Fishing on the Inshore Power Boat

Redfish are still eating the fly very well in the Louisiana Marsh. Here’s some pics from Nov. 5th’s trip aboard the loaner Inshore Power Boat.

Inshore Power Boat in Louisiana

My first words when I saw this boat were “wow, what a cool little skiff “. While I am waiting for my East Cape Vantage to be built the guys at Inshore Power Boats let me borrow their new Inshore 16. From what I can see the boat looks like a mitzi style hull but when you walk up to it you can tell the difference right away. The new IPB 16 has a finished liner which makes the cockpit look much more presentable then the older style mitzi’s. The cool thing about this boat is that it seems like you can set it up how you like. If you want a front or rear deck, coffin box, hatches, livewell, casting platform, etc. you can set this boat up however you want to for the way you fish. I love the set up that the IPB 16 has that I have been running the past few days in  the Louisiana marsh. It has a Honda 50 4 stroke, polling platform, forward casting platform, coffin box with lean pad, rear bench seat with dry storage underneath and a few other cool options.

IPB in Louisiana

The boat is set up perfect for the marsh and catches a ton of fish. I am a sucker for tiller engines which this one has. The boat has tons of cockpit space to move around and has the coffin box for extra seating. I have been fishing with 10 gallons of fuel, two gear bags, rods, ice/water, and two clients for the past three days and the boat performs really good. It gets a top speed around 36 mph with all that weight, drafts in about 6 inches, and carves around corners and polls like a dream. I have been making 30 mile runs each way to the outer portions of the Louisiana marsh and the boat has been burning 6 gallons of fuel per trip and I haven’t been laying off the throttle. The boat handles rough water really well for a shorter skiff and when you get to your fishing spot it polls in tight corners, creeks, and cuts. I have been really impressed with the boat and I would reccommend it to anyone getting into the light tackle fishing game.

Ready for the Louisiana Marsh

The boat is built for simplicity and is a great boat for the hardcore fisherman or the weekend warrior. I can’t wait for Brad to bring the IPB 16 mud boat over here so we can shoot some ducks in it this winter. I think IPB has a winner and I look forward to great things from them in the future. Inshore Power Boats Website

Redfish on the Inshore Power Boat.

Redfish on the IPB

Using a loaner boat from IPB (inshore power boats) we caught some nice redfish on the fly.

Fishing on the IPB in Louisiana

East Cape Vantage

Weather has been terrible the past two days so I caught up on some errands. I sold my East Cape Caimen on Sunday to a guy from Illinois who has two homes in Florida. One in Boca Grande and one in Naples. He is coming into Orlando in the beginning of November to pick it up from East Cape so I decided to drive it back to the shop so they could get it ready for him. I left at 5:30 tuesday morning and drove through down pooring rain from New Orleans, all the way to Tallahassee driving 35 mph down I-10. That turned the drive into a 12 hour trip instead of a 9 hour trip. I dropped the boat off around 6 pm and caught up with one of the owners Marc Page who I am great friends with and went home to get some food and catch up on some sleep. I met Kevin Fenn, the other owner of East Cape at Lake Conway to test drive the new East Cape Vantage which is what I now have on order and hope to get it by the end of November. It was sad to see my Caimen go because it was such a good boat, but I am extremely excited to get the new Vantage. Big Redfish and Tarpon beware. This boat is bad ass! I got an Inshore Power Boat 16 ft. skiff as a loaner till my Vantage is done. IPB is a custom skiff manufacturer that East Cape bought into and they are co-owners with Brad Ball. They build a killer little skiff at an awesome price and I am excited to try it out. I left Orlando around 9 am to head back to New Orleans and the drive home was much better. Took 9 hours and the weather was great. catching up with emails and looking forward to getting back on the water friday. Tight Lines!

Fly fishing Louisiana Redfish

Louisiana Redfishing continues to produce! Fly Water Expeditions had another great day on the water with Dave and Gloria from California. They landed 8 redfish on fly despite the limited visibility from the clouds.Big redfish of the day was a 14 pound fish and everything else was 5-8 pounds. At it again tomorrow. Tight lines

Redfish caught on fly in LA

PIGGIE Redfish

Redfish and Fly Fishing, Hopedale

Fly fishing for redfish, Today started at Penny’s Cafe in Violette, Louisiana. We had a great breakfast and picked up sandwiches for the day and it was off to fish for redfish. The weather man called for 5-15 knot winds with tons of sun. If you added the 5+15= 20 he would have got the wind right and we had scum sky (clouds) for most of the day. We launched out of Hopedale, LA in hopes to go look for some bigger redfish on the outside. The clouds weren’t going to help but we went anyways. The water was high and pretty clean, we started seeing fish right away. I had Jeff and Bob today and they were ready to sight cast to some nice redfish on fly. We got into the small fish early with the fish ranging from 8-10 pounds and they were feeding heavily on the outgoing tide. We put 6-7 fish in the boat in the first two hours of the day. As we got a little sun we went further out and got some nice fly fishing shots at fish in the 25 pound range and landed 5 fish that were 13-17 pounds with one double header which included the big fish of the day. We ended up with 12 redfish on fly today and the big fish are going to continue to move in.

