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MatchtheHatch

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About MatchtheHatch

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    Bait Fisherman
  • Birthday November 14

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  • Favorite Species
    Steelhead
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  • Location
    Montana
  1. Thanks Capt Bob for that fly pattern. Will throw a few together! Sounds like I need a Florida trip in my near future!
  2. Thanks for the feedback and insight. I love this forum and have been lurking and checking stuff out for several years. I figured this idea was good enough to post for some input from people with some knowledge. Capt'n Bob - yes sir, completely concur on the type of flies/smart selection. Anything bigger than a 4/0 has a tendency to get too close to my ear, esp on a windy day. The guy holding the snook caught that one with another EP sardine pattern fly I tied up with a 3/0 hook. His fish had the bird in the gullet in the other photo, so this slab of foam rubber is his request! All his to fish, at least, unless he is able to tickle up a big fish, and then I expect the other 2 flies I tied up that look like this will get slapped on by the other guys real quick! In addition to snook, we also hit the flats on some of the cays nearby and lay down for big permit and bigger bonefish, as well as the ever-present jacks, macks, and cuda. its a great 7-10 day trip, and usually half the cost as Mexico. The real targets for this trip are the tarpon. The last 2 times I have gone down there, I was completely unprepared (physically, mentally, emotionally!) for the size and power of the tarpon we ran into both in the rivers and the salt. I have never been so abused and owned by a fish. Smallest one we have hooked was in the 150# range, and we had several leviathans that our guides estimated at over 200#. Note, we have yet to land one of these tarpon on a fly rod. I felt like a complete newbie to the sport, regardless of having caught a few tarpon in Florida before. Lots of lost battles and recurring nightmares about those fish, and that is what is drawing us back! Stronger hooks, bigger flies, everything. Months of prep/planning. 12 wts with these fish feel like battling a wild steelhead on a 4wt... Everyone is losing. After this trip, I will post some sort of review/links of the outfit and locations in the right part of the forum for others consideration. Thanks again for the comments/advice. Court
  3. So, prior to seeing the Blue Earth feature of the GT's slamming birds from the sky, and the recent viral post of the guy who carved up a flip-flop into a floating bird sandwich and had a GT hammer it (google it), I have seen firsthand giant snook take down cormorants in Central America. We actually recovered a full grown bird from a 40 lb snook (see photo) that we caught in 2017. My crew and I have another trip down to the undiscovered countries in a few months, and wanted to see if I could come up with something that looked like a bird and was actually able to be cast with a fly rod with some degree of efficiency. This monstrosity shown in the few photos is what I came up with. Its a foam body, double Gamakatsu tarpon hooks (3/0 up front, 2/0 in back) with 100-lb mono connection, some left over hackle feathers stripped down for the feet, and some maribou/black EP fibers for the vertical body profile. YES - its tough to cast. I can flog it out about 60 feet with my best double haul. it floats and strips with a nice surface water ripple. I tried it out on my local river in high winds. It will be tough, no doubt, but what the heck... I used hot glue to connect the different foam pieces, and tried to give some dimension to the head, even embedding some eyes. Yes, its about as ugly as I could conjure up on a whim. I will probably try to refine the design a bit. I am calling it Snook Bird Candy for the time being. I have no idea how its going to hold up. If anyone has similar types of bigger bird patterns (this fly is 8 inches long overall, foam section tip to tail is 6 inches), please share. The snook that we target average 30 lbs, with the 40-lb and 50-lb fish showing up a few times a day. I welcome any constructive ideas and heckling. If we catch anything with this fly, video and photos will be posted. Cheers, Court
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