I know we don’t see a lot of saltwater fly fishing on the FATC website so I thought I would share a trip I
did last week while visiting friends and family in the Destin Florida area. I have tried a few times to
brave the challenges of saltwater fly fishing and have had limited luck landing sport fish with any size.
This time I got hooked up with Shallow Water Expeditions out of Santa Rosa Beach
Florida(https://www.shallowwaterexpeditions.com/) with a terrific local guide named Jason. We set out
at 6:30 am from the north shore of Choctawhatchee Bay in his 24-foot skiff that was rigged with multiple
fly rods and set up perfectly to fish the bay. Jason handed me a 9wt. rod with a multicolor #2 fly that
resembled the bait fish in the bay to throw. The water was warmer than usual for this time of year so
we had to do a bit of hunting to find the larger bull reds we were after. As usual the feeding birds were
our best friends to find bait fish and consequently the larger predator fish below them. I had practiced
with a 9wt. a few days before the outing which did pay off some but I still missed the first few large bull
red fish out of pure excitement. Jason was able to get me to focus more on the cast than getting the fly
to the fish as soon as possible. I finally started hooking into some large 25-30lb bull reds and they did
not disappoint in fight.
On the way back to the dock Jason spotted a school of Jack Crevalles running after a large school of bait
fish and slowed the boat and had me cast the fly just in front of the direction they were running and
after one single strip the fight was on. The Jack ran out all the fly line and almost all the backing before
Jason got the boat caught up with the fish. It took 40 minutes to land the fish after he ran on me several
times. It was a great time and told Jason I would fish with him again.
Hope you enjoy the pictures.
Charlie