Another good Louisiana Red Drum

We fished the 10 weight G. Loomis one piece Crosscurrent Pro 1 with a Tibor Riptide reel. A great setup for the bigger redfish, this makes it easier to thrown the big crab flies we throw at these beasts. Back at it again tomorrow and monday. Tight lines!

Another fatty redfish on fly.

Double reds caught while fly fishing.

Double header redfish

Fly fishing for redfish just doesn’t get any better then fishing the rich, productive, clear waters of Louisiana.

Give me a call to check available dates.

Rates

407-538-0770

Capnd13@gmail.com

Greg Dini
3021 Joseph St.
New Orleans, LA 70125

I look forward to having you on the boat!

Flyfishing for Louisiana reds

I had Tim and Jeff in the boat today who came with a group of guys that Captain Al Keller had put together. We had an East Cape Caimen day with Al just getting his new Caimen two weeks ago, the fish didn’t have a chance. The water was high and dirty in most places today on the Louisiana marsh from all the rain and south winds we got from the front that just came through. The  redfish weren’t in their normal haunts and had pushed way back into the duck ponds that normally dont have much water in them. We still managed to find gin clear water and plenty of redfish were caught on fly. Al and I are both back at it again tomorrow on the search for some 40″ redfish. Tight Lines!

Louisiana fishing accommodations

Often I’m asked a lot of questions from first time anglers visiting Louisiana. Hopefully I can answer some of the most common questions here in my Fly Water Journal.

Fishermen can fly right into New Orleans International Airport. Rental cars are available at the airport and the drive is only 20 minutes to downtown New Orleans. There are endless places to stay down town. Most of my anglers will stay at the Hilton or the Ritz Carlton but there are tons of them if you do a quick google search for places in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.

What I like to do is pick up my charters in the morning around 6 am, I will bring them to breakfast at Penny’s Cafe in Violette, LA. We get good food and will pick up sandwiches for the day there.

The best time of the year to fish for a trophy redfish is October through March but the fishing is great year round so I don’t want to pigeon hole myself into those months only. If you want Louisiana seafood you will definately be able to get fresh Blue crabs and oysters if the time of the year is right straight off the oyster boats where we launch. I’m sure if you wanted to ship some home I can help you find a way or you can check a cooler in at the airport. If anglers would like to keep a few fish they can but I recommend they keep only slot size fish; 16-27″.

There are literally tons of fun places to hang out at night in the french quarter; Pat Obriens, etc, etc.

Some good restaurants while you are in Louisiana: Dickey Brennans steak house, Acme Oyster house, Brennan’s Sea Food, G.W. Fins, Drago’s Oysters and seafood, Antoine’s Restaurant and many I have yet to discover. I hope if you are coming to fish with me that this helps you prepare for our fishing adventure.

Louisiana Marsh fishing on fly

Incredible Louisiana Marsh Redfishing, another great day on the water with Clayton and Mack. We went out with high expectations from the day before and with the beautiful weather that was called for; winds 5-10 and tons of sun. We stayed on the inside today to fish for the fat pond redfish. We pulled up to the first marsh point and we were greeted with a school of 25 red fish sitting in a cut and ready to eat or flies. Mack was first up and landed a nice 9 pound red drum and while he was hooked up other reds were following his fish. I yelled to Clayton to get his rod out and when he stripped enough line off the real he threw his crab fly in and was hooked up with one of the three double headers we had today. The redfish were happy and ready to feed, many of the fish we had to dig the fly out of their crushers. The redfish averaged 7-9 pounds and for those of you who don’t know about Louisiana redfishing, these 9 pound fish were only 26″, super fat. The big fish of the day was a nice 12 lb slob and we ended the day one upping our previous day, 28 redfish on fly, all sight fishing. Another epic day of redfishing in the Louisiana marsh. Tight Lines!

Pair of redfish on fly

Redfish on crab fly.

Redfishing

The cooler weather is here, big redfish will be showing up soon to feed in the shallow waters of Louisiana. I’m looking forward to putting the first  40″ red fish in the boat.  If you want to come out and sight fish these giants please call me so we can discuss openings!

Louisiana Redfish