The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere - 09.19.2025
Ramblings & Readings, Creativity & Conservation, Happenings & Hope
My Fishy Friends,
A quick, mid-week jaunt to some high stakes-high reward fishing gave me a shot of life, despite draining my physical battery. As I hit the road for home, hours after I intended to, I had the thought: I can’t imagine doing anything else. We had the best fly fishing.
Cheers,
Jesse
Banner photo: Wishing for good luck shooting stars afore-fishing.
Spot ‘Em!
Last winter, we had the great fortune to spend some days in the Berry Islands at the fantastic Soul Fly Lodge, spotting our first real, live bonefish while there, and even seeing a few permit. The bones are a great target for the fly rod angler: certainly challenging but fair, and usually rewarding of well-placed flies. I think the biggest hurdle and learning curve is in seeing them in the first place. To help speed up this learning process, I spent some time working with the Soul Fly crew and artist and angling educator Bri Dostie to pen a short, instructional piece, entitled “Effectively Spotting Bonefish and Permit on Bahamas Flats.”
The Man of The Movie
As many know, Robert Redford passed this week. For fly anglers, he may be most-known for his role as director in ‘The Movie’ (as it’s often referred to in the fly fishing industry) depiction of Norman Maclean’s novella, A River Runs Through It. Of course, there is much, much more that could be said about Mr. Redford, but I think the movie that I’ve watched even more than The Movie is The Sting. I think I’ll give both a re-watch, in honor.
Gluggle & Gurgle
Now here’s an(other) fun and funny item that I just became privy to: The Gluggle Jug! Click here to see and hear it in action. Perhaps not suprisingly, there’s quite a history with these, and in New England there’s a gurgling cod version. This week I asked a friend if they’d heard of the Gluggle Jug? No, she said, but we have three gurgling cods! Thanks to another dear old friend, we now have our own Gluggle Jug at home, awaiting our next visitors — come on by!
On Tuna
I have never fly fished for tuna, but I know it’s done. I’ve thought about it, and even prepared for it, but we didn’t have any shots that day. Still, I have gear fished for them, and caught them on gear, which gives me a decent idea of what they can do; which is sometimes just about all that a lil’ fishin’ pole can handle. So when I saw this footage of up-close, leaping tuna from Henry Kirkwood, I could only imagine fighting one in such quarters. It doesn’t look like it would go so well, but it’s incredible to watch.
So Vast a Concept
The earth itself is so much older that time grows faint about it, in those hundreds of millions of years which, in its cooling and wrinkling and rising and wearing and changing, might have been but a single day. The mind of man has no way of holding so vast a concept.
~ From Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ The Everglades: River of Grass
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