!

Report: 28^th of December 2011 - 7^th of January 2012

Week 1

The gates of Las Buitreras have opened yet again to welcome the first well composed group of fellow anglers from the United Staates, the United Kingdome and Sweden to celebrate both the first rush of absolutely fresh seatrout and new year's eve in the vast remote landscape of magellan patagonia. First week's host, Christer Sjöberg, approved once again that his skills as an angler are only matched by his irrepresable urge to party – which turned our Estancia's switched off location all over sudden into multilingual asado feast. No. 1 New Year's pledge for 2012, starting the season with some solid chrome. A good one if you ask me, especially because this week's group consisted out of Gallegos regulars...

Altough some fish had been taken just before New Year's eve, it was our good friend Lars Ivarsson who had landed the first chrome bars of 2012, starting the year with a cracking 10lb followed by 14lb of solid chrome. If he keeps up the speed, it's just a matter of time until he breaks his 22lb double header from 2011.

Yet again, it was a pleasure to welcome Frank Serbus, who's at least as passionate about BBQ (Asado) as we are, and of course John Eames. A two man quick reaction force on it's relentless pursuit of chrome fish.

To turn a journey into an adventure, it needs to be shared with others. A philosophy that 4^rd time returners David and Sarah Roby are sharing for sure. May it be on a horseback ride thru the valley of Rio Gallegos or a knuckle busting run of it's chrome scaled steriod fish. Looking forward to seeing you a 5^th time next season!

The „Swedish Connection“ otherwise known as Peter Staude, Rolf Jansson, Patrik Lagerlöf, Jim Larsson and Kent performed flawlessly by using their advantage of costal seatrout experience as they provided both the biggest fish (Rolf) and the Top Rod (Kent)

Due to the lack of water, fishing affored greater focus on stealthy approach of possible hot spots but yet again, Gallegos has proven it's only rule to be consistent: No one is leaving this River without catching a fish! The tendecy of less fish but an incredible increasement of sizes still remains strong, and so does the strain itself: Have you ever seen a 11 ½ lb at the length of 69cm? Neither did we, till we found one raging at the end of Kent's line. We measured it twice to make sure that we were not mistaken. January in particular provides the highest quality of fish in terms of physical condition – in figures, 95% fish taken on week one were absolute fresh. A push of water at the beginning of the weekend marks both the arrival of another group of chrome hunters and of course another run of fresh fish into the system. Sharpen your hooks, there will be chrome!

Stephan Gian Dombaj

Solid Adventures

Fish over 10lb: 20

Percentage of Silver Fish: 95%

Average weight: 9,26lb.

Biggest Fish: 18lb (Rolf Jannson)

Top Rod: Kent Sommar (9)

Best Pool: Limits
Best Fly: Rubber Leg Nymph

As the leaves begin to change color and the nighttime temperature drops, lake run Great Lakes steelhead begin their annual pilgrimage upstream. Lured by the urge to feed, a large number of fish follow the king salmon into the system to feast upon their eggs. Following the fall, fresh steelhead continue pushing upstream all throughout winter and into March, when they spawn. 

In the early season, the fish are super hot, bright chrome slabs, that put on aerial displays well after being hooked. Most of the fish are found in fast water, that provides rich oxygen to their muscles. Combining their strength with the fast flows, they put up quite the fight. 

An angler during this time of year is faced with a dilemma. Does one match the hatch and use an egg pattern to drift through every seam and run? Or does one swing flies with skagit and scandinavian heads looking for that big pull? Our choice was easy. Despite knowing full well that we could have caught many more fish drifting eggs, we wanted the explosive grab that only fresh steelhead could produce. Quality over quantity.

The major problem with this strategy is the eggs. Thousands of king salmon are already in the system and they are saturating the river bed with eggs. Steelhead and brown trout gorge themselves and are not too keen on going out of their way to slam an intruder. Why use the energy, when they have a constant assembly line of food drifting into their mouths? This problem tested our resolve as we experienced very slow days practicing our casting with the hope that a fish would be willing to take.

Imagine standing in a perfect run, swinging flies at all angles and mends and nothing happens. Several center pinners move into the area and precede to catch fish after fish with real egg sacks. It can be demoralizing. Nonetheless, we patiently waited and were rewarded with a few nice fish this fall. The memory of the pull, set, and fight is often far greater than counting the number of fish caught. Fly fishing is all about moments and I reckon a steelhead slamming a streamer on the swing, is one of the best moments possible.

Salmon season is long gone, but the memories still remain. This will begin a new section on FFN entitled: Tributary Diaries. Follow along with us, as we fish the Great Lakes tributaries for salmon, steelhead, and brown trout.

Our season began in September and ended in mid-October. During that time, we managed two trips north to the tributaries to fish for King Salmon migrating upriver to meet their end. Our methods consisted of using 7-8 wt. switch rods loaded with skagit heads, tips of t-14, and large flies to entice some fish into taking. 

Our September trip proved to be difficult. We situated ourselves in the upper end of the river that consisted of a lot of "older" fish that had been in the system for awhile. They had also gone through a gauntlet of other anglers and snaggers. The likelihood of these salmon moving for a swung fly diminishes greatly the longer they are in the system. We learned from our mistake, and moved downriver, where we had some success hooking up with fresher fish that schooled us in rapids. 

During our second sojourn north, we immediately went downriver to target the fresher fish in the system. These fish, exhibited a "bronze" color from their time spent in the estuary waiting to move. Our new problem was that there were far less fish in the lower end of the system. A long day on the water culminated with several fish. Some of which came to hand, others that used the river to their advantage. 

The highlight came in the tailout of a deep pool. I switched tips to a 5 ft. t-11 tip, lenghtened my leader, and tied on a four inch purple tandem tube fly with an orange cone head. I casted slightly upstream and used a downstream mend. My fly sunk deep and then used the belly of the downstream mend to lead my fly along the bottom of the deep tailout. A deep pull came and I set hard downstream. I tied into a large male king that gave me a run for my money. 

Survivor Flyfisher

After an endless winter with a very important amount of snow we are ready to chase the firsts run of sea run brown trout. Due to my job at university and free time when all my partners are working I had to do it myself, so grabbed camera and tripod, yellow line 9132, evotec and wallet with opti adapted. I started very close to the estuary, in a long run called “Las Piedras” (The stones) on a public access, I said to myself let´s do it from the very beginning… I fished for 4 hours, and saw a bit of movement on the surface. The water was quite high, still with more less 30cm of visibility. Using a short leader and some big rubber legs flies I started the persecution. I hooked two small sea runs, around two kilos each, the pleasure of getting back to the river was proportionally inverse to my cast... After 4 hours the tie was getting higher so I had to leave.  

Last Friday, I came back to the river, but this time to a place called “La Toma”, where the water that feeds the city of Rio Gallegos is pumped, 5 km upstream from Las Piedras. The wind was particularly from the east so I was struggling to get my purple yumie across the run. After 20 minutes, I made one nice cast and without any confidence I grabbed my fly box whilst the line was drifting through the current… I picked a heavier fly and put it in my mouth to be changed after retrieving, I made the first strip and a 12 pounds sea run broke the surface right in front of me, 2 mts from where I was wadding, and scared the hell out of me, making me lose the fly that I was holding in my mouth… After a really hard fight I landed this male and took a couple a pictures without letting it too long out of the water. No words to say, I´m back… Right after that I saw some fishermen coming here so I left the pool, but I was saving the best for the last. There is one huge cut bank that everybody fish from over the bank cause is quite hard to cross the river to get to the other side, but I felt quite lucky and after 3 attempts I crossed it. This time I abused of my luck and set up the tripod and my nikon D300 and sigma 10-20 right (like the tv program survivor man) on the shore of the hot spot. Everything was perfect, even the wind was blowing on my back. Cast after cast I was covering every single spot of this big run, not a single fisherman around wich is rare for a Friday morning, I thought about changing the purple rubber leg yumie, by the way a piece of work, and I was right at the hot spot when suddenly my line was tense, after two seconds of suspense my yellow rod was bended to the limit and hard and slow shakes were made by this fish. I took me 8 long minutes and landed a big fat fish. Immediately turn on the camera, lifted the fish and “click”, I took only two pics and released it… I don´t know how heavy it was, I would let you decide it…

By Juan Manuel Biott

Week three highlight video from July. Enjoy.

Guerrillos, your man Esteban is flying high again. Sitting in an airplane being upset that KLM cityhoppers are obviously built for dwarfs and migets, I am listening to a very convenient mixtape that chills me down. Almost missed my flight because I was confusing the time by one hour. Arrived at the desk 4 minutes before they shut it down, I just dropped my luggage full of lines and shit, swallowed my ugly plastic tuna sandwich down in desperate needs of some good old day tunes. Itunes was one reason for my delay, thanks Apple. Blaming an international company for my delay – pretty smart. I've heard even worse conspiracy theories, so take it or leave it. What a pitty that I haven't got the time for real fishing in Korea. If I get some time to sneak out for some sick fly action I will let you guys know. Well, the actuall reason for this journey is nothing less than redefining the soul of flyfishing with my man Tomas Ögren – new products ahead and the last shape is yet to be carved. Restless 10 hours later I found myself at Incheon Airport's arrival hall waiting for Tomas. I look like a giant fuck-up. Giant because of my 2Meter height and fuck-up because my attempted sleep-over had been replaced by 4 movies and a couple liters of cola... the red glasses cover it up a bit. The people here are treating us way too polite, I am both impressed and a little down that my european tainted  and rude cultural background seems to be pretty lost here...

Dearest Guerrillas out there!

I know this season had it's ups and downs. As I am typing these words I am packing my stuff for Korea, another season in Argentina is coming closer and a lot of destinations are going to be labeled by FFN Stickers... so the last day of the trout season in Germany is not really a big thing for me like it has been in the past, when I was a little creep... annoying my parents to leave me at the water. Yeah, that's the true spirit of flyfishing. Admiring those marvelous gamefish such as Tarpon, Salmon, Bonefish, Seatrout and whatsoever is not a big deal at all. In fact, it's quite easy to get a thrill on a big jumping silver fish. You know what I admire? The girls and guys out there who are fishing every day in their local pond or stream for whitefish, chub, some trout and grayling - they do it because they really love it! Cheers on you girls and guys - this is what flyfishing is all about. The last resort of freedom in a world that is getting fast the moment I am taking a single breath. Cherish these moments and save'em up for bad days. The sound of the stream, the solitude without loneliness...

I don't have to tell you that this world is full of dickheads and assholes. Corollary we don't want to spent our free time fishing with such people. Last weekend has been a great example of what really matters - having a good time with old friends, meeting some new friends, some beers, some stories - the perfect margin for the last blast of 2012's trout season. Thanks to Ivan, Paulo, Daniel and Boris for two great days were all those Barbels, Graylings and Trout were just an excuse to listen to the river...

Today's top submission. An icelandic artist copied one of our images and did send us this photograph of it. Nicely done! Truely FFN-Fanart. Keep it coming! The original image was taken on our roadtrip in 2010 and it shows Diddi taking a nap at the bank of Minni-River, know for it's big browntrouts. Image by Stephan Gian Dombaj.

