Syns, Twins and Fins

This trip has been on my radar for three years now. I was last there 2013 with Melanie and my staff for a dental convention and met Meng and Gina there too.
The gals attended the convention classes and Meng and I fished for redfish! No brainer right?
We had booked a couple days with Capt. John Iverson and a day with Capt. Greg Moon. Our day with Capt. Moon was canceled due to bad weather.
During the fishing day with Capt. John, I discovered that he was willing to take 3 anglers on a fly fishing trip. I had asked numerous LA marsh fly guides if they would do that and all said no. Capt. John was OK with it and since that day I have been wanting to get the boys out there for some big bull reds!
I actually booked last year during Thanksgiving week but it was a full moon right in the middle of our fishing days so I had to reconsider. This year we had a good moon phase but the tides were terrible. I took the chance and booked anyway. Results below…….
We arrived Tuesday afternoon and after checking into our hotel we were READY for a Louisiana meal! Acme Oyster House was only 3 blocks away so off we went. I have not had better oysters than the ones from Louisiana. The boys and I split 2 dozen ( one dozen raw and one dozen BBQ) and they were fantastic. We ate shrimp and fish PoBoys and it was delicious. It was so good that we went back for dinner the next night! Out of all the places to eat in the French quarter we went back to Acme ( we ate 3 dozen that night). That’s how good the BBQ oysters were…. so we thought…more on that later.

Every morning our guide would pick us up at our hotel on Canal St. That was a huge convenience not to have to rent a car. We would then head to the “guide hang out Cafe” called Penny’s and eat breakfast and purchase lunch for the day.
Our first day fishing was very slow due to tough conditions. We had no sun and no tide. At least we did not have wind. In the marsh if you have the “Holy Trinity” (no wind, sunny skies and good tidal flow) the fishing would be spectacular. Those conditions are a rarity. At least we had no wind that morning.
We saw fish but by the time we saw them they were literally in front of the boat or beside the boat. They would spook off and leave a huge “puff” of marsh mud in the stained water. The boys were able to get a few casts at some fish but the boat was just too close. It was Noon when Michael finally hooked and landed the first fish. His first bull redfish that weighed in at 19 pounds. Smiles all around and some relief! About an hour later Matthew hooks up and it’s a significantly larger fish. During it’s third run, it must have rapped around a very sharp underwater object. It frayed and cut through our 50# butt section.
On and gone! That was it for the day, two hooked and one landed.

The next morning Capt John suggested we fish the other side of the river which is a completely different looking area. We headed south east out of Nawlins towards Buras/Venice. Since it was Thanksgiving day, we could not find a place to stop and get breakfast and lunch.
It looked like we were going skip both until Capt. John suggested going to Woodland Plantation. It is a well known bed and breakfast where many fishermen stay. It was right on our way to the boat launch. We stopped in and the cooks made us a delicious southern breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and shrimp and grits. We ate it all up!

They made us a hearty lunch too and thus saved the day. The gals there are so sweet and friendly.

An hour later we were in the marsh fishing. This day brought mostly cloudy weather most of the morning. However the fish were a little more active due to very calm conditions. Despite the tide even worse than the day before the fishing was “incredible” according to Capt. John. The reason was the lack of wind. Even though there was no sun to see the fish in the water, it was so calm that we could see every little disturbance the redfish made.
The boys hooked 8 and landed 7. Matthew broke one off due to a nick in the leader.
The size of the fish that day was impressive. Matthew landed two 29 pounders and a 21. Michael landed a 24, two 19’s and a 9-10 pounder.

We quit a little early since it was Thanksgiving day and we needed to get to dinner early at Estella’s to beat the crowds. We all ate blackened redfish with lump crabmeat and creamed spinach. An appropriate “tourist” Louisiana Thanksgiving dinner. Of course another trip to Cafe du Monde for some tasty beignets after dinner was also appropriate.

Day 3 brought sunny skies all day! However there was a stiff breeze that gusted to 15-20 mph at times in the morning. We found areas to fish on the lee side of the marsh where it was somewhat protected from the wind. We did not have our first hook up until 11 am. Michael had a great day with 4 fish landed and one if them was a brute 30 pounder. Matthew got on the board late but still managed to land a 21 and 25 pounder.

