Another First |

I have been mostly stuck on dry ground lately with a bunch of local commercial work and no time to fish or shoot fishing. But then an opportunity to run offshore with Captain John Irwin of Fly Right Charters came up and I had to make a little time. You may recall from an earlier post that Captain Irwin got me into my first Cobia on fly this spring, so I was excited to run back out with him and see what my next first would be. As his Charter company’s name implies, he’s into fly fishing. He can do it all and does, but like me, feels that if there’s an opportunity to get it done on fly it is always worth a try.

So we headed out at sunrise along with his fiance Caroline and new fly fishing buddies, Andy and Craig. The plan was to head out to hit some reefs and battle a few Amberjacks on fly and see what else we happened upon. The forecast called for a hot steamy day with winds less then 5mph. As usual the forecast was wrong and we ran out in pretty large sloppy seas. The spray and steady breeze kept us cool and the Amberjacks were pretty easy to find. Although they weren’t as cooperative as John says they usually are, they crashed the big hookless teaser plug in twos and threes as John whipped them up into a frenzy. Once they were fired up, we threw poppers on 12 and 13 weight rods which were crushed repeatedly boatside. These awesome takes resulted in long brutal battles, one or two is really all you need. First Andy got his, then Craig, then Caroline and I doubled up for each of our first AJs on fly. Of course Caroline’s was the biggest fish of the day, you can tell from her smile.