Capt Bob LeMay

Not so exclusive... as my Dad told me, all those years ago... if you live long enough your prostate will give you trouble... Another of those "Ask me how I know" moments for this guy as well. So far mine is just a nuisance but I can see the day coming when a routine visit - might not be routine...

These days lots of different fisherman's pliers on the market, many come with sheaths and lanyards brand new... In every case though, unless you're spending more for the pliers than you would for a decent quality reel (freshwater - saltwater reels these days can break the bank...) the lanyards that come with them are cheap goods and quickly fail. Years ago it was common to see a dedicated saltwater angler with a homemade lanyard keeping his (or her) piiers attached to the sheath. Remembering that I went to the trouble of making my own lanyards as well - but a bit stronger - and very long lasting.... Here's pic of the lanyard before each end was looped into a super strong metal sleeve and crimped into place... I started with a five foot section of 250lb mono (a six foot long section would have been better...) Here's how to do it... Take that piece of mono (freshwater types will probably find a bit lighter mono to work with...) and, after securing one end tightly with wire, wrap the mono around your mandrel as tightly as possible, securing it at the bitter end with several wire wraps again, leaving about two inches exposed. For my mandrel, I used a long socket wrench extension for a 1/4 inch socket set- but any solid dowel or threaded rod would do - as long as it will fit in a pot of water entirely... The next part is easy, taking a medium sized pot (not something your wife will approve of...) put an inch or two of water in it, then place it on your stove and bring it to a boil. Once it's boiling, drop your mandrel with mono into the pot and immediately take the pot off of the element so it can start to cool... in a minute or two drain the water, replace with cold water and remove that mandrel. When it's cool enough to handle - remove the wires securing your new lanyard and it's ready to complete with a loop in each end. That quarter inch mandrel will provide a coil that's nearly a half inch - and extremely durable, never losing it's shape. The hardest part of the whole process is winding your mono on that mandrel tightly and not letting it slip at any point for a good result... The mono I use (and prefer) is still Ande premium, been using it for more than fifty years now...

Down here in south Florida - the lightest tippet we use (for both largemouth and peacocks in the 2 to 5lb range) is straight 15lb fluoro. Your waters are probably a lot clearer, making light tippets a necessity - but you might get away with a bit stronger tippet for round three... Great report as always...

Still scouting a few days later - this time out of Flamingo, about 35 miles from where that triple tail was (Flamingo is in the dead center of the Park, 30 miles due north of Islamorada for those who've never been there. On this day I did a round trip of nearly 70 miles through the backcountry - mostly just looking to see where things stood and whether different techniques were worth a try later with anglers aboard. One of the great things about exploring a bit is taking your time to enjoy this or that. Here's my only photo from that day, taken from Whitewater Bay about fifteen minutes before dawn, about eight miles from the launching point.... just nothing like the 'glades...

True 'dat... and most of my "lessons" should have come with a bandaid or two...

Doing a bit of scouting, solo, out of Chokoloskee (the ten thousand islands area in Everglades National Park ) two days ago, working a few of the bights south of Rabbit Key when I got a surprise... That day I was checking redfish spots using both bait and lures (setting a bait next to mangrove jungle shoreline while working lures in the same area) - and always on the clock.... What I'm trying to do is spend no more than 15 minutes at any one spot and keep moving to locate spots to bring my anglers this fall. Been doing this sort of stuff for a few years now whenever there's no bookings and all of my shopwork is caught up (that's my excuse anyway....). That day - not one redfish at any of the spots I stopped to fish - and only a few jacks, speckled trout, and one small snook.... That bait rod though - it stayed busy with sharks of every size (and usually within 15 minutes). That coast is just over-run with them - bulls, lemons, young blacktips... Without a wire leader they quickly went on their way and after tying on a new hook I was down the road as well. A bit discouraging but it's the only way I know to find out whether an area is worth a look with anglers aboard (not the kind of fishing most on this board will ever do, I know...). Although I'm pretty sure the situation will change as waters cool off in coming weeks but that's my world. This time of year night fishing is our best bet. At the last spot I checked though - things changed. A quick bite on the bait rod and we were off to the races. Figuring is was another hot shark at first, then I saw what looked like a big redfish - the surprise when I was able to get closer was that it was a triple tail - a big one, and the biggest I've hooked up in recent years. Once on board my Boga Grip showed it at 12 pounds (our normal triples are sight-casted and between three and eight pounds, biting lures and flies along the coast [ particularly around pot markers and other structure... Here's a pic not a very good photo, the reel used was a Shimano 400 for size comparison. I tell my anglers that have never caught one to expect what looks like a freshwater crappie - that's been living under a nuclear plant... They're very strong and even jump when hooked and can change colors from light to dark depending on where they are. Their normal feeding tactic is to suspend motionless on their side like a clump of debris or grass then attack any small fish, shrimp, or crab that gets too close. To add to that they're nearly armor plated and have serious razor sharp spines and gill covers, making fileting one an adventure, until you learn the best way to go about it. This one got invited home for dinner since they're very good eating - on a par with grouper.... Triples will readily take a fly when you find one floating near the surface. Our usual gear is a Whitewater clouser on an 8 or 9wt rod and they're a challenge to spot, stalk, and present a fly to.... Great fun when they're around... Just nothing like the 'glades... Tomorrow I'll be scouting out of Flamingo in the center coast of the Park about 30 miles north of Islamorada.... my focus will be on snook spots (along with tarpon)...

