Bob Popovics releases a schoolie bass on the shores of Marthas Vineyard. photo by Al Q
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sisters on the fly…
Just got an email from Bonnie Anderson of Casting for Recovery. This is a great opportunity to win a fun 1957 Zieman ham trailer and help out some fly sisters go on much needed fly fishing retreat. Casting for Recovery is a great organization that we supported on one of our One Surf Fly events a few seasons ago. Just sharing the love!
salty sweet memories…
photo by Jerry Pierce.
Here is an old shot of a good fly fishing buddy of mine, Jerry Pierce with a fine Costa Rican sailfish teased up on the fly. Check out the fenwick rod and seamaster reel, that’s old school folks. Jerry has been doing this a while. This old photo has inspired me to post some of YOUR photos (closet blog followers, you know who you are! grin) with a little caption about your catch. So if you have a fun pic you would like to share, please send it to me at alq@tornadodesign.la with a brief description and I will be happy to post it here for everyone to enjoy. I will also color correct it and send it back to you if you wish? I will be posting these randomly… tight lines.
Here are some of Jerry’s notes about this fish:
Hi Al,
Saw your blog today. This is the only photo I have left of a fly caught sailfish. West coast of Costa Rica a long time ago. Went with Bill Barnes who owned Casa Mar. Great fun but too easy. We trolled up the fish with teasers. They came up in groups, all lit up, and ate the fly right behind the boat. Used fifteen and twelve pound test leaders with legal shot tippets. I made the crew cut the motor. They didn’t think that I could land them without following them but I did. Nick was good enough to give me some flies that looked like half a chicken tied on a couple of tandem hooks but they worked. I think the fish would have eaten a banana peel. They run a long way and jump a lot but poop out after a while. Good to have memories.
Jerry
seeing is believing…
the sailfish dance. photos and copyright marc motocchio
striped marlin tease. photos and copyright marc motocchio.
one of the greatest underwater photographers I have discovered over the past few years is marc motocchio from south africa. i love this guys stuff, there i said it! his images tell a story, are very compelling, risking and edgy. check out this article about marc, it paints a good picture of his creative genius….click here!
a special morning…
I am currently up at Lake Arrowhead on a mini vacation with the family. My mission was to get my little girl, Quinn her first fish. So after breakfast we got rigged up and went out together. The pressure was on! Armed with a small 6 foot rod, a pink disco spinning reel that lights up when you wind it and some night crawlers, we ventured out on the end of the pier. I had never fished here before and decided to drop shot a nightcrawler. On Quinn’s second cast, the tip of the rod began to bounce, daddy helped her set the hook and she reeled in a fat nine inch bluegill. We gave it a kiss and released it to fight another day. Whew, the pressure was off ddady. I showed her how to move around, drop down on the different points off the pier and in between dock slips to find other fish. She surprised me and loved playing with the worms, a girl after my own heart. So after one hour, we ended up landing two bluegills, one crappy and one bass and then it was off to the pool…cool stuff! You know dads going back early tomorrow morning…grin
a slice of humble pie…
a few pink merkins tied by Al Q.
Friday morning corbina courtesy of Jim Solomon. photo by Al Q
behind the scenes iphone pic taken by Matt Abrams
well all I can say is even though we are seeing lots of fish, they seem to be spread out and seem to have lock jaw. the beaches have lost most of their structure. it’s like rolling a pair of dice on a flat pool table. I did have my fair share of opportunities this morning but only had two fish bubble up and turn on my fly as to say we are on to you Qman. We know your game and we ain’t going for it. I threw at many singles and had the opportunity of pulling through a few small groups with no love today. My buddy Jim got a hold of one fish that was chin hooked on a pink merkin this morning. I was really happy to finally see a bent fly rod. there were a total of six anglers fishing this morning and I think we all had similar results, that is what keeps us coming back, you don’t always catch em, they can be humbling, challenging, aggravating, comical, etc. For me it is the adrenaline and chase that keeps me focused, I am always trying to make a better cast, timed swing or perfect strip. That’s why it’s called fly fishing an not catching… there’s always another day and another tide.
a morning drive by….
a lone corbina slides back to the safety of deeper water. photo by Al Q
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destiny on the beach…
photo by Nick Blixt
I had the good fortune of running into Nick on the beach a few months ago. This weekend while out eating breakfast at one of my favorite local spots. Ronnies Cafe in Mar Vista, Nick came over to my table, said hi and shared the good news of landing his first bean on a grey merkin last weekend. Below is Nicks email and photo above. Makes me really happy to see so many anglers heeding the call and getting it done.
