Flymen Blog
The fact that redfish can be found everywhere throughout Florida’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts makes the Sunshine State an obvious hotspot for anglers looking to slip a fly into a school of tailing fish.
With world famous fishing destinations like the lagoon systems on the east coast, the Everglades to the south, and the crystal clear grass flats of the Nature Coast to the west, there is certainly no shortage of epic environments in which these fish can be targeted.
Learning a fish species like this from scratch was a challenge but also allowed me to learn from my mistakes. Hopefully sharing what I learned the hard way will help you the next time you target redfish on the fly.
Learn to tie this next-generation shrimp fly pattern
Best fished on either floating or intermediate lines targeting redfish, bonefish, snook, permit, and the occasional tarpon, the Shrimp & Cray Tail Faux Shrimp leans more toward medium water as it gets deep fast thanks to the Fish-Skull Shrimp & Cray Tail. When sight fishing, lead the fish and once the fish turns, make short strips until you come tight.
Bluefish (love them or hate them) are a great saltwater species to target with a fly rod.
While they do not frequent as wide of a variety of habitats as striped bass do, they have their own eccentricities that make them unique. As an angler, playing upon these eccentricities is part of the strategy and fun.
I’ve been lucky enough to target redfish on the fly in North Carolina for over ten years.
Through a lot of trial and error, I’ve picked up on a few things that I’d love to pass on to you.
Throughout the South you can target redfish year-round. Each season is different, so you need to switch up your tactics to stay successful.
When most fly anglers think of summer redfish, they envision flood tides and copper tails waving in the green Spartina grass. Me too. Tailing reds are a definite favorite of mine.
Unfortunately, the reality is that you only get a handful of tailing tides that fall during daylight hours each month.
Low tides, on the other hand, are available on a daily basis and can provide for some great fly fishing opportunities.
On an early Saturday morning last May, something remarkable happened while inshore fly fishing along Southern California's rocky Palos Verdes coast.
I landed 2 spectacular fish on flies; the first, a 9.4-pound calico bass on 12-pound tippet, then less than an hour later, I sight casted to and landed a 36-pound white sea bass on 20-pound tippet, both official IGFA fly fishing world records.
A record-breaking morning I'll never forget.
Here's the story of the calico bass I caught on that crazy once-in-a-lifetime morning on my go-to articulated sculpin fly, tied with a small brown Fish-Skull Sculpin Helmet.