Sight fishing Reds with Light Tackle Spin Gear

Went out yesterday with some pretty good spin casters. We sight fished some really nice reds in the 10-15 pound range. The reds were pushing bait down the shorelines making them an easy yet fun target on  spin gear. Its unbelievable the amount of fish and bait we are seeing in the marsh right now. Tight Lines!

A Testimonial by Capt. Travis Holeman on his Potential 4 lb. Tippet Red Fish Record Caught with Fly Water Expeditions!

Today started like any other day for Capt. Greg and I.  Question?  Which way do you want to go?  Breakfast is always surrounded by conversations of wind direction and tide.  We always throw ideas back and forth but the wind tells the truth.  Today it told us to sneak to a secret spot.  Nunya flat!

Time to fish.  As always I venture to the bow acting like a ballast and trying to sneak my way to fishing!  Whatever works.  Greg grabbed the push pole and joy washed over me like a wave.  Bow time!  Sweet.  Earlier at the boat ramp Greg was showing off his knot skills while stalling for the sun to begin to warm the flats.  I tied the 4 lb. class to my 6wt fly rod and after careful fly selection Greg’s Hudini Crab in purple found it’s way to my rod.  Great fly.  Really great fly.

We made it about 30 yards and a fish floating high was glowing like a stop sign.  Big and red.  One false cast and shoot.  Worried about a shock break I stripped slow as the big fish followed the fly into the depths.  Just as she vanished I felt the tug.  Eased the rod to about 45% and smoothly let her clear the line.  Finally putting a little pressure on the big red.  With a little slip the fly was loose.  Bummer.  Oh well.  I was still wondering if that was the one…. looking out in a daze.  Greg whispers “yo I got another one…. floater.”

Seeing the floating red instantly.  I still had not stripped out the line from the previous fish.  Quickly judging the distance I stripped what I thought would be 50 or so feet off the reel.  Greg shifted the boat to give me a clean cast.  What followed was awesome.  After watching the fly cast land perfectly and the big red pounce all I could think about was we aren’t videoing!   The cast landed perfect, I stripped and she followed.  Swing and a miss… strip, strip.  Again I was a little worried about setting the hook and did so very softly as she ate the fly.  15-20 min. later the huge red came to the boat.  I really enjoyed fishing a trout rod for our huge reds.  The 6 wt allowed for a much better shock absorber than say an 8 or 9 wt rod.

Greg jumped into place after expertly maneuvering the boat to keep me in prime fighting position.  Greg gave the boat one last push on the pole, I swung the big red back to Greg as the boat passed putting him and her in position for a gorilla grip landing.  As Greg had informed me earlier we had no net,… the plan had to work to land the fish.  Thankfully we land most fish by tailing, so it was no big deal.  Greg’s face lit up like a kid on Easter.  Fish landed and all gear still kicking.  Great fish.  Great day.  Great friends.  Thanks Greg.  Capt. Greg landed a huge black drum on 8 lb. after we ate and had a very long time to enjoy what had just happened.  I just landed the best fish I have ever caught.  Gotta love it when it all comes together.

Catch-em Big!

Travis Holeman

727-644-4347

travis@holemanbrothers.com

Rough Weather on the Marsh

We have had a rough week of weather out on the Louisiana Marsh. With Rain most  of the week we have had to cancel a few trips. The days out on the water have still been good. Big redfish and black drum are still around and we are getting shots at them .The pattern has been a little off since the hard freeze we had a month back but the fish have moved back in and we are putting them in the boat. Keep and eye out for Fly Water Expeditions airing on the Sportsman’s Channel and Sun Sports with Shallow Water Angler TV in the next few weeks. We caught some monsters despite the cold conditions. Here are a few pictures, Tight Lines!

Killer red fishing

The past two days were incredible on the Louisiana marsh. I had Travis from Atlanta the first day and Hunter the 2nd day. Travis wanted to go for some big guys so our plan was to fish big fish water. I can’t tell you how many 5-10 pound fish we didn’t even cast to becaue we didn’t want waste time fighting them and have a monster swim by the boat. We ended up landing 15 fish with the biggest being 19 pounds and we had our shots at 30 pounders.
Hunter and I went out today and got after it. We landed a 22 pound redfish and a 31 pounder on fly. We also had 4 double headers on smaller fish in the 8-10 pound range and had a few other shots at some giant redfish. The Louisiana fishing is on fire right now,Tight lines!

Shy redfish

We had great weather again today and I had Taku and Raneigh in the boat from New York. Both of them great fly casters and they were both members of the Golden Gate fly casters club when they lived in San Francisco. The fishing was a little tougher today maybe due to the fron that will be coming through tonight. There weren’t as many fish on the flats and the redfish that were there were nipping at the fly and a little spooky, the fish wern’t acting like Louisiana redfish today. We still managed to get a few shots at some monster redfish in the 25- 30 pound range and Raneigh landed a nice 19 pound fish on fly as well as a few other 8-10 pound fish. Even though the fishing was slow we still had a great time out on the water. Tight Lines!

Incredible redfishing

What a great day to fish the Louisiana Marsh. Today I had the pleasure to guide Roger and his good friend John. We landed a 19, 22, 28, and 35 pound redfish and we topped it off by fishing a shallow pond that had crawlers all over it so we got out of the boat and laid the hammer down. It’s starting to go off here in the marsh and these are the kind of days we look forward to.

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!