Photo courtesy of James Dywer.
While surf fishing with his daddy last weekend, Paulo, age four, landed his personal best, 14.5 inch barred surf perch all by himself. Wow! We are all proud of Paulo’s catch here at flies, sand & surf! Great job Paulo! I wish I could bottle that smile.
These flies are SF blended swim baits in different flavors courtesy of Al Q. I will be tying thes e at the Fred Hall show this Thursday between 2 – 6 pm in the FFF booth. photo by Al Q
ok, so I am laying in bed, right. and at 7:12am I get a text, “25 lb. striper” from my fly fishing buddy, Jim Solomon. So i immediately give him a call, hoping this isn’t a prank. Jim answers and says, “i did it I got a 25lb striper, wait to you see the picture” I got the whole play by play and seriously couldn’t be happier for my buddy, who deserves this fish because he puts in the time and effort every week. This is a lesson to all surf fly fisherman, never under estimate the ability to see structure, even if it isn’t very pronounced. the fishing was slow this morning as Jim and Bob Middo worked the beach. Jim spotted one small but defined little cut as he was fishing his way down the beach. He pointed it out to his fishing partner Bob and then fired a long cast into it, on the second strip, his fly stopped and was inhaled by this beautiful striper, which immediately took off towards Catalina. After and epic 15 minute battle which included dealing with a shore break, running down the beach and a dealing with a plastic bag temporarily stuck on his line, surfed this trophy to shore. the fish was photographed and released unharmed. it doesn’t get better than this folks, especially when we shouldn’t be hooking and catching stripers on flies in our home waters…i will be posting Jim’s fly, “The Solly Clouser”, stay tuned… Click here for a pdf on how to tie the Solly Clouser!
here’s the new logo I just designed for my buddy Guy Jeans who runs the Kern River Fly shop up north. We should be seeing more of this logo in the near future once Guy rolls it out into his website and marketing materials. This is just a sneak peak…
The Hawaiian Syndicate: from left: Roy Fukushima, Zino Nagasuji, Al Quattrocchi & Peter “o’io” Koga at Marriotts Fly Shop in Fullerton, California.
the new Q “Mikey Mantis” fly in a long and short versions. Soon to be tested on those finicky monster bonefish. ©2013 photo by Al Q.
thanks for those who showed up to see Zino’s great “big bonefish” presentation at Marriotts yesterday at 12:30pm. we had a nice turnout and Zino covered a lot of great information. my favorite part of his presentation was the underwater footage of some of the flies Zino likes to use for the solitary big double digit bonefish that lurk the flats of Hawaii. the thin lizzy was unreal, underwater…we even came up with another pattern based on some of Zino’s feedback which has been entitled the micky mantis. it is really easy to tie and the addition of silly legs as a wing will give this fly some extra movement without stripping the fly, a key element in enticing larger fish. stay tuned for the micky mantis…
I was at the Abel facility in Camarillo this morning and got a quick tour of their production line. I was very impressed with the operation. Two things resonated with me after my tour, 100% American made and 100% hand-painted! It is so refreshing to see great craftsmanship still going strong in the good old USA. Each Abel fly reel is a functional work of art that has been hand-painted – every one as unique as a snowflake. The finishing process is laborious but exquisite. Abel celebrated their 25th anniversary last year! I wish them many more years of fine innovation and beautifully crafted fly fishing reels, clippers, pliers and more…. click here for their website!
I was recently in Somerset, New Jersey to attend the Fly Fishing show and see many of my old fishing pals. While there I ran into Bob Popovics, who is one of my favorite fly fishing mentors and good friends. Bob has just come out with a neat fleye foil squid. Squid foils are basically little decals or stickers that have tabs which you can tie directly onto the front of the hook, one on both sides. there is a place holder for a decal eye. You tie in some material, then attach the foils, then add tuffleye or epoxy between the foil and over the eyes.Below is a drawing I just did for Bob, which should end up on the packaging. You can see the idea…
My friend Martin from Flymen Flyfishing sent me some mini fish skull samples to play around with last week and I really like them. They seem to be the perfect size for flats and inshore fishing. The little hole on the top of the heads area great addition for weed guards. Check them out online, click here!
The gang discussing equipment and safety. 2013 © photo by Al Quattrocchi
The Centofani boys, Geno (left) and Mike (right)! 2013 © photo by Al Quattrocchi
Geno beating up the dink perch! 2013 © photo by Al Quattrocchi
The Mike Cento surf fly collection. 2013 © photo by Al Quattrocchi
Red flies do well on all of our local beaches. 2013 © photo by Al Quattrocchi
Low tide on El Porto beach. 2013 © photo by Al Quattrocchi
Parking lot groupies. 2013 © photo by Al Quattrocchi
this is why we wear waders! 2013 © photo by Al Quattrocchi
When Jerrry Siem of Sage talks about fly rod building, I am all ears… click here for film about circa fly rods!
flies, sand & surf 