SUNBREAKS AND SECOND CHANCES
You don’t really book a fishing trip, you book a patch of weather and hope some fishing sneaks inside it. Everyone pretends otherwise, of course. We circle dates, send deposits, and picture the Caribbean flats under postcard skies. Then, sooner or later, the weather laughs in your face. In early October, a handful of us […]
NO ROADS, NO RULES, JUST WILD IN BRAZIL
Fishing in the Amazon can be tricky to time with the massive fluctuation of water between seasons. There are only two seasons on the equator, wet season and not as wet season and the wet season must be something else as water levels fluctuate dramatically, some years over thirty-feet, which makes guessing when the […]
A CUBAN FEVER DREAM
When Hurricane Rafael blasted through Cuba merely days before our arrival, knocking out power in Havana and flooding streets like a bad disaster movie, you’d think it might dampen our spirits. Rather, it set the tone for a wild ride of fly-fishing, questionable nicknames, and more Cuban rum and cigars than should be legal. This […]
MARGARITAS, MAYHEM, AND THE ELUSIVE PERMIT
Angling Destinations’ recent two-week fly-fishing adventure in Mexico was one for the books—equal parts success, chaos, and sheer luck. Week one started in Xcalak, where six of us—Clark, Cole, Scott, Brian, Truitt, and Woody—a rag-tag group of quasi-dedicated permit anglers, showed up like a band of lost pirates armed with fly rods rather than swords. […]
THE DOMINANT HAND ADVANTAGE
There is a commonly acknowledged yet seldom discussed debate in fly-fishing: “Right Hand Retrieve” or “Left Hand Retrieve”. It is often assumed that anglers should reel using their non-casting hand, meaning right-handed casters would reel with their left hand and vice versa. While this approach may be more conventional in trout fishing circles, I believe […]
GOLD IN THEM BOLIVIAN HILLS
I’m sure some of us are aware of “The Angling Report”, a long-time monthly newsletter dedicated to serve the traveling angler. It seems the publication recently fell victim to the pandemic (if you know otherwise, please let us know). However, for many years it provided information, often anecdotal, on the status of traveling the world […]
REUNION THROUGH BONEFISHING
When Jesse and Eron Sturm (twin brothers) graduated from high school in 1994, followed by Mike Gagne, James Ryan and yours truly, from the same school the following year; each heading off to separate colleges and universities, none would have said, “good luck in college, see you in the Bahamas in 2022.” However, twenty-eight years […]
THE GANG GOES TO PUNTA ALLEN
This trip had been in the works for quite some time. Friends old and new, the gang consisted of 10 total anglers, six of them being saltwater fly fishing virgins. We had two late 20’s insurance salesman, a photographer, a graphic designer, a nervous nelly ranch foreman, a dude ranch manager, a doughnut craftsman and […]
ESSENTIAL KNOTS FOR FLATS FISHING
After our last video on How to Build a Better Permit Leader (see the videocast here), we had some requests for the essential knots to use when building a flats leader. So here they are! Thanks for the questions. Keep them coming and please give us feedback on these hints! See essential knots videocast here. […]
A HINT FOR BUILDING A PERMIT LEADER
Clark Smyth and I filmed this short video yesterday. Here we offer, what I think, is a great hint on how to build a better permit leader. This idea offers a more stealthy system and a stronger leader that is easier to cast. See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oBzep38-f8&t=3s