With a lighter rod as well - great day.. I keep a 5wt onboard for those days when our local exotic panfish are outdoing everything else... and it turns a so-so day into something special since our small exotics pull like a smallmouth...

Oh yeah....

For those of us tying tarpon flies (and similar patterns for the salt) we have two choices - either cheap strung neck hackle in either dyed or natural colors, or genetic stock (a good bit more expensive that you buy by the neck) , usually from capons as opposed to roosters for "saltwater necks" as they're shown in catalogs and a few shops around the country that cater to saltwater tyers. Heck, I've even resorted to old fashioned feather dusters years ago when other supplies dried up. The best big neck hackles come from the cheapest source, China, and are strung and bundled from the source, then dyed by importers here before being processed into materials for your local shop.... Most shops that I've dealt with will have a supply of strung neck hackles - and if they don't stock the much higher grade necks - I'm pretty sure they can order them from Wapsi Fly (among other sources) ... for their customers. As far as shops go you might try googling up "florida fly shops" and suspect you'll be surprised at how many there are around the state... Old Florida, by the way is located in Boca Raton - not the Keys (and they're a great small shop with very knowledgeable staff...). By the way, those large, wide, webby neck hackles that I use for tarpon flies - would be unusable for most freshwater tyers and rejected out of hand... I find other uses for them as well - the tips of big neck hackles work really well as the tails for the poppers I make... Here's a pic or two of a pattern or two with those inexpensive neck hackles... neck for the tail and wide webby saddle for the collar on this small SpeedBug ginger variant natural neck hackles for the tail on this Sand Devil tarpon fly natural variant neck hackles (looks very much like grizzly but much, much cheaper) for this Cockroach (my version) tarpon fly...

Look forward to hearing a report.... This time of year with almost zero customers I'm trying to explore one day (or night) a week in my skiff - and augment it a bit by just hitting the road without my skiff. But with a rod or two to add to my freshwater chops... I'll be in that same area - but coming from near Ft. Lauderdale, running west on Alligator Alley - then south on S.R. 29 down to the Tamiami - then west a bit again over towards Goodland. My last scouting for peacocks near Homestead showed little success since the waters were quite high still - and I figured the fish weren't in the canals but out on nearby flats where you'd need an airboat to play with them..

Should clarify something - herbicide does not "kill off" our target fish population - it ends most of the habitat all the small forage species need so their numbers greatly diminish to the point of just "no food" for the fish we like to catch. As a result they all go elsewhere and you end up with the same result as if they were killed off... Since all of our canals are there for flood control - eventually all of their waters end up out in Biscayne Bay and other coastal areas - then our local governments wonder why the seagrasses in those areas are disappearing... Just a bad scene all around..