Day 5 - it's not quite over but the idea is already driving me nuts. 2 more days (this day included) and I am certainly enjoying myself a little but too much."This is just not right", a voice inside my head reminds me that this is salmon heaven - the top of the notch thing. Well, the voice belongs to a mature fisherman that is totally aware of the fact that salmon fishing is only such a joy because it's tough and most of all not catching fish after fish. Well this mature guy in my head has never fished Ponoi to prove his theory being a fragile thesis based on nothing but a common sense of squeezing the quintessence out of not-catching at all. The mature guy has lost and the happy unspoiled fishy kid does justice by taking salmon here and some more there...After Boris and I have accomplished our daily mission of taking some sea trout underwater footage it was time for a little dryfly break. With one hand climbing along the rocky banks of Ponoi and the other one pressing the shutter, Boris was following me. Check out the images below, a neat brown leaper on the single handed rod. We went on with tiny doubles... and so on and on...

Don't miss the other entries of "Ponoi Salmon Journey"

Just before I arrived, I've been told that the Ponoi was high and merky. Good thing for fishing since it shuffles the deck. The flood has reached it's peak just the day before I arrived. Ever since than the water level is constantly dropping a good 8-10cm per day. The watermark that I set on the first day was totally dry now and my two morning hotspots are barely covered with water, so I started to cover some other possible hotspots with the result of one salmon + 5 seatrout. After breakfast, I teamed up with Russlan (guide) and Kostya who's the owner of "Kola Salmon" - a Russian fly-tackle company. A die hard fisherman and perfectly matching company for the day since he prefers wading instead of drifting. Easy job for Russlan: Drop the two maniacs, lean back...no need to find a place that fits both preferences equally. The first stake brought two fish for Kostya and two for me. The two-fish-curse that I rather enjoy than wish to be gone, was proven to be wrong on the second drop out, where I got connected to a neat fresh 9lb fish, a 15lb fresh buck and a colored hen about 8lb. The 15lb prime buck was exactly what we were looking for: Sealiced piece of solid chrome! Picture book perfect for some UW shots. Anther quick shot with a smile from ear to ear and that buck continued it's way to the spawning grounds. Long lunch before we went to another cascade where I harvested 2 colored hens with two casts...time to take my job more serious, so I picked up the camera again and had to leave. What a great day!

Check out the other "Ponoi River Salmon Entries"

The night of mayhem rejuvenated us and reminded us of why we were there: to fish our asses off. That night, we found a place to buy ice, we parked ourselves on the beach, and drank the cheapest beer we could find. It was a celebration of sorts that prepared us well for our best day of fishing thus far.

We hit up all the spots we could access without a skiff and catch a bone. Probably 1/50th of the entire circumference of the island. Once again, the wind and clouds were in full effect which severely hampered the first half of the day. It was slow.

Early in the morning on the first beach, I was lucky enough to spot a bonefish that evaded Adam and Matt working their way east. I made the cast, worked the fly, and the bonefish attacked. They are so opportunistic, that I don't think the pattern matters much. It is all about the presentation.

We shifted gears, and made our way to the less accessible flat and power walked it. At this point, we wanted a permit badly, but whenever we were thinking permit, they never showed up. Only when we least expected it, did they appear out of thin air.

Matt had a redemption of sorts against a small school of bonefish. A few days earlier a school of 4-6 slowly moving fish, snuck by him in super shallow water using mangroves as cover. Near the same spot and gifted with a second chance, he scored his first bonefish of the day.

The second half of the day started very slow, but ended fast and furious. We switched up our game plan and decided to walk into the wind, rather than wait on the beach for tailing fish. It was close quarters combat, where we couldn't see the fish until the last minute and they often took while we stripped leader. 

As we made our way up a mangrove coastline, we stumbled upon a sweet spot. Lots of fish were moving into the area in singles and pairs. The highlight of the day came when we had our first double hookup. As Adam landed a solid bonefish, Matt got his second of the day.

Moments later, Adam landed another great fish. Days earlier, he prepared himself for dealing with the wind by placing a 10wt. line on his 7wt. This was the day it paid off, as he routinely bombed casts to unsuspecting fish in stiff winds.

I ended up finding the source of all the bonefish coming our way. I began blind casting out onto the deeper portions of the flat and immediately hooked up with a bonefish that popped off during the land. On the next cast, I hooked up with the smallest bonefish we caught the whole week. We happened to find a sweet spot for an hour before it completely died down, and the fish moved on.

Also on this day, Adam spotted bonezilla cruising towards the horizon. The picture below is him summing up his experience chasing it. If his estimate proves accurate, the fish would have been in the neighborhood of world record size. I wouldn't have believed him if I hadn't seen another fish of epic proportions only to have a horse eye jack rob me of the bonefish of a lifetime.

Morning of day four, we awoke to a passing squall that spit rain into the tent and made anymore sleep impossible as high winds ripped across the tent. It was the beginning of a day filled with passing storms and wind that refused to die down, making the fishing challenging.

Despite the wind, my brother and I decided to take the pontoons out and drift farther out along the coast. Adam dropped us off near the mangroves and we rigged up multiple rods for bones, perm, tarpon, and barracuda, just in case. It didn't take us long to realize a major problem. Rather than having the wind come from the East drifting us along the coast, it was coming from the Northeast pushing us out to sea. After drifting a few hundred yards, we decided to head back to shore. Matt decided to row, while I found it futile. I hopped out of the pontoon into chest deep water and preceded to walk it back to shore. It took quite a long time as we drifted farther out than we did down the coast. We decided to follow Adam as he waded alone in the distance.

After only mere minutes, Matt shouted out, Permit! Under heavy cloud cover, it revealed itself only by going face down and tail up. Matt shot off a cast but the permit turned in my general direction. I couldn't see anything under the heavy glare and Matt shouted at me to make a cast. I hesitated because I couldn't see, but in the end decided to trust my brother. Following the directions of 20 ft. at 1 o'clock, I laid out a merkin styled crab with a rattle, stripped twice and paused. As I stopped, the fifteen pound permit swam perpendicular to my viewpoint finally showing himself in a lane of visibility. I re-casted and stripped. The body language of the permit changed suddenly and he was on the fly. After each of the next two strips, the permit zigged and zagged to keep an eye on my fly. I stopped, and my crab settled onto the bottom. Ten feet from my rod tip, the permit descended upon the crab in slow motion, while my heart raced. He angled downward for the feed and still I waited, my heart in my throat. I set the hook, but it was not to be. I set too soon. I exhaled deeply, adrenaline coursing through my veins. My only chance at glory darted off the flat and into the glare, never to be seen again. I was left with the fine line between a take and an inspection replaying in my mind.

As the image of the permit lingered in my mind, my brother and I shuffled down the flat looking for any sign of fish. The wind and heavy cloud cover made this the most difficult day of fishing on our sojourn. The lone fish came as I spotted a very large bonefish cruising between a small mangrove and an abandoned lobster trap. Moving perpendicular to the shoreline, I easily spotted his frame. I made my cast and watched him close in on my fly. I stripped tight to a fish that I expected to be the big guy, but it wasn't. A second fish, much smaller, that I hadn't seen took the fly and the two bones took off. I landed the good fish, explaining to Matt what could have been, if the larger fish was a little quicker to the fly.

Meeting back up, Adam experienced a fishless shuffle as he zig-zagged his way down the flat trying to cover as much water as possible. At one moment, he turned around to find a huge permit swimming right by him. They made eye contact and the fish was gone. We made our way back to the beaches hoping to increase our chances of seeing fish in skinny water. In between passing clouds we had two solid chances at very large fish. One of them proving successful. 

Heading down the beach, I heard a loud splash. Naturally I scanned the horizon looking for the wrath of a passing barracuda but didn't see anything. Coming around the side of a mangrove I saw the what was making all the commotion. I large tail was sticking out of the surf surrounded by a column of mud and sand. Emerging from it came a large bonefish at my 12 o'clock. I aimed towards 10, let my line go and the wind carried it to the right my leader landing directly overtop the back of the fish. At the same moment, he went down for another meal, my leader safely descending to the bottom just beyond his tail. When he popped his head out of another cloud, I stripped twice. He aggressively turned over ninety degrees for the fly and I was treated to the longest backing run I have ever experienced that prompted me to actually look to make sure I had backing left. It was the heaviest bonefish I have ever caught.

With low tide peeking, the fishing screeched to a grinding hault. We headed to our rendezvous on the dock where we waited out a few storms and caught some sleep on the dock. We repaired wading wounds on our feet, ate some catered ravioli from a can, and watched the sunset. Halfway through the trip, we were beginning to experience some heavy fatigue. However, something was about to happen that was going to wake us all up.

salmon

Hard to stay serious if you wake up and the first thing you do is taking two salmon and then a piss - in that order! Breakfast and back to the water - what a life. Just my 3rd day here but I can already say that this is the most impressive thing I've ever done speaking about freshwater fishing. Is this the pay-off for all the countless hours, swinging lines and my hope down the river without felling the redemption of a salmon bite? If so, god damn it was worth the efforts. But no restrains this time - seize the day...and the fish.

2 salmon before breakfast - a neat size colored hen and a fresh little buck. I lost another fish on my very first cast; after the hook up I played it like a sissy because I wanted to capture the whole thing as a POV fishporn - the moment it leaped, I realized it was a quite neat chromer. Of course it came lose, the nature of that game. Anyhow, two before breakfast. Another two on my first stake out. Both colored but neat size fish. My guide Eduard didn't even bother to look over so I decided to carry the camera on my next stake out. I jumped off the boat again, first fish another brown hen, then a sweet 4kg chromer that swollowed the fly all the way down. I tried to cut it off but it was bleeding so badly that I had t keep it for a Sashimi lunch - a pitty and my very first Salmon kill ever period. I shouldn't be such a pussy - even die hard C&R purists know about the collateral damage rate... and from Guide's point of view, shit happens. Another really nice but skinny seatrout before I took a 1 1/2 hour nap on the bank. I live a bear's life. eating, sleeping and catching salmon... damn, I dig it. Lunch was great - fresh salmon and Vodka (+ Vodka + Vodka) some more fishing, some more fish... This is just the beginning - the Fall run has just arrived and I got the feeling that this week is going to shinny! Salmon No.17 landed today - right on...

Ah, another thing - before I forget - I hate fishing on my own because the images suck ass...Selftimer piece of shit.

