Spring Time 2017 Offical Season Opening

I was so happy to finally get the time to get out there and fish. I headed out with my friend Justin to go fishing for the official opening of NY Striper season on the Hudson. I was so excited that i left my house without my bait(left in the fridge) that i had to turn back after 20 min of driving north . I finally went back got my bait and then put the wrong GPS cooridinates and drove to a wrong location and was lost for 30 min.

I finally get to the right location and meet up with Justin and within 45 min i was hooked up with my first 2017 stripedbass. I was so happy! So we stood out there and caught a lot of fish. Lots of fun and my arms are now very tired

Orvis Fly Tying Class 201

Last Night afterwork I joined the Yonkers Ridgehill Orvis Store Fly tying 201 class, led by Len.
I brought along my new fly kit and Len showed us some dubbing techniques, along with some other very valuable fly tying tricks and essentials. (Thank you Len )  

We sat there and played and tied and played and tied and watched as he amazed us with some of these tieback techniques along with the whip finish (that I'm still fighting with) and he made it look so easy. Now as you can imagine my flies once completed were not looking half as nice as our instructers flies but none the less i am confident that my flies will catch fish! I kinda like the imperfections and i think they will stand out (in the water) in a good way to cause a triggered strike by some quality trout!

We were all joking at the end of the night about how you can tie a perfect flies but a kid will catch a huge trout on a broken lure or a fly that was unravelling and falling apart. But the perfect Fly only caught the angler! Now thats a fact!!!! At the end there is no wrong fly (as long as it catches fish) there is only bad knots. It is up to our imaginations and the personal choices of the materials that we decide to use in our flies that make this art of fly tying really true.  Enjoy your 2017 fishing season and I wish you all many more to come!

New to Tying Flies for Fly Fishing

As most of you know i am a Avid angler of all sorts but i am fairly new to Fly Fishing, With that said I have entered into the world of fly fishing very slowly and taking it step by step. In my last post i wrote on how I attended a fly tying 101 class at the Orvis in Yonkers NY. It was then and there that i learned not only the basics of Fly tying but I also learned that primitive man has used the skills of trickery for hunting way back then and it was for survival and how lucky i am that I get to try and do this as a hobby.

We live in a world that we can have anything we want at a flick of a key, So i humbles me to sit down and practice tying a simple nymph and not even get it exactly correct but to know that this will work on catching a fish.  Of course some of us would much rather spend our free time on the water fishing and so would I but think about "THE PREP" "THE DEVILS IN THE DETAILS" its quite fulfilling knowning that the next time I get out on the East branch Stream System that my flies will be the primary flies I use and the flies I have purchased in the past will be my back up flies.

Now don't get this twisted, I am not telling you to not purchase store sold flies. On the contrary I think everyone should purchase flies as well as tie there own. Its a great Hobby and "Way of Life"

So if you have the time just try it once. Im heading to the 201 Class this week and I'm excited

Here are some pics go my latest nymph

Fly Tying 101

Today was my first time ever atemping to tie a fly. A little after i got into fly fishing i wanted to learn how to tie my own flies. This doesnt mean i would not purchase flies, it only means i wanted to be capable of tying some on my own, kind of a goal. I was not able to do so for too many reasons to list right now but finally about 4 years later i finally had an opportunity and the time to take a "fly tying 101" class.

So this morning i high talked it to Orvis in Ridgehill Yonkers NY where i was greated by an awesome staff (Len , Mike & David) and they taught me the basics of tying flies. I learned so much today but the biggest leson i learned is its all up to the eye of the beholder and there is no wrong or right as long as a fish will bite your fly!

I highly recommend taking one of these FREE classes as it was a great experiance for me and i plan on registering for the next level up class 201

Tight lines to all

2017

I know its been a while but sometimes life just keeps us extra busy. I have been very blessed to have started a family and soon my two yearly daughter will be three years of age and ready to start fishing. I am really hoping that she will gravitate to fishing the same way i did, But if she does not its ok i just want her to enjoy life as it is short and we all need to be thankful for the time we have here and who we get to share it with. Happy new year to all of you

This year I plan on

Going Winter Ice Fishing

going fishing in Florida

Learning how to tie a flies (going on sat to my first class at Orvis

Early Spring Striper Fishing

Early Spring Trout Fishing, Reservoir and Stream Fly Fishing

Summer Fluke, Seabass

Kayaking for Stripers and Blues

September Salmon Run / Striper Run

Fall Trout Fly fishing

Saltwater fishing as well

These are my fishing Goals for 2017

I wish everyone a great season

Hidden Treasure in Miami

I have traveled to Miami over 70 times in my life and have never really fished it like I should have (being that I'm a avid fisherman) July 2014 i scheduled a day while traveling to Miami (for work) to go fishing with a friend of mine (Scott) that's going to school in Miami and his schedule ended up conflicting with mine. Even though it sucked that once again I couldn't go fishing in Miami This was in fact a good thing. 

Scott of @Scottsfishingtails ended up getting more experience and fishing with more people and gaining lots of useful knowledge. Once he found out I was coming back to Miami in Feb of 2015 he cleared his calendar for me to go fishing with him on the day that I could get off of work regardless of his clients begging him for that date. 