Swamp covered most of the basics... I'd add that we only get two seasons down here, a wet and a dry, each lasting six months. The fishing in our freshwater areas is best during the dry season when all the wet prairies dry up out in the Everglades and our local freshwater fish are forced down into all the canals here (south Florida). The dry season gets going right after Halloween each year but varies a bit about when it ends (in a wet year we're getting rained on towards the end of April, in a dry year maybe not until sometime in June...). Our dry season is a winter time treat and locals start needing jackets and complaining about cold weather when the air temps fall below seventy degrees (yep, we're spoiled...). The dry season is when the vast majority of our visitors show up since during the dry season the mosquitoes are mostly absent... and when every fishing guide stays busy in either fresh or saltwater areas. Any of our freshwater canals will hold fish and unless you have to trespass to gain access are pretty much open to anyone wanting to wet a line (even the horrible ones behind some shopping center with shopping carts sticking out of them as well as other urban debris). I must note, of course, that we do have a serious problem with herbicide spraying, meant to control weed growth, that also kills off the fish population in urban and suburban areas. Canals along the edge of the Everglades (west of the Miami to Palm Beach coastline) are never sprayed, thank heavens, so their fish populations (along with every kind of wildlife) are still in great shape... Spraying for weed control is simply much cheaper than actually harvesting out weeded canals so we're in an uphill struggle trying to get local governments to quit that very damaging practice... Wish it weren't so. Residues from herbicides in our canals always finally end up in our coastal areas where they're a problem as well.... I divide my charters during daytimes to either trips along the coast of the Everglades where the saltwaters transition very slowly (and over miles and miles of "backcountry" into brackish then finally freshwaters, mostly mangrove jungle country... Starting about seventy miles from downtown Miami, to local freshwater trips west of Ft Lauderdale back into the edges of the 'glades. Night trips in Biscayne bay or up in Jupiter (just north of the Palm Beaches) are also a specialty. Anyone wanting more info... an email request to [email protected] will get you a brochure by return mail that same day, mostly... "Be a hero.... take a kid fishing"

Have to say it's my scissors... and they get used a lot, not just for fly tying but also for bucktail jig making, rodcrafting, etc. Mine are simple tailor's snips from Japan that have each blade screw mounted separately so I can remove one side at a time to allow for careful sharpening on Arkansas oil stones. Here's a pic - and no, I have no idea where I'd be able to buy another pair. I'm lucky enough to have bought a second pair that have never been used but stand ready to go in service if I lose or damage my current pair - that are nearly 20 years old now..

Since I'm working with saltwater gear (usually much heavier and sturdier than freshwater rods....) all I ever use is the old stiff boning blade shown in one of those pics, and a single edged razor blade or two as scrapers... First I make long slices through the cork down to the epoxy and quickly split the cork away from the blank then comes the tedious work of hand scraping the old epoxy from the blank - never the first bit of sandpaper for me... My first scraping efforts are done with the back side of the knife shown -then it's razor blades to complete the removal.. Holding the side edge of the razor blade to the blank at right angles then carefully remove old epoxy a few inches at a time from top to bottom (the reel seat) with just enough force to engage the old glue without damaging the blank. Having some good "working music" makes the hour or so needed to clean off that blank bearable... As already noted - not a fun job but, as long as the blank and epoxied reelseat are in good condition that prep work will make for a good foundation whether you're working with a ready made cork grip or starting from scratch and individual cork rings (and all of the work needed to glue, clamp, then turn them down from scratch..). Cork is a bit forgiving if there's a tiny bit of old epoxy left here or there on a blank you're re-doing - and will never be noticed when the job is done.. This whole process is much quicker when removing and replacing EVA foam grips on spin, plug, or conventional rods...

Since I'm a full time guide, towing my skiff from home to a few different ramps (when I'm booked...) each day... my cell phone is a must have item. The area I work the most, out of Flamingo in Everglades National Park, only has one cell service at all (AT&T - other services have never been willing to pay to be on their tower - so when you come into the Park theirs is the only service that works...) and that greatly limits my choices. It is very handy though to have all the phone numbers on hand when trouble rears its head (including ranger dispatch in the Park, as well as the front gate and all the other numbers you might need on a two hour commute... one way... Since every cell service is limited by the distance (line of sight distance) to the nearest tower (the only tower -and it's at Flamingo)... About halfway across the interior we lose our phone connection each day then it's VHF to the Coast Guard -or my InReach connection from Garmin... With it I can text to anyone that can receive it - world wide when we're broke down and hurting a long way from the ramp... Very lonely feeling to be out in the Everglades with no means of communication - as the sun goes down...