Don't miss the other entries of "Ponoi Salmon Journey"

Day 2! First thing that pops into my mind after getting up is ambushing those odd Salmon in the junction pool of Brevyeni Creek. Crawling out of the bed, falling right into my fishing gear just to get up fully dressed and equipped. Salmon time. The small green butt at the end of my tippet has proven to be deadly accurate in terms of both salmon and seatrout. As I reached the middle part of that section, one nice size fish head and tailed  above my position, so I went up again and covered the spot with some 90° casts. The fish followed 3 of 3 presentations. It was obviously attracted but not convinced - even changing patterns couldn't make it out for that one. Same fly again and a few meter below, a fish took the fly in the fast water. I was fucking a little bit around with that one since I was trying to get a video. As it jumped I realized thru the lense of the camera that I was attached to an Osenka - a bright fall run Salmon. Probably sealiced... the moment the though has passed my mind, it came loose...Damnit. Back to the lodge. Breakfast and back to the water again: I got my revenge. I landed two Osenkas this day, including a really nice fish that I took out of the whitewater just above a rapid that marks the border of the area that is accessible with the boats. Good fighting fish that left me smiling back at the bank as I released it. Good fun! Just below the rapids I tried to wade out to a shallow part that looks really neat but I took a full dip which dropped me back fro a couple of hours, drying my whole hit in the sun. I lost 3 more fish that day, hell knows why... but that's the way it is. Back to work, I needed some footage, so I followed Boris a little bit with the camera...10 Salmon after two day - 14 Seatrout. Jesus I love this place. Best part of the day, the riverside lunch that we had! A playground for big boys. Speeding around with jetboats, flying helicopter, eating salmon sashimi at the bank of one of the most prolific salmon water of this planet!

Don't forget to check out the other entries of "Ponoi Salmon Journey"

The adventure continues! I tried to enjoy the breakfast as good as possible, which is a hard task since a river full of salmon is just waiting a few steps away! Anyhow, you need the nutrition to keep on going day and night... something to charge your batteries. Into the jet-boats and with the speed of light to the first pool. 2 fish for me, one for Gregory - all colored and rather small but a good start anyway! A neat swing exercise that proofs the retrieve and swing speed was just right. Frequent followers might know that I've fished quite a few spots around the globe for various species and some of the most prestigious game fish but the feeling when a Salmon attacks the fly on a neat swing is stellar - one of the most addictive things in the world of fly fishing! A damn good felling when the rod bends towards the unseen force that is raging at the other end of the line. The next pool produces two more fish for me plus some really nice seatrouts. The quality of those fish is amazing; well fed, 2-3lb, sea-liced and absolutely fresh. Great fun and 6 fish on my daily counter (only Salmon)! Obviously I was hitting the honey spot a few times since I got connected to two fish in a row that were bigger than the average. First fish took the fly on a 90° swing, took my entire running line, jumped and came loose - a nice 12-14lb fish. Second fish didn't even show up, it was just swimming till the fly popped out... Although this is the very first time that I fished for Salmon off the boat, I don't really did the boat fishing at all. Luckily, Ponoi offers endless opportunities for both boat- and wading anglers, so I took all my fish wading whilst Gergory and Boris were anchoring the boat at some other hot spots. Next pool - new chance. As I was approaching another really fishy spot I saw a couple of fish jumping. Fresh bullets, absolutely bright! I changed my never-failing green butt for a willy gun templedog tube. Boris gave me whistle, In case I get connected to a fish that is exceeding the 10pound range. The underwater footage is my priority here although I really enjoy the fishing. The housing was in the boat since it's a pain in the ass to carry that heavy piece of metal all day long. Well, after 3 cast the line was slipping thru my finger, I gently lifted the rod into the fish and whistled my lips numb... The fast water made it hard to tell how big the fish was but it was definitely big enough for the footage. When it jumped I was quite surprised that it was a quite big colored cock fish, because I saw the bright ones showing them selfs in that particular spot. The fish was in good shape and fought very well. Boris arrived as I beached it. Time for some UW images of that 14-15pound grumpy male with a huge and absolutely rediculous kype. 7 fish for the catchbook and some UW-Images for the stock. Time to hit the Banya... What a great day it was!

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The sun crept slowly up on the horizon showering the inside of the tent with beams of light. Tossing and turning, Adam and I refused to get up until the light edged up our torsos and shined directly on our faces, beginning our morning ritual. We needed to get up and into the car as soon as possible to avoid the onslaught of bugs. Our safety net was the dock two miles away. Jutting a hundred yards out to sea from the mangroves, it contained the only respite from the marauders and a stiff cross wind. It also allowed us precious time to change, eat, brush our teeth, and air out the rental of foul smells and bugs. We rushed out into the sand, woke up Matt in the hammock, and hopped into the rental.

On the dock, eating our breakfast, we decided to vary our plan of attack and give the main drag a break. We decided to hit up the beaches and stalk large single bonefish in skinny water. Matt opted to take out one of the pontoons and drift out in the deeper water. 

Dropping Matt off, Adam and I fooled around on the first section of beach. On this beach, the bottom consists almost entirely of sand extending over a hundred yards from the shore. You can often see bonefish coming from a considerable distance, but the sun had receded behind the clouds starting a long game of peek a boo. For ten seconds, we had great visibility, then someone would turn out the lights and you couldn't see anything. Despite the conditions, we each had chances at fish but failed to get their attention. We headed back to the car and headed to a different beach down the coast. Matt continued to play in the distance. 

After discussing the previous events, Adam headed out in front. I waited again and checked my knots to make sure everything was ready to go. I resumed my crawl, and soon spotted a fish coming into the shoreline. I called out to Adam and he trotted toward my direction before dropping at the waist to hide his silhouette. I pointed out the fish, but he was considerably closer this time and over top the mottled bottom making him disappear. I could barely see him and gave Adam directions to cast 20 ft. directly left  of a lone mangrove sticking inches out of the water. As he made the cast, Adam spotted the fish. His crab landed almost on top of the fish's head. It didn't matter. The bonefish turned and engulfed it. It took off to the horizon, prompting Adam to say, "He's angry, ohhhh, he's angry"!

We picked up Matt a considerable distance away. He told stories of tarpon busting bait and bonefish swimming under the pontoon completely oblivious to his existence. He had trouble getting ideal positioning though in the stiff winds. We took our routine mid-afternoon siesta feasting on Red Bull and potato chips before heading back to the beach. Immediately after busting through the mangroves, we spotted a tailing fish right in front of us, its fins glistening in the sunlight. Matt took the shot. As he stripped in the bonefish was on the fly visibly following. Matt stripped set on what we all thought was a bonefish. However it was a pilot fish, which we took to calling lieutenants. The only bonefish we saw that evening darted off the flats in a violent symphony of water.

Ahh, waking up at 5 AM, getting into the waders, rigging up the 7weight single handed rod, breathing the fresh tundra air and blasting the first casts into the foggy morning at Ponoi. Life is good. Especially then, when you tease 2 Salmon on a Cascade Tube just before breakfast. What a great place - I am totally amazed and probably lost forever. Today I brought the camera down to the water, so I got the shot from my second salmon from Ponoi (and my 3rd) - both fish were colored hens. I cannot wait to first my very first guided season with Boris today. I am really stokes and I am looking forward to seeing some more fish... I'll grab coffee now, not that I need it to get up...

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Okay, make sure to read "candied anger" to understand this entry. As we took off, I passed out...the asian chick that was sitting to my left must have had a a great flight. Mumbling 2 Meter guys unconsciously nooding to the beat of a far away dream... In fact I should have been dreaming of salmon and my joy ride journey, but I was just pretty weird mix of unarticulated ideas. I woke up, changed airplanes and the asian chick for a finnish business lady, passed out again till the bump of the landing airplane brought me back to real life. Helsinki my friends! So I am right on track. Unfortunately my rodtube wasn't. In other words: 9 Doublehanders and 1 Singlehanded rod are stuck in Amsterdam, reaching Helsinki on the next day, when I am already supposed to stand on the riverbanks of river Ponoi. No problem at all, I mean there's no problem to borrow a rod for a day, but we have a freaking helicopter flight inbetween, and there's no chance in missing it or take another ride (according to the women at the airport, an extra flight both dirction costs roughly around 20 000 Euros) - or to be a bit more precisely: "Stephan, go fuck yourself for cutting 24 Shootingheads specifically for your rods. Nice plan with that classic speyrod and the skagit stuff too. Have fun fishing whatever (Splitcane please)!" Ah stop, I got a sparerod in my normal luggage, a 7wt Opti River. During the ride to the airport, the well instructed lady informed the whole group that the last week has been the poorest in the recordings of 2011 with just 187 Salmon up to 18lb. on 20 rod in 4 days. Ah an before I forget, the water went from 0.6 to 2.9 meters within 2 1/2 days...GOOOOOOOOOOOOD! Shuffles the deck a little bit.

Okay, I am in Murmansk now and having my first plastic bottle of vodka, which turned out to be just plane water. Well, that cliche is busted now! Steve, the camp manager, had some great news. First of all, the water is still very high but clear (fuck yeah) - the other thing, we arrived 1 1/2 hours before schedule, what means, we will be arriving the camp 1hr earlier too. I cannot wait to blast my first cast at the homepool - oh yeah, I forgot almost that my rods were still on their way to Helsinki and there's no freaking way of getting them up to the camp! I have to borrow one at the camp and If fortune is a real bitch, I will end up with a 18ft. #11 one piece double handed rod. I don't want to complain, I am in freaking Russia. Now I wish this plastic to be a vodka bottle...

Helicopter ride!!! Honestly, is there anything cooler than flying a little bit around with a helicopter. Those nasty and huge Mi-8t helicopter are really bad ass. I was in battery charging mode - that means, sleeping, being overwhelmed, sleeping again... being overwhelmed... and so on. Pretty basic life circle but it will pay eventually off. I am facing 5 full days of salmon fishing... my machine needs to run 24hr 5 days in a row...

I jumped off the helicopter as we were approaching the camp. The idea was, to take pictures of the landing heli... Everything went fine except for the brand new B&W Pol Filter on my camera... first day and the sand ground pretty much sandpapered the glass as the heli was landing... 156 Euro shot... Well, I took my stuff, packed it into the room. Boris, the camp manager of the Brevyeni camp gave us a little instruction and all over sudden I got my first chance to swing a fly. My 7weight Opti River single handed rod was the only rod in my normal luggage, so I was not 100% helpless...Rigged up with a WF7F Evotec line and a 13ft leader with a Cascade tube I went to the homepool. Without waders, without glasses, without anything at all. I just wanted to see if that thing if fishable under these conditions. 3rd cast triggered a bite but that fish came loose on the first jump. Electrifying feeling and I was right into it. I should have brought my camera but I was a little bit too focused. As one of the other guest came down I landed my first russian Salmon. 6-7lb colored Hen (3rd cast) I fished on and hooked another one on a hitched tube that came loose too. Time to get the camera, but it was already too late. 2 seatrout as a bonus... then it was time for Dinner... and Vodka... a lot of Vodka... Good night guys!

Here a little ray of light for all of the guys who desperately tried to keep me away from going ;-) HaHa! I was supposed to leave at 11 AM from Cologne, the fact that I am writing these lines now shows that something went wrong. I missed the flight although I attended two hours before departure. The underwater housing in my case was obviously reason enough to call me out. Identifying it and missing my flight was a simultaneous thing. Coolest thing, since my booking agent booked my flight not directly via the airline I had to pay another couple hundred bucks for the late flight to Helsinki tonight. Fuck you KLM!!!