Hi Al,
Nice running into you this morning at Ronnie’s. I’ve only been fly fishing the surf for about a year now, but events like OSF and the community of guys I’ve met along the beach have been a great motivation. Thanks for being a great advocate for the SoCal fly surf scene, as well as the sport in general.
I caught my first bean ever last Sunday (7/14), picture above. I posted this in Fliflicker: I worked my way north from Chanel Rd in Santa Monica towards the jetty in front of the life guard building. I began at the turn of low tide and started noticing more beans tailing as I came within a few hundred yards of the jetty. There was a larger pod up against the rocks, and after casting in the shallows a few times, I felt the bump and saw the bean make a run for it. A grey Merkin did the task.
Way to go Nick! Great fish buddy!
BTW: this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are great fly opportunities with early morning minus lows in grey light. Get out to the the Southbay and give it your best shot, there are still lots of fish around.
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glory in encinitas…
photos by Matthew Brown
After a few facebook texts on whether Matt’s flies were in the zone or not, Matt got the green light and went down to the water the past few days with confidence landing two nice fair-caught corbina on his custom-tied surfin merkins! He even dropped a couple of fish, but that is always part of this game! Looks like some picture perfect sight-fishing water behind you! Way to go Matt!
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icast recap…
top left: geofish boys, top right: no explanation needed, bottom left: the waterfall of tinsel with john frazier in bg, next: tuffleye squid foil fly tied by the Qman, bottm right: lefty, ned lunt, president of tuffleyand al q
Well I arrived back from Las Vegas on friday night, my Southwest flight got bumped a few hours but that’s par these days. Icast was a blast, it was really cool that the entire industry was represented under one roof. In the past, the International Fly Fishing show has been in Denver and recently in New Orleans as a solo event. My only concern was they had the fly guys on one side of the Convention center. I feel that the fishing industry should be represented as one industry, especially since this was a great opportunity for it all to be under one roof. I felt the fly guys were a little too isolated and sort of thrown to one side. I hope they can intergrate everyone at the next one in Orlando 2014. I feel it will help us to cross over a little more and build more enthusiasm in our fly fishing industry. That said, it was overall a fantastic show showcasing all the new products for next year. It is also a great conference to meet up with many old east coast faces that I do not get to see very often, sort of like a high school reunion. I was invited to tie some flies for Ned Lunt and Ashley Armbruster of Wet a Hook technologies and Tuffleye acrylic fly tying products. We tried to feature the new Bob Popovic’s fleye foils such as the candy and squid series. Really easy and durable flies to tie and cure that represent simple baits and squids. I want to make a couple of notes about Tuffleye that I really need some of our young California fly tiers need to hear! Please take this to heart…
Tuffleye DOES NOT USE UV!!!!! It is a MEDICAL grade, FDA approved safe acrylic that has been around for over forty five years in the dental and medical industries. It what dentists use in your mouth. It uses VISIBLE BLUE LIGHT that will not harm your eyes as long as you never look into the light directly. Visible blue light is like the blue you see in the rainbow! UV is invisible, your eyes can not react to it like visible light. UV is dangerous! THIS IS REALLY AN IMPORTANT ISSUE! UV has been known to cause skin cancer and cataracts, that is why I choose not to fool with it. UV can cause accumulative damage, like smoking. One or two cigarettes won’t harm you but smoking packs of cigarettes over many years will catch up to you. Since I began using Tuffleye, thanks to Bob Popovics (who has more experience with epoxy than anyone I know tying fies) I can not live without it and it has changed the way I think and tie flies. Tuffleye is a great product! Please visit the Tuffleye Website for more info!
Ned Lunt is a dentist an chemist, has made sure that his product was a very safe choice for fly tiers to use to replace epoxy without UV! I use it with a clear conscience on all my flies for durability in saltwater.
flies, sand & surf 