So late Friday morning me and Scott headed out to the local bait shop and straight to one of his honey holes and on the First Cast! He put me onto a 7lb huge beautiful Butterfly Peacock Bass ( My first ever) I was so happy, thankful but at the same time I felt vindicated, like I deserved this, had not fished for a long time. 

Then I wasn't done Scott took me to 8 more locations where we continued to straight destroy the water with more great catches of Peacocks and Largemouth bass,

So we finally left the fishing honey holes and when I thought we were done he ask me are you ready for a SLAM! "We are going for Snook" he Gauranteed me a Snook. I though he was Crazy because the temps dropped really low that I had to put on a sweater in South Miami. 

We headed out for the snook location and when we got there, there was some "Salty" Old men and they told us "your not going to catch anything tonight" 

Scott told me these guys were really good. I didn't care I wanted the Slam! 

So WE chased it and got it 

http://youtu.be/La4WTO4mZk4

9-11-16 (6 pounds 6 oz )

September 11th is a national day of remembrance of the lives that were lost in a terrible attack on the US in NYC. But this 9-11-2014 is a change for me and my family. We will now celebrate it as the Birth of our first Child a bouncing baby Girl "Hailey" she was quite a catch. Long fight she pulled a lot a drag from 550am and fought until she was caught ( Born ) 1016PM EST 

We are beyond excited. We look forward to year to celebrate 

PS I also hope to get fishing again soon but I'm not in a rush!

Lakers Still on the Hunt

I have not been fishing in a couple of weeks and I really had the ich to get out there so I hit the Rye side of Kensico in search of some trout action. Got out around 730ish and started trolling crank baits and didn't get a hit for hours. I marked fish in different sections of water speratically but nothing solid. And then finally at 11am I got a strike but wasn't able to keep the fish on the line. I thought it would be a Skunky day. I almost gave up but I kept the faith and stuck it out "Eye of the Tiger" ( $NWM$ ) I finally got a decent lake trout on the line and was able to land him. Decent size but kept doing the death spiral and wrapped itself in the fishing line in the net. 

I unwrapped him quick, snapped a pic and revived him and released back to grow bigger! 

Landed 4 lakers and lost 5 all safely released all in different sections of the water column ( must be getting fat before the spawn) 

Nissy Video

http://youtu.be/oYpb06U3je4

Fresh! & Salt Put your time in!

Its Been a while since my last post on my blog. I have done some fishing that was unable to put up do to work, home and family. (Its been really busy).
I have done both FRESH water (reservoir) and SALT water (bay) fishing and both have been tremendously fun, Great work out trolling with legs (on yak) and arms/shoulders (on row). I have had decent success but i really need more time on the water. It clears my head, thoughts and worry's in addition to the great sense of achievements of actually catching fish.

I cannot express how important it is to "put time in" on the water . in order to achieve success in fishing. Of course we all hear about that "LUCKY" catch but i know for a fact that it is not easy to catch and remain catching fish on a constant basis. You really need to be in the right place at the right time.

Information and gear is also needed but does not have to be top line and the best information is experience via Trial & Error.  Information is great when given to you by others but its learned once you have done it.

Remember "Safety first " "Put your TIME IN" and teach your children how to fish!

Here are some vids i put up on Youtube of some outings I had last month.

Jbay Video

kayaking J-bay 5-17-14

I headed out my house at 330am and went to go get my jeep with kayak and drove through the Van Wyck expwy to the belt pkwy and straight to Floyd Bennett Field. I met up with so e of the KFA-NY boyz that were camping out there (Big K Willy) for the tournament all week. We. Got on the water about 545am and set out for stripers. 

We hit some bluefish action early and it was fun. They sure are head bangers but they were not exactly what we were looking for. I continued trolling a tube and worm and a Yozuri crank bait and kept nailng blues. 

We continued trolling east and before you know it we were at JFK airport and bunker all over the place but still no Striper action. Eventually a couple of KFA members caught a couple of decent sized stripers live lining bunker but no real action. 

So I decided to head back to the boat launch. I did not understand exactly how far I had travelled nor did I notice how bad the wind picking up was going to be for the trip back to the launch. To cut a long story short let me just say it took me about 3&1/2 hours to get back and during the trip back I finally caught my first striped bass on a kayak. It was by no means a monster but at least I caught the species I head out to get. 

I am extremely tired and grateful at the same time. It was a great work out and just like getting a hang over after drinking ( when u tell yourself I will never do that again) I survived and I can't wait to do it all over a again!!

Way toooo many names to drop so -- Thank you all that helped me. 

I have done well with lake trout the past couple of weekends. Heres some vid footage of me trolling

International Fly fishing film festival

http://youtu.be/ugvH2RJr1i0

http://youtu.be/BlI0PEAShJ4

Double Header

Today was awesome, low winds and just all around beauty of spring. I headed out for some row boat trolling for trout. I met up with some friends on the reservoir. I started at 730am and was catching Lake trout almost on the hour each hour. First one at 8am second laker at 9am and third at 10am I limited out released all fish to grow bigger ( largest was about 5lb) I tried to video tape the catches but kept hitting the wrong button on the camera so I think I only got one video. I got off the water at 11am 

 

Second part of this double header sent me to East branch to try Fly fishing for the first time in 2014. I was expecting the water to be unfishable but to my surprise it was perfect. I nailed two awesome bows and then had to head home to cook for my beautiful Pregnant Wife. This was an awesome start to 2014 fishing season!

Can't wait to get out there again