While I am hammering these words with greased fat fingers into the keyboard, angrily chewing my BACON-Burger. The booking agent for the journey ex. Helsinki just send me that image from today...+ a brief not that says the water is reaching it's peak soon; Temperature is moderate-cold... Damn it, it's Salmon Time and I am coming! Late, but I will be there! That image candied my anger... epic fish time!

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...that means, my room has turned into war-ground. A chaos that reveals it's order only to it's creator. Me! Flies, Lines, Rods, Reels, Cameras and countless little parts are flying around but I am still cool since I just read this news:

The Ponoi River Co

Second half great start!

Today August 7th, Ryabaga and Brevyenni camp Managers reported the successful landing and release of several fall run fish.

This anxiously awaited news is just the beginning of very exciting times on the banks of Ponoi.

Check your backing!

See you soon.

The Ponoi Team. 

Good OMEN for me

Under the cover of darkness we settled down on a suitable stretch of beach for the night. I was pretty tired after helping Matt and Mark pitch their tent so I decided to rough it in the front seat of the SUV instead of setting up the hammock. Although I’ve done this many times before, I regret the decision to this day. I expected to spend the first twenty minutes or so killing all the mosquitoes, that’s normal. Twenty minutes gone and past, I thought I killed the last mosquito in that vehicle countless times. Each time lying back down only to hear that dreaded sound once again…EEeeEEee! Another great night’s sleep came to an end sitting upright, wide-eyed, and smiling as the sun crept over the ocean slowly shedding its light on paradise.

Arriving at the flat, we decided to change our plan of attack slightly. The first day the middle man in our chain reported seeing some alarmed / weary fish. So we staggered our three prong attack, dropping the middle man back to produce a deep “V" to try and buy these weary fish some time to settle down. Making our way out onto the flat I opted for the outside lane and headed for deeper water, Matt took the inside, and Mark dropped far back in the middle.

Matt and I slowly began shuffling down the flat in search of bones. This morning in particular the flat itself seemed to be alive. There was movement in every direction. As for me, I find these days to be extremely hard to spot fish. I can’t bring myself to ignore how majestic sea turtles and sharks look as they swim by, even if that means I miss spotting a fish or two. One sea turtle made the mistake of trying to hide from me by lying motionless on the bottom directly in front of me. I slowly crept up to it and placed my foot gently on its back and reached down and picked it up. Haha! I have to hand it to the little guy for sticking to his game. I’ve seen these guys jet off a flat faster than a spooked permit in the past. Hopefully it learned from the encounter so it doesn’t end up as table fair.

A few minutes later I got my first shot of the day as two bones entered my view. I placed my fly and no sooner was I connected. One of the bones blitzed the fly the second it hit the water. I don’t recall even transferring the line to my stripping finger, it was unreal. After a brief battle my first of the day came reluctantly to hand. As we continued down the flat I had a pretty unnerving encounter with a large Caribbean reef shark. Mark had spotted the shark 100yds off to my right heading in my direction. I just stood there and watched as it approached. As it got closer I locked eyes with a gorgeous a seven foot shark. It was on course to pass twenty feet behind me and I thought nothing of it until it turned on my mud trail and was coming straight up my backside. Fuck. At this moment instinct took control of my actions. I extended my 7wt. and poked it in the face twice and it slowly turned and swam off. It was pretty awesome. Continuing our way down the flat I connected once more as a loner bone thought it could escape my peripheral vision.

After lunch and a successful search for Red Bull we were ready once again to comb the beach for tailing fish. With two fish under my belt for the day I sat back and watched as Matt and Mark tried their luck. Matt was up first, spotting some glistening tips he crept into position. Kneeling on the beach he waited for the fish to position itself just right before he made his cast. A few strips later his fly was in the crosshairs of a bonefish on a mission. Matt was connected in moments. It’s awesome to watch a bonefish accelerate to a fly in water not deep enough to cover its back.

Shortly after Matt’s fish was landed, Mark found himself in an identical situation. His eyes were locked on a set of glowing fins in the setting sun. Already in position he made his cast and got the response he was looking for, a V shaped wake quickly making its way to the fly. Once hooked the bonefish suddenly didn’t like the seclusion of the mangroves anymore and took Mark’s fly line on a tour of the main flat. Landing this fish concluded our fishing for the day with enough time to enjoy the last colors of the setting sun.

A 10wt, three or four different lines, leader and tippet material and a bunch of evergreen flies is all you need to be a happy tarpon bum. Smart! Salmon fishing for example requires both more tactical pre-trip adjustments and a wide variety of overall tackle, since the conditions can differ from super high to super-low within a week. That means, I am pretty busy tying flies, cutting and melting together shootingheads, preparing leaders, rods, reels, waders, bug nets, etc...a huge mess.

Here are my equipment ideas

• LTS X1 #9 13'6ft + LTS Across Custom with 16,2 Meters and 46,2gramm
• LTS X1 #8 12'4ft + LTS Across Custom with 11,1Meters and 33,0gramm
• LOOP Power Spey #9 14ft + Quadrotip Spey
• LOOP Göran Andersson Signature #9 12,6ft + Custom Adapted FL/SIII 33gramm
• LOOP Göran Andersson Signature #6 12,0ft + Rio Skagit flight 400grain
• LOOP Göran Andersson Signature #7 10,0ft + Evotec WF7F

Our arrival signaled the capstone of our month long sojourn in the Caribbean. As the ferry workers unloaded our pontoons onto the dock, we patiently awaited the arrival of our wheels with our eyes affixed towards the flats. We were pumped to say the least, our minds warped by heightened expectations and two long weeks of very slow fishing and bad conditions. This was our time to shine.

The SUV rocked from side to side with two pontoons awkwardly placed on top, as we made our way down a dirt road. Soon we were sinking into a drying salt pond as we drove all the way to the edge of the mangroves. Stepping into the hot Caribbean sun, we slowly rigged up several rods, tied and checked our knots, and examined boxes of flies. We settled on a three pronged attack over almost a mile of water. Adam settled on the inside lane with Matt in the middle, and myself on the outside. Overlapping our peripheral vision to increase our chances of spotting the elusive golden ghost.

Elusive may be an understatement. This is not Andros South, and we are limited to foot pursuit fly fishing. On a daily basis, walking several miles, we only had 1-4 shots at bonefish each day. The bones are not in vast schools and instead are in singles or pairs. Our time on the flats was spent hoping that the shadow of a bonefish would come into your viewpoint, when they had the entire horizon upon which to roam. Our patience and concentration was pushed to the limit. When the chances came, we tried to be ready, and either reveled in glory or dwelled on our failures. 

After an hour of walking, a shadow crept into Adam's cocoons. Without saying a word, he flipped personalities and his body language changed. He bent at the waist and knees to hide his profile from his quarry. He made his presentation and varied the retrieve, matching the pair of bones advancing towards his position. Matt and I heard the fly line in the air and turned our heads, reluctantly losing focus on a foreground of nothing but sand and water. Stripping tight to the first bonefish of the trip, Adam let out a hoot and several sentences that did not make sense. He was in a state of pure bliss and was wearing his emotion on his sleeves. 

Ten minutes later, the scenario repeated itself. Adam quickly landed another great bonefish leaving Matt and I down 2-0 with several hours of day light remaining. Matt and I had our chances during our three hour march downwind but we came up empty handed. Exiting the water, we had a hike back to the car. The sun had depleted our bodies of hydration and our water bottles were empty. Nonetheless we headed back to the car where we found hot water and roasting cans of ravioli to refuel upon. 

With only a few hours remaining on our first day, we headed to a shallow area along the coast, looking for tailing fish. We found them. With Matt and Adam sitting on the sand, I stalked a large tailing fish in mere inches of water. He was completely unaware of our presence, while actively feeding on a bottom of rolling piles of sand. A close presentation and a very light fly was needed in such skinny water. On my third cast, he noticed an easy meal and charged leaving a wake upon the water. Just like that, I am into my first fish of the trip and he took off towards the mangroves. I placed the brakes on him and brought him to hand. Although you couldn't see it beneath my stalker mask, a smile crept across my face.

With the sun setting behind the tiny island, we made our way down the beach to our new mothership. We had to find a place to stay for the night amongst marauding no see ums and mosquitos. Along the way, we exchanged stories of our chances during the day. We talked of stand offs, spooked fish, and a large 10-12 pounder that snuck up behind us on the flat, carrying several pilot fish with him. We tried to comprehend where we were and what we were experiencing but we could not. A shaking of the head was all we could muster. Such is the case when one finds themselves in the moment. 

As the rising sun flooded the volcanic hillsides, we piled our gear on the dock to await our ferry. In a few short hours, we'd be wet-wading, in the moment, for the next 8 days.

With a full moon a few days away, the tides were fluctuating at very high extremes and they occurred at points in the day that were not ideally suited to bonefishing. Nonetheless, we headed out on a falling tide (our favorite) to hit up a local flat we knew held fish. Reliably. What was once a flat was now an exposed region of dead coral and turtle grass leaving only a hundred yard stretch to fish. We had the sun and wind at our backs which helps considerably sighting and fishing to bonefish over deep turtle grass. Thankfully, we found tailing fish in the distance. A school of 2-4 lb. fish moving cautiously towards skinny water and we were there to meet them. The fish were schooling in a circular pattern and the first two times they came our way, an olive spawning shrimp was followed but refused. I switched patterns to a tan kwabbit and found success with a bonefish taking mere feet from my rod tip. It was my first of the trip and my first ever from the difficult flats of my brother's home island. It was a mountain I had been climbing for nearly two weeks and it was the tipping point I needed to find success later on in the trip.

My brother an I exited the flat to give the bones some rest before heading back for another go around. We hit up several sunken vessels along the shoreline of a harbor for some barracuda action. Several small fish came to hand using a jigging minnow pattern without wire leader. As the fly fell apart it was only a matter of time before a larger fish bit through the mono. After peeling line off my reel, I couldn't keep up, and the thin line found the knifelike teeth ending our barracuda session.

Heading back to the flat the water had receded even further and we waded the deeper areas. The school of bones were on the edge and we had to wait a little while before they decided to come on. On top of the wait, they were extremely cautious. My brother casted well ahead of them and had his pattern waiting in the turtle grass for their arrival. A perfect strategy to simulate escaping prey ahead of an advancing school of fish. Connected, he gently cradled his prize in the water. The bone visually displayed its surroundings on its mirror like scales. Colors of green, blue, silver, and white disappeared upon release back to an abode of turtle grass.

After five days of sailing and constant fishing, with some of us experiencing very little sleep, we experienced a lull in the action over the next few days. We still fished everyday, but we were now operating on island time. Island time occurs in slow motion. When you set an alarm for 8 in the morning, you don't wake up until 10, and usually don't hit the water until 11. Once your out fishing you take breaks on the beach, fall asleep in a chair, or head to the bar for some extendend day drinking. In short, we were dead tired, and enjoying the surroundings. While this occurred, we focused on several things, one of them being catching a daytime tarpon. We succeeded wildly at catching some baby poon, but our endless search brought us far and wide, fishing from cliffs and by pontoon. Essentially, without a boat, we were screwed.

That left us with some other targets. Nighttime tarpon were always on the menu. Sharks from the beach were also in session. We are talking sharks swimming a few yards from unsuspecting tourists. The largest hooked was a six foot lemon shark 20 ft. offshore that nailed a 12 inch mushy mouth pattern. Snapper were in session on cloudy days, when sighting a bonefish in deep water was not an option. Occasionally, a large snapper met an unexpecting death in the jaws of a large cuda or shark.

Our final task, was catching a permit. We could try for three days in a row trying to catch a permit in all the right spots, but we would never see them. Only when we were least expecting it to happen, did the sickle like tail break the surface of the water. Say, carrying groceries into the house only to have them disappear two minutes later after we were rigged and ready.

The tarpon at night footage lead to a one day delay in our schedule, but I think it was worth it. Swimming with these majestic creatures was something very special and humbling for me. On the way back to our "old" sugar spot we got right into a feeding frenzy! Maneuvering a sailboat to get it in reach of that frenzy is a pain in the neck and our first two attempts were the very definition of poor. Nice try anyway! Matt and I decided to take the dinghy for a little ride. so we were chasing those... whatever it was for at least 30 minutes. Stumbling, running over the flyline with the engine, untangling it from the prop... and of course a lot of swearing. After I've lost a fly on a big fish I finally got connected... to a Jack. I cannot really tell what kind of Jack because I was about to drown myself realizing how big (small) it was... 

At least we got some nice shots - Thanks to Mark who witnessed our mission from the deck of the sailboat ;-)

Due to poor conditions and few fish, we decided to hoist anchor and sail towards greener pastures on another nearby island. Talk of reefs, archipelagos and permit echoed throughout the hull as we hashed out the plan. It was decided to sail through the afternoon, arrive in time for dinner and then fish the next two days on rented dinghies that we'd use to get from flat to flat.

We pulled up at a rock with a restaurant on it. They had, awesomely, placed some underwater lights along the dock. We watched perhaps a hundred tarpon meandering through the light as we ate our ridiculously overpriced cheeseburgers. That night, Mark and I again climbed into our hammocks strung from the headsail to the main. The wind was insane and neither of us slept a wink. It was miserable.

The next day found all 7 of us fishing a single, huge reef flat. There was a drop-off, a coral section, a turtle grass sections and mangrove shoreline. We spread out and took up positions at lower tide. Mark, Adam and I were hoping to ambush a permit. After an hour of impersonating herons, we saw a massive storm system, appear through a gap in the islands, 5 kilometers east of our position. With it came a wall of rain.

As the system raced towards us, the mountains disappeared behind the wall of falling water. Lighting struck. We were in a pretty bad predicament. The wind was howling, which made shouting to each other useless. I kneeled in the knee-deep water and laid my 9ft lighting rod on the turtle grass bottom. I tried to motion to Mark and Adam, 200 meters distant, to do the same. I hoped they understood my frantic waving, but they didn't get down. The storm overtook us in a fury. Mark and Adam disappeared into the mist. I picked up my rod and began to trudge towards Mark's last known position.

Amazingly, Adam had the same idea. All three of us had walked towards a spot equidistant from each other. We appeared to each other simultaneously and then sat in the water, feeling safety in numbers. We sat there, amazed at the fury of the rain that pounded our backs. We looked around but couldn't see a thing. Then, miraculously, a figure appeared at the limit of my vision. It was Alex D. piloting the dinghy and Stefan H. signaling to us from the bow! They couldn't see us, but were motoring along the drop-off, hoping that we'd see them. It worked.

We raced towards the shape in the background and threw ourselves into the small boat. We learned that Stephan and Alex H were taking shelter in an abandoned building on shore and that they were safe. We high-tailed it to the mothership for some form of shelter.

Once the rain subsided enough to see more than 30ft. Alex went in search of Stephan and the other Alex. He found them and returned everyone to the mothership. We appraised our situation and decided that we had had enough of the crap weather. We were all water-logged, Adam probably more so than any of us judging by his sick hands, and thought that a nice, warm bed in a stationary and enclosed building would be nice.

We again hoisted anchor and made for home, disappointed that we got in to so few fish but content in the knowledge that we would not be giving up for the remainder of our month together.

Back at the mothership, we learned of another successful outing by land and it was decided that it would be our turn fishing the the flats by rental car. After cooking up some burgers and hot dogs below deck and downing a few beers, my brother and I climbed into our sleeping quarters. Two ENO hammocks strung up on the masts of the ship where they swayed precariously over the side of the boat. The constant rocking of the boat and howling of 30 mph winds made for difficult sleeping conditions. However, our tired bodies fell asleep easily under a blanket of stars with the milky way galaxy easily visible to the naked eye. Around 3 a.m. the winds increased and a smattering of rain on my face indicated an approaching squall. Soon, Matt, Stephan, Stefan, and I joined the others below deck, where we distributed ourselves on benches and the floor for the remaining dark hours of the night.

The rain continued until almost noon before clearing.  It allowed us a few hours on the flats before departing the island. Matt, Adam, Alex Davidson, and I decided to fish a section of beaches where we would sight fish to bones in very skinny water. Our last second decision proved wise when after bushwacking through mangroves and jumping cacti we feasted our eyes on several tailing bones. First on deck, Adam delicately landed an offering of crab in front of two tailers that promptly fought over it. The hookset pulled the fly out of their mouths before they tucked tail in a symphony of flying water. Adam decided to trim the size of crab to allow the hook point to have a greater chance at finding flesh. Batting second, I found a single fish mere feet offshore that pounced on a hybrid kwabbit/kwan with a chenille body. My fly also popped out. Examining the fly revealed a rusted hook underneath the chenille that was not visible to the naked eye. The thick lips of the bonefish broke it in two leaving a hookless fly and an unhappy fishermen left to dwell on a beginner's mistake. Alex hooked up with a nice fish that shook free as he landed it. We were 0-3.

With the deadline of 3 o'clock approaching, we started to become nervous. The thought of another boneless day on the flats crept into our minds when something unexpected happened. While nursing a Newport on the bank, a large silouhette crept into the view of Adam's polarized shades. Heading towards shore, the torpedo shaped bone crept ever closely to a freshly shaved crab pattern tucked into the sand. One strip later, he pounced and Adam let out a triumphant scream of joy. Together we gathered to feast our eyes on a very large fish. Little did we know, but this exact scenario would prove to be a taste of things to come on a future adventure on the very same beaches.

Day 7 of our journey was a little slow - but there was no need to rush either. We took the dinghy out to some flats to take both pictures of flies and landscape underwater. It was time to leave the island towards undiscovered salty shores to get some feeding frenzy action at night - not for fishingwise tough but for the footage in general. Whilst sailing back we found a marina dock with underwater flood-lights. Jackpot! Fishing is marinas is not allowed at all, so there was good chance to find some fish at night. Sun set down, and we were ready to go. As expected, huge schools of small and midsize tarpon showed up and we filmed it all. The entire footage, coming soon!

Don't miss the other "Skinny Water Diaries - Saltwater" entries

We awoke early on day two of the sailing trip swaying back and forth in our hammocks on the deck of the sail boat. The weather was pristine on this day and we were all excited for a great day of action. Once again, it was decided that we were to man the dinghy and take it to the east end of the island. This time, the winds were more calm in the morning but we pushed further east arriving 8 miles and 90 minutes later. Not wanting to spook the fish, we took the dinghy to the edge and then walked her the remaining quarter mile onto the flat. Hard work that would be repeated multiple times that day. 

Our plan was to fish a larger area of the flat from than the previous day that saw good action in the afternoon hours. This time we would have the sun and wind at our backs.  The first hour saw several trunk fish come to hand simply because the bonefish weren't around. After a brief walk back to the dinghy for lunch (vienna sausages!) I spotted a broader silhouette approaching in the distance that soon stopped. The broad black sickle of a tail stuck out of the surface and a wry smile stretched across my face. Permit.

The perm was only about fifty feet away and heading straight for the dinghy. My brother and I were not rigged for permit and I contemplated changing the mink shrimp I had on for a delicious crab but there wasn't any time. I softly moved into position while letting out line. I dropped the fly in the fish's path and she made a beeline in that general direction. She followed a full ten feet never taking my fly despite my varied retrieve. As I stripped in leader, she finally saw us and casually turned and faded into the distance. Permit 1, Mark 0. 

The rest of the day saw us ferrying and walking the dinghy on and off several flats trying to find the fish. With so much pristine habitat, they eluded us. In our desperate and dehydrated state, shadows and coral suddenly became moving bonefish as we imagined the images we so eagerly sought. Soon we began cracking, and Matt rested his eyes and legs on the dinghy. A descending sun beckoned us back to the mothership but not before experiencing an engine problem that stranded us for twenty minutes. A quick fix left us with barely 20% power and we limped home arriving almost two hours after our departure with another long hot day on the flats coming to an end. 

Okay, now I am a little bit under pressure because I am limited in both words and space to explain what has happened within the 24hrs. We were fishing just two spots, the flat and the docks, but the the chances and possible encounters were amazing in both numbers and species. The very first good day since we left Europe towards the caribbean sea  - don't get me wrong, I am not complaining at all. One hurricane day here is way better than a 80cm Browntrout rising for my fly back in Europe. Fishing was limited due to the weather and the the last days has proven our theories to be right. Fish is around, it's just so god damn  unproductive to cover a 10 square-kilometer flat by blind casting. However, the first night one the boat really was a torture for my spine but as soon as I went on deck to see what the weather was like my metabolism pumped my body full of adrenaline. Holy smokes, incoming tide in the morning, bright sunny weather, moderate wind...time for the flat pirates to ambush some chrome! Again, we split up in two groups to cover more water and even more important, to cover more water effectively!  Alexander had the golden shot today since he picked the wading line close to the mangroves which turned out to be the honey pot - the high tide pushed all those fish into the shallowest areas of the flat. The shallow water turns out the worst in a bonefish - ever single thing that is trying to escape will find it's quick end in a Bonefish's viciously chewing jaws. I though that the transition-zone between waist and ankle deep water could be a good choice since all of them have to pass it sooner or later, but it was obviously too late since Alex cleaned up the shallow water... Finally I ended up spotting three really nice Permit with a leading fish that was roughly between 20-22lbs.  2 of them had a closer look on my fly but the didn't take it - lucky enough, I was fishing with a 6weight, a skinny water bonefish leader (12ft - 10lb) and a tiny EP Mantis Shrimp. I had five shots on them, triggered two closer looks and on my last presentation (yeah,on that one is stripped the fly) I spooked them. Might have been the pattern which tends to flip as soon as you strip it. My best shot on permit so far. They appeared out of nothing in a 12-15Meter range. Super smooth guys, no hustle at all - these guys were taking it easy, checking out their flat-crip - a cool street gang.  Alex picked up two really nice Bones meanwhile and I took a couple shots. The last area of that flat is known for it's decent amount of small sharks, so it was time or the video camera. Time for the 6weight and a little bit of Mojo - some Cheeky Mojo!

Here are some flat shots and a short video about vicious shark eats:

Early morning and it is pitch black outside as we load up the SUV with all our gear and food for a week long excursion. We drive down deserted roadways still wet from a weeks worth of rain dodging stray dogs, cats, and chickens. Arriving at the harbor we lay eyes on our home for the next five days, a 42 ft. long sailboat appropriately named the "Sea Dancer". 

Soon we are launched, and I find myself on my very first sailboat ride. I am in the moment, on a boat like Leo, bustin five knots with the wind whippin at my coat. We are heading north with high aspirations for some above average bonefish and maybe an elusive permit. Along the way we are trolling a spinning rod and a 13 weight intent on dredging something up from the deep. As we make our way to an outcrop of rocks rising from the seafloor, the spinning rod doubles over and Matt finds himself fighting a nice Yellowtail Snapper that Stephan tails and hoists for a victory shot. Things are quiet for the next few hours as each person on the boat prepares themselves mentally for the next few days.

Soon the island appeared in the distance, its tallest point appearing as whispering pines. A sailor's map was pulled from below and we hovered around like soldiers discussing the plan of attack. The group divided in two with one armed with a rental vehicle to assault the wadable flats and the other given a poor man's dinghy to fly up the coast. Adam, Matt, and I manned the dinghy and spent two hours working our way east against wind and heavy seas. All our gear and clothing soaked through with salt and our asses were sore from the journey but we stepped out into a sandy flat as far as ours eyes could see. 

As we slowly made our way back west, we floated with the dingy and waded into the sun with the wind at our back. After a half mile of nothing but sand we found several pods of bones and played a game of cat and mouse until the sun began to set. Adam and I failed on several chances due to severe cases of buck fever with Matt coming through in the clutch nabbing a nice 4-5 lb. fish. The bones were nearly invisible on the sandy bottom so we resorted to stalking into 30-40 mph winds to obtain better visibility. 

Around 6:30 we realized that the sun would soon be setting and we had a long dinghy ride back to the boat. With the wind and current at our backs, we cut the time in half and arrived by headlamp to reconvene with the rest of the guys to tell tales of fish lost, landed, and released. 

Bad news, the weather is not improving at all. It's is getting actually worse every day. Time to hit the road or in other words, the boat. The mountains are a magnet for the rain, a barrier in the very meaning of the word. The idea of a flat island sounds better and better with every minute... we need some fish, or at least a chance of spotting them. A couple of 6,8,10 and 13weights and some Skinny Water Culture Microfibers is all we need...We are sailboat-trippin'! A couple of miles of open water later we are jumping of the sailboat's dinghy and setting our footsteps onto the endless and most marvelous flats that I have ever seen period. While we were rigging up the gear, the first permit tailed right in front of us - my hands were shaking so bad that I couldn't even tie my fly on. Good thing though, the adrenalin kept me running the entire afternoon. Alexander and I ambushed one really nice Bonefish each and I blew another chance on a fucking good double digit single fish, at least 12lb - what a smart-ass grey ghost! Ah, before I forget, the spot was full of shark... we have to film that action tomorrow. Lemons and Blacktips all over the place - just the right thing for my 6weight! Later on we teamed up with the rest of the syndicate and we got to know that Matt had landed another nice Bonefish. After a great dinner we went to the docks to see if there was tarpon around but we blew the chances we got. Dredging the ground with a sinking line was a bad idea because I all over sudden I was connected to something. The unseen force turned out to be a snagged Eagleray. Here some shots from the first afternoon...

Back to the other issues of "The Skinny Water Saltwater Diaries 2011"

Yeah, it' still raining! Bad thing for us, it hasn't even stopped at night. Spotting fish at night is a though thing, spotting fish at night with heavy wind and rain showers is almost impossible. Did we try it anyway? Of course we did! We got two takes and Stefan took the chance to harvest a decent fish in super tough conditions. Here's Stefan's 118cm fish...

Back to the other issues of "The Skinny Water Saltwater Diaries 2011"

The caribbean weather god said fuck-you, guys! 4th day of bad weather in a row. The pouring rain is really relaxing though, yesterday I slept like a child... Bad weather here is still one million times better than a sunny day back at home...Waiting for the night to come. I can smell CHROME! This video was taken this morning on our way to the flats...

We are still suffering from bad weather and a lot of rain... the good thing though, it's clearing up almost every night - so there are still some chances of getting connected. We've been stalking the flats all day, trying to find Bonefish, Sharks and Cudas. Stefan went for Bones and I was looking for Sharks (heavy Single-Strand Wire) Of course the only Bonefish around passed my way and when Stefan arrived it was already too late... so typical. Anyhow, we had a great dinner together with the rest of the crew. With charged batteries we were heading to one of our night spots to find the water boiling. Although there might be a lot fish around, doesn't have to mean it's easy fishing. It's actually way around. The first cast is always the best because they are not burned at all so Alexander and I were ding it simultaneously with different pattern to see which one works better. I adjusted my floating EP-Peanutbutter a little bit because I was feed up jumping all those fish on 1/0 Gamakatsu SC15. So I took a slightly bigger fly with floating eyes to balance the heavier hook and trimmed the EP-fibers down to make it blend in with the prey. Since the water was really calm we rigged up the 8weights for a delicate presentation with that quite long leader (3.3Meters) My first cast was a little to short and Alexander's floating minnow was already on the right spot. I set another one a little bit further and the first strip triggered a brutal reaction. Strip strike and first run were one action. Bleeding finger and the bad feeling that that was a better fish and the 8weight might have been a bad choice. But when in Rome...Some down and dirty plus a lot of really nice tailwalks and leaps and Stefan grabbed the fish for me. 120cm lenght and 56cm girth which makes it an almost 40lb fish. Not so bad for an 8weight, at night, from the beach...Well, to boil it down. 3rd night in a row that the Tarpon god was generous. I had a couple more eats but those casts were just an excuse to stay up a little longer to watch the endless sky and the shining stars. Life is good.

I got a couple request about the tackle - especially the lines

Lines

When it comes to wading and stalking I prefer the Rio Tropical Outbound Short or the Tropical Clouser. The short and bulky taper is just perfect for short and medium range shots with just one false-cast. The compact design has also a lot of influence on the leader lenght. The WF8F Rio that I am using here in PR transmits the energy smoothly and delivers a 3.3Meter Tarpon leader with a 40lb shocker easily. No worries about the welded loops - I have landed all my bigger tarpon including my personal best on RIO lines and their welded loops. They wont break but I would check it after every trip... When it comes to skiff-fishing I like slightly longer tapers for delicate distance shots. My choice has always been Rio Camo Tip Tarpon. 

The night of day four saw us pitching hammocks in between palm trees around two in the morning. We had just completed and entire day of fishing in terrible rainy conditions followed by a late night session tarpon and critter hunting. Unbeknownst to me, I was stung by some sort of jellyfish as we waded the flats in the night and just as I entered my hammock I had a serious reaction. My body felt like it was on fire. Lying in wet sandy clothes with every inch of your body burning while wrapped in a hammock in the Caribbean humidity is not a conducive place to sleep. I spent the night writhing in pain and discomfort. Around four in the morning, another squall came rolling through. My brother and I found ourselves running bare foot back to the car where we finally found an hour of sleep before waking up for another session in the rain.

That morning we drove to a flat and had a long hike through dense foliage to the water. Along the way we were attacked by mosquitos and no see ums. We found shelter along the wind swept coast but only for a brief while. Another front came moving through the area and we found ourselves trapped on the flat amidst thunder , lightning, and heavy winds. We took shelter along the mangroves where the mosquitos showed zero tolerance. 

The rain barely let up for the rest of the day, which is not good for sight fishing a large promising flat. We didn't see the bonefish until they were under our noses. In the afternoon, we left, thwarted by mother nature with only a few miscellaneous species and dozens of bug bits to show for our efforts. 

Yesterday night was pretty tough and we were hitting the bed at 2am... really good foundation for your stamina if it's got to last the next 2 weeks too. So we wasted the first half of the 2nd (actually our first real fishing day) with sleeping over. Bad weather and low tides were striking enough to justify our laziness. It's been a while since we fished this area (January 2011) so it was time for a little get to know each other again...Whilst casting for Cudas and Snappers (but actually looking for Bones) the wind picked up pretty badly and freaking climaxed to hurricane format.  Umbrellas, high voltage cables and trees were flying around. Tables and cheers were simply blown away and smashed into houses and beachbars. Holy shit, that was amazing. I did my longest cast ever period by lifting the rod tip straight up into the wind - the Rio Outbound on it's way to new horizons. Well, the wind caused a temperature-drop and and stained water or in other words: another break and an appropriate excuse to do something productive... something like, tying Tarpon leaders for example. Our night spot was boiling again but it was mainly small fish (Up to 40lb). For some reason, and I don't quite get why, they are very picky these days. Heavy shockers and mid size flies may work when it's pitch black, but as long as the docklights are still shining they are going for size 2 to 1/0 pattern and that it driving me nuts. To cast those tiny things into the middle of the black ocean I rigged up an 8wt for a delicate presentation. 10wt line would have been too much impact on the surface. I tried pretty much everything out of my box and ended up with a floating EP Peanutbutter in size 1/0 which triggered 5 reactions or eat-attempts. Jumped three of them, landed 1 lost another one. Good size fish for an 8weight - between 25 and 15lb.  Alexander's floating minnow was another killer-pattern: 3 eats in 3 casts. Jumped one, landed one, lost another one...

We are waiting for better conditions...

Stay tuned

The weather continued to spit in our faces as we made our way to a consistently fish-filled flat.  The sky was overcast as we stepped into the water at low tide.  The plan was to take up positions and wait, perhaps for hours, for the bonefish to move onto the flats as the tide rose.  We wanted to be there to meet them.

Two hours in and a blast of cold air hit us from behind.  40mph winds ushered a cold front towards us at incredible speed.  Thunder and lighting cracked as we high-tailed it back to the car to wait out the squall.

As we waited in the safety of the car, we couldn't help but think that the tide would be prime by the time the storm passed.

We waded back into the waters, hoping to meet some bones, but they never showed up.  We resigned ourselves to blindcasting off of the flats and brought to hand a small barjack and a big puffer.

As the sun set, we again returned to the car and headed east towards a small channel between islands.  Adam quickly brought to hand a smallish tarpon while Mark's 10" herring pattern was blitzed by a 40lb barracuda...talk about heart pounding...

As midnight approached we pitched our hammocks between some palm trees.  We wanted to sleep as close to tomorrow's flat as possible, and fish it with the rising sun. Before turning in, we waded the flat a bit to see what we could find at high tide in the middle of the night.  We caught a small squid with a Skinny Water Culture hat but saw nothing else. We climbed into the hammocks and tried to sleep, in anticipation of the action in the morning.

53 hours in transit... flight cancellation, literally no sleep... All the numb feeling were blown away once we set our feet down into the caribbean sand. The purest of all feelings was taking over again: Fishing mode! Dumping the bags at the guest house, rigging up the 10wts (including a Loop Proto for 2K12) rushing to our hotspot to find it full of fish! God damn, what a nice warm welcome! First cast that I did triggered the first eat. Missed it. Recast, another eat... Stripstrike! Airborn... Approximately 35lb fish was hanging at the end of my line. Tried to land it myself, grabbed the shocker and when I tried to burry my thumbs into it's mouth it came loose.... Well Alex went 1 for 1. Adam 5 to 1, Mark 3 for 1 and I got a 10lb fish out of 5 eats and 4 hooksets. Not counting the fish that we tapped on the shocker...

I always find it interesting to begin your day in one part of the world and end your day in some other part. Arriving at the destination, I usually find myself shaking my head in disbelief and asking myself, "what the hell am I doing here?" These trips almost always revolve around fly fishing and it is our vehicle of exploration that takes us places we normally wouldn't go.

We began our day in the early AM packing our bags in Pennsylvania before driving to Newark, NJ to hop on a jet plane. After several long lines and a pretty serious security breach we were the last ones to arrive at the gate for boarding. We made it just in time. Four hours later, we stepped off the plane and into a hot Caribbean sun with a customary shot of rum and a "welcome to paradise".

A few hours later, we unpacked and found ourselves with nothing to do, but go fishing. A descending sun left us with only one option: nighttime tarpon. Before long, we found ourselves with severe cases of line burn and tarpon thumb from hooking tarpon from a 20 foot high bridge. We couldn't have asked for a better start to the trip.

The following day saw us meet up with the rest of the boys from FFN for some round 2 action.

For all guerrillos out there, the tune boost your fishing experience to a whole new level. Inspired by Esteban's "Seatrout At Night Mixtape (Argentina Version)" here another one that we stole from his IPod. The Bonefish Mixtape Vol. 01 (PR-RT-Vers) - Enjoy

I am a little bit lost for words. Just found these two preview shots from the Skinny Water Cultures Factory on our facebook wall and well, not much left to say besides: Fucking, OMG! This stuff is just pure awesomeness! Vince, Chase and the entire SWC Crew - we owe you some heavyweight chrome!

Previewshots by Vince from SWC

H2o Magazine (It/Eng) Italy - Summer Issue 2011

A bilingual publication about fly fishing Jurassic Lake (Argentina)

Featuring: Solid Adventures, Whistler Flyfishing, Loop Tackle Design and Austrian Outdoor Sports

Story (english) and images by Stephan Gian Dombaj

Covershot by Stephan Gian Dombaj 2010

Translation into Italiano - H2o (Giorgio Cavatori)

Releasedate: Late June 2011

Pages: 10 + 1 (Cover)

There are a thousand different ways to catch a thousand different fish with a fly rod. I have tried maybe 5 of those different ways, and some have been rather questionable, but wading a tidal flat, I would contend, provides a uniquely awesome experience.

Hola Guerrillos, It was calm these days. Beside Stefan Franzmann who has been slaying Salmon in Norway, we are all more or less into preparations for our Puerto Rico Trip. New Dome is on the way, custom microfibers are on the run and this little package has just arrived!

At the put in, I carefully slide my SUP yak into the water and position the sun and wind at my back. One aides in casting and the other illuminates a whole lot more water for sight fishing. Setting up shot with a clear few of a vast mud flat, I wait patiently for the arrival of this sessions guests. Bones. The freshwater variety that mirror an upcoming saltwater adversary to a tee. Out from the glare comes a single cruiser, roughly 4-6 pounds, meandering towards me from a distance of 80 ft. Her golden scales blend in perfectly with her surroundings but movement and shadow give her away. With my line already out, I give one false cast before shooting 50 ft. of line and landing a small fly a ways ahead of her. I leave it sink slowly to the bottom and wait for my prey to come into range. Once a suitable distance away, I give a few quick strips and wait for the body language of the freshwater bone to change. Suddenly, she hits the turbo button and her appendages flare, signaling that she is onto the fly. I stop my strip and the bone rushes the fly, stops dead on a dime, and inhales the offering. Even at 4-6 pounds she fights like a true champ running deep into a mat of vegetation straining my 8wt. and 3x tippet. I give her all I have, testing the rod and the breaking strength of 8lb. line against a pissed off fish using every inch of structure to her advantage. I ease her into my hand and a vision of a real bonefish on a vast Caribbean flat pops into my head. Less than two weeks away, I need all the practice I can get before taking the real ones on. What better way to practice than on some golden bones?

The picture above says it all! Thanks to the guys from Fishing In Croatia Blogspot and my Buddy Janko Bartolec we turned my business trip to Croatia into little sneak-out roadtrip for carp and pike. They are the ones to blame that I am a little obsessed with Lake Ontario right now. The short story behind is not doing justice but the stories about the ones that got away are always the stories full of exaggeration. Mr. Z brought us to a really neat piece of water, the so called Lake Ontario, a lake that is screaming pike and carp everywhere you look. Well structured, a lot of hideaways, extensive flat areas, some little inlets and islands. Carp was our main target but the odd pike shouldn't feel too save either. After some schooling grasscarp fooled me I focused on the flat area. The first tailing fish got me so stoked on that place that I couldn't resist. Flatsneakers for the win - the skinny water carp thing is on the run. Well, we fished all day long to learn some truths about this water. Pike are having a siesta (good for them), grasscarp are assholes, skinny water carp don't like globugs and the other carp were busy digging snails and leeches  at the ground. In other words, the shots that I got on that flat were ending up in refusals since I threw a GB at them. New plan needed, so I created a wiggling leech rig with a dropper and a tiny bite-indicator to keep the tippet straight in the water. The basic idea was pretty simple. Targeting bubble lines, the rig should sink right in front of the expected feeding direction. Once it's on the ground, the leech suspends 6cm above the ground, held up you the indicator. All I have to do is wiggling the fly a little bit.  Sun was about to set down and after twenty minutes of casting to a bubble line I figured out a pattern and I got connected surrounded by heavy cover. The fish took the spinger as expected, ripped some line thru my fingers - the moment I set the hooked it started off and broke my 0,30mm tippet  trying to find a grassroot thru that heavy cover. The only chance of the day and I fucked it up. Fuck you carp-zilla, I will be back!

Special thanks to Janko Bartolec for listing to my bullshit for a whole day, to Zdravko Savor and the guys from "Fishing In Croatia Blogspot" for showing me around!

I don't want to lose more words on that shot than needed - it's more less self explaining. Everyone knows about the so called heroshot - if not, scroll a little bit down in our blog area and you will find the "MS" which is some sort of a heroshot.

Here the link: Catfish Slayers

Okay, this picture above shows the next step, the super hero shot! I posted this pictures some days ago on out facebook group and it received tons of feedback. I was quite surprised to be honest. The shot was born out of fun, but I am glad that the people like it.

Some more dates:

Canon 5D MK Series

15mm f/2.8 Lense 

A custom dome + housing

Cayo Santa Maria - Cuba 2012

by Stephan Gian Dombaj

Memorial day weekend and a window of opportunity presented itself, the local canal carp had yet to hit the spawn. Adam and I reconvened for an early morning hunt during the only time it is feasible to hook a creature from the deep. The crack of dawn. As usual, I hit the snooze and was late arriving at roughly 5:15 in the morning. We hit the path and took our time carefully treading and straining our eyes to see into the murk of the morning gloom. Occasionally the tell tale signs of a submarine revealed themselves, or was it just a shadow? Too hard to tell. The usual mosquito horde pestered our every opening of skin and a hot air balloon ascended into the sky perfectly reflected on the placid water. In between loud releases of liquid propane we stalked our prey amongst flotsam, poison ivy, and early morning joggers. Eventually we found what we were looking for. Round long masses of golden scales to lift from their humble abode.

Some people might know what I am doing beside fly fishing and every synergy that comes along with it. For those who don't know what the rest of my life is all about, here a little glimpse. Not that it's equally important for this website here but it shows one thing for sure. I cannot be a non-flyfisher, not even for a split second. On our last project someone has taken these behind the scene shots - the first two. In between two shots on a production-set, I am going thru some Jurassic Lake Material (that was actually the time when I uploaded the JL 2011 Video)... I am fly fisher, that's a matter of fact.

Tight Lines,

Fucking Esteban

Hand in hand with another hardcopy media publication we have got the chance for some free advertisement pages. Here are the final samples and yet we don't know which one to choose. Help appreciated...

Photo, Design & Postproduction: Stephan Gian Dombaj 2011

Summer moves on here in Germany. Since a lot of decent streams are suffering from very low water conditions we are forced to look for some other occasions to satisfy our urge for knuckle busting runs. Matthias have had some fun teasing silure catfish on flies so I decided to team up with him to get one of those whiskered critters on a surface fly...more to come!

Okay, this is pretty stupid but that's just the way we are. During the last few years we have studied a lot of fishing pictures in order to preserve our unique style that has been copied all over the globe. May it be the "Reel-On-Shoulder-Advertshot" or the so called "Stag-Shot"... When la familia is out on the water and we are taking some hero shots we stick to our role-models "Günter"and "Klaus" Before some people get it all wrong here... I will explain those two outstanding poses in another blog or an article here on FFN. Today I want to talk about our latest addition our gallery. The Münter Shot (MS Shot).  Where as I tend to scream lifting a big fish, Matthias snarls holding the fish side-ways. Of course I had to give it a try too... with an appropriate fish. Matthias did it with a Catfish, so did I. Here you can see the original MS-Shot and my interpretation of the MS Shot with my typical scream - although the fish was too small for it. 

Tight Lines,

Stephan

Stepping out of the truck there is a smell of yeast in the air and the loud grumbling of a mill. Cars zoom over a bridge nearby and the roar of high water bellows from the river down the bank. The dark green water is placid, murky, and covered in a thin layer of yeast. It is a small cesspool of runoff and wastewater that reflects abandoned railroad cars covered in graffiti. Pacing the perimeter, I am patiently looking for any sign of life while passerby's and workers on lunch break give me odd looks. After awhile, a gray cloud of silt and decayed matter ascends from the depths bubbling outward from the surface. Beneath the cloud lies a fish that calls this environment home, thriving in the hot summer temperatures and scraps from the mill. My rig lands with a slap on the water and my line jerks suddenly. Lifting the rod tip there is an explosion of  water as a surprised carp takes off towards structure, attempting to free himself from the piece of iron in his lip. The worker's heads turn and several poor out of the office to see the commotion. I ease the fish into some shale and pop the fly out of his grill. Lifting the slab of golden scales skyward, the workers approve and I rinse my hands off in the filth. I reel in my rod, and head back to the truck with flashbacks of my first carp reappearing in my mind. Several years ago now, I pay homage to its home. A little place I like to call the acid pond. It is where it all began.

The Fly Fishing Nation is cutting the edge again. The demand for high quality imaging in both video and stills is breaking down the genre's wall! For the first time we were participating in a cultural documentation about the history of the adriatic pearl: Dubrovnik/Croatia. Focusing on the oldest pharmacy in Central-Europe we have been not only part of the filming crew but also the field supervisors, destination scouts and of course contributors liaison agents for that project. The entire project was based on the equipment-stock of the FFN. We came down with a couple of pelicases equipped with UW-housing, several prime lenses, couple Canon bodies, lightning equipment from Elinchrom (CH) etc... 

Of course, we are fish heads by heart - that's why we took some time off to hunt some mullet & trout. Here are some behind the scene shots!

The HD-Film, coming soon - stay tuned, we will upload it here too!

Behind the scenes footage by 

Stephan Gian Dombaj / 2011

Rabia Maddah / 2011

Three guys out for blood: Matthias Münter, Mexican tarpon fisher Alejandro Kano, and I on the search for giant barbels on extremely light tackle.

Stay tuned to hear what this fishery is about!!!

-Paulo Hoffmann-

OLD SCHOOL:

Good news for all long-term FFN addicts out there. We found an appropriate way to imbed the old material from our blog page into our new site without linking etc. The imbedded material doesn't blend it 100 percently but it's nice enough to read thru. Right now we are working on that!

Take a look at the first imbedded once:

Gray Ghost Of The Flats

NEW SCHOOL:

Julian and Matthias were out for adiposed adventures - they got something to say:

Slovenian Bash 2K11

Paulo and Marvin teamed up for a decent season-start COE bash:

COE - Season Start

COMING SOON:

Tobias and Christian were digging for chrome at the south coast of Sweden!

Water was quite cold and the wind was blowing from the wrong directions. Christian Schmadtke and Tobias Spieler were fishing Swedish south coast for seatrout. Because of the low water temperature the fishes didn´t chase in groups as usual. Only a few little groups and mostly individual fishes were around. It was their first journey to that part of the Baltic coastline and they can say: "It wasn´t the last one!" Stay tuned for the entire story about the fishing, their catches and impressions of their Sweden trip.

"We are proud to announce that the brand new E-Magazine "Scale" teams up with our syndicate! Editor in chief, Hauke Barz - formerly known as the EIC. of the German "Hook-Magazine", continues the blooming cooperation we have had in the past. The reliable source for untamed guerrilla action, "The Fly Fishing Nation" will contribute to that bilingual (German/English) project from the very first issue, coming out in June 2K11. Stay tuned for the illest cooperation in viral media on the German-speaking market ever since!"

Don't forget to follow us on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/flyfishingnation

Hola Guerrillos!

The 2nd Issue of the Loop magazine is finally online. Check it out:

http://loop-magazine.com/issue_1

Featured Photographers Ynge Ask / Scanout.com (Cascapedia) & Stephan Dombaj / FFN (Cuba) are sharing some stunning inside views from a pro staffers perspective! Don't forget to "like" it!

Hola Guerrillos! 

Since we got a lot of feedback on our freebie at the EWF fair we decided to create a new section for "FFN Fanware" starting with high res widescreen wallpapers with some cool shots from around the globe - for your daily dose of flyfishing at your desk. This section will be frequently updated - stay tuned.

There we go:

FREE WALLPAPERS

Stay wild,

Esteban

This is love!Fly Girl Mari Ono from Japan submitted me these shots of her LOOP Evotec G4 Makeover. Blinded by so much tackle love and Bling Bling I had to share this with you guys out there. The guys in the Loop Headquater were blown away too and might have got the message right that there's a market for fancy customs... what do you think? If you got some pimped tackle, send me a picture:

stephan@looptackle.de

Images by Mari Ono 2011 (JP)

Easter time = vacation time. Stephan and Stefan are checking out the "Roadshow" places while Julian, Stefan H. & Matthias Münter are down in the south to collect some footage in Austria and Slovenia. First submission by Steph - a 120cm Sturgeon taken on a YugBug fly... more to come!

I really enjoy searching thru my old photo stock, especially the South-America pictures mean a lot to me because I freaking love being there. Workwise I was searching our stock for a couple of action shots when I stumbled over these two shots from 2K10. These pictures are probably showing the some of the biggest Kingsalmons ever taken on a fly in the state of Santa Cruz and maybe all over Argentina. I was lucky enough to hook both fish within 3 Casts  in the same run and on the same fly. Claude Lombardo from New Caledonia took my Camera and took these pictures of me, ever since then we are calling the run "The New Caledonian's Run" - special thanks to our fellow from the other side of the planet!

S.D.

In cooperation with Austrian Outdoor Sports we are proud to present you an exclusive collection of freebie-prints for FlyFishingNation Fans at the EWF Fair in Munich next weekend! Come visit us at the FFN Booth on the 2nd floor and get your poster. Limited offer...

Our supporter "Austrian Outdoor Sports" is giving away a couple hundred 20 € voucher for their extensive webshop: www.aos.cc - get your FlyFishingNation voucher at our booth!!!

See you there!

A quick review about the season start in the state of Nordrhein-Westfahlen by Paulo Hoffmann, coming soon!

P.H.: "Starting the trout-year with 60cm+ fish might be a good omen..."

Agree!

First saturday seassion. A Swedish fellow angler teamed up with me to see how the rolling nymph thing works and he got it quite fast. Maybe because I demonstrated the effectiveness by hammering a 14/15 pound chrome buck... who knows. 

Weapon of choice:

6107 Opti Switch Style Rod

LOOP Evotec G4 + Multi WF 7 C/I 

13ft LOOP Seatrout leader

Copper John (tied by Hendrik Wiegant)

Rudeboys on tour. Same shit all over again. My 15th flight this year. Being almost 30hrs in transit, arriving in Las Buitreras, having a beer with my dearest buddies, friends and 2nd family in the dirty south, joining a client on the afternoon session, setting up my 6wt "Switch Style", checking out if I still got it... you know, the Chrome-Mojo. Long story short, 3 casts later I was connected to a chromebar! Still got it! Back on track! Next morning... same thing! Okay, good Karma thing going on... More to come

We spent our last day on the flat spotting for Bones and Sharks. I got connected with a nice Lemon after several attempts. Those little toothy critters are truly not the bloodthirsty monsters hollywood wants us to believe, they are actually pretty shy... except for the 50-60kg Bullshark that killed some bait like 20 meters away from me while I was wading almost chest deep! Luckily I was wading that deep so no one could realize that I pissed into my pants ;) Ah, before I forget: those guys are good fighters! Headshaking and jumping too! 

Till last night, Stefan was still suffering from a flu what made wetwading for tarpon nearly impossible for him. After a good dose of pills he started off - a chunky poon engulfed his black/purple EP Peanutbutter Baitfish! His 3rd poon hook and first one landed. Mission accomplished, we all got chrome!

Still fighting Fish! Cracking the code can be a tough thing and I wouldn't dare to say that we already got it, but we are doing better. The 3rd day in a row that we got some leaping chrome and that is just the count for the fish we landed. According to the size of those things I was pretty surprised feeling sipping bites at the end of my line and you are just one strip strike away to unleash the untamed beast. I got a few takes yesterday but not a single chance to set the hook. It felt like grayling fishing with a size 28 dryfly. Anyhow, Alexander got his second fish of the trip. He hammered that chromer relentlessly out of a whole bunch of them. Stefan's tarpon toad got engulfed too, but the fly popped out after a couple of spectacular tailwalks...

Ahhh, before I forget: While fishing for bonefish, Alex got a beautiful Snook! Check it out!

Hard to find words for what happened last night. The lousy weather we had the last couple of day died off and we had a whole bunch of fish feeding close to the shoreline. They even lined up in a daisy chain. To make it short, happy fish all over! I managed to land two fish out of two hookups within 30minutes. Those guys went balistic, the second fish did the most epic tailwalk in the history of flyfishing. Remeber our first Jurassic Lake Video from 2007, the trout that jumped 8/9 times? Pretty much like that - only with a Tarpon.

Tools of trade:

• Loop Evotec Salt 1090-4
• Loop Megaloop Black
• Mastery Tarpon Taper (old one)
• Enrico Puglisi Peanutbutter Purple

News from Carribean Sea:

We started 2K11 with a big bang. Alex hammered that silver lady on a pink/white deep clouser minnow. Took him 10minutes till Stefan was able to grab it. 

Hola Guerrillos,

we are finally back on track - offering you to witness the extent of our sickness on a whole new level! The first guerrilla page out there, your dearest Fly Fishing Nation, is down and dirty again. We evolved from a simple edgy blog page to a serious design website - the problem was, the website performance couldn't keep up with our massive amount of upcoming content. So here we are - THE BETA FFN. Dirty like BP, fishy like Arielle the mermaid and ready to rumble the pit again. Instead of kicking some butts on HALO Reach online we are trying to fix some minor bugs. Stay tuned...

The Syndicate

Incoming message: „Bring good clothing and rain-gear along!“ A polite understatement due to the fact that it hasn´t stopped raining for weeks. It´s 6:30am – a hot cup of coffee and a brief look out of the window and I am ready for another day of consistent rain. I don´t mind anymore, although almost all waters were blown out, we still managed to accomplish our mission of catching a Steelhead. I couldn´t be begging for more – the sweet taste of victory over the element feels even better now,  but there was more to come. Much more...

Headguide Brad from Z-Boat is a picture-book sample of a metal head: Purest commitment, diehard optimist and half a fish half a man. It ain't a coincident that all migratory fish stalkers got at least one thing in common: Addiction, an addiction that leads to a boundless lifestyle far away from common's life comforts. I am pretty sure that the definition of a „fishbum“ was created to describe these abandoned Steelhead/Salmon/Seatrout-Stalkers appropriately.

We are back on track with high speed. Brad is playing the Skeena-drift thing, speeding the jetboat thru a totally remote valley. The sound of the engine dissolves, the coldness feels numb... a clear moment that captures us. No words needed to say that this valley is one of the rare places on this planet that has literally never been touched by industrialization and commercialization. I am lost for words. I have to admit that I have never seen anything like that, and I am thankful for the chance of being part of such a tremendous thing.

The crushing sound of the boat landing on the gravel bank pulls me back to life. Coho our quest for today! Brian gave me a 400gr Metal Detector Signature with an urgent demand of getting tortured and I was more than pleased to help him with that. Since my combo was rigged up with a T5-Tip on a 425gr. compact skagit we added another CI Custom-SH on a 7wt. single handed Evotec Rod to the menue. The fly selection was a simple as deadly: Pink, purple or black leeches, whatever appeals Brad's fish instinct.

Coho or Silversalmon, a badass critter that reacts aggressively on stripped flies. You gotta find the right speed at the right place –  actually, a pretty simple recipe. The secret ingredient was Brad's knowledge of this water. He brought us to the right spots! Good feeling!

Long cast: The line swings gently into the slow moving water – good tension on the line though. Time to speed it up a bit. Steady strips – 45 degrees now. What an unreal feeling! I am following the end of my line –- I am surrounded by mighty mountains and waterfalls located in an indian summer-landscape – still stripping I can see a huge shadow following my fly... Strip! Fish engulfs the fly!Stripstrike! Yeah! Connected! A solid weight! That was fishporn at it´s finest!

Long story short. We got a whole bunch of Cohos! Each and every fish a remarkable beauty. Ambitious fighters, especally the chromish ones! Biggest fish of the day was a 20 pounder Coho-Buck; a brute! You gotta love'em!

Thank to: Brian Niska & Z-Boat Lodge

Check out the pictures!