We fished until we lost our light on the marsh (3:45pm). Our near two hour commute back to the hotel gave us plenty of time to reminisce about our trip.
Since we raved about Acme Oyster House, our guide suggested to try Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar right across the street. What a great suggestion. The best BBQ oysters ever! We ordered two dozen raw and two dozen BBQ oysters and devoured them in what seemed like seconds. We could have easily ate a couple dozen more. So now we have to say Felix’s is the bomb especially their BBQ oysters. Acme was great but this was BETTER!

Our flight did not leave until 1:30pm the next day so we slept in and found a “hole in the wall” breakfast place down the street called Jimmy J’s. There was only 8 tables inside and a line forming outside waiting to be seated. I had a seafood omelette, Michael had Eggs Benedict Ranchero and Matthew ordered their signature Biscuits and Gravy topped with eggs. We all thought the meal was superb. What a great way to end a boys trip to a fishing and food Mecca.

I asked the boys on the flight back what they would rate the trip. Both said “10” with out hesitation.
A few side notes: 
-According to Capt. John “bull reds” is a term used to describe large redfish. The big redfish are all female! The males typically don’t get larger than 15-20 pounds.
-Only the males “drum”/ croak.
-Small black drum tastes identical to redfish.
-The fishing conditions ” Holy Trinity” is seldom seen and it mostly occurs on Capt. John’s day off :))
-The Louisiana oysters are less briny and meatier than their cold water cousins.
-BBQ oysters need very hot flames engulfing the oyster to keep the oyster from shrinking. Hard do it on a gas grill.
-Bull reds eat just about any fly presented to them. I tied 14 different flies and brought only one of each type. I did not want to lose a bunch of flies in case TSA confiscate them. –We did not check any bags this trip. All carry on including my rods and reels.
-The bigger the fly the better it seemed this week.
-Color of flies did not seem to matter. We used drab colors all the way to bright orange and chartreuse. Didn’t seem to make a difference.
-Had one 1/0 Fly Shop hook straighten out a bit. Note to self…use strong hooks next time.
-Out of 16 fish hooked this trip only one fish (the very first one), took the boys into backing. They hooked 5 fish over 25 pounds an none exposed backing.
-Capt. John said the smaller fish ( 15 pounders) take the longer runs. The big bulls just play tug of war.
-We used 7-8 foot leaders with 30 pound tippet on a Orvis Helios 2 9 weight rod.
-I set the drag pretty tight for the boys so a VERY smooth reel had to be used. Our Abel striper reel the boys won at the Striperfest a few years ago performed flawless.
-The reel was loaded with a Rio OBS WF9F.
-When there is no wind, the biting bugs come out by the gazillions. Have bug spray handy.
-Capt John is a sight fishing purist. He really likes to have his clients get fish sight fishing. That said, I’m confident that the boys could have hooked a few more fish each day if they were allowed to blind cast during unfavorable conditions.
-I did not fish at all….and still loved it! I did participate fully with the food consumption.

Since I did not fish I was the official photographer and videographer on the boat. I’m not very good at editing videos like Meng. His are phenominal. These are VERY raw and rudimentary.

The past couple months the kids have been busy with new activities at their new schools and hanging out with new friends. They have not fished much. I took the boys to Pyramid for the opener but it was a super windy day. They did not even fish all weekend. They had friends there camping with us so they were busy playing football and hiking with a group of them. Benson, Wes and I fished for half a day and it was mediocre at best. The fish bait did not come in so the fish were scattered.

The last day of guiding the fall salmon season was a fun one. My elderly client hooked and landed a really nice dinosaur (sturgeon) on a wrapped Kwikfish! He said when he set the hook it felt like a snag. Yep when you hook something that weighs 100 pounds, it’s not going to move much :)) He played it in extremely well and after 3 vertical jumps and 20 minutes we had it by the boat. What a nice way to end the guide season.

I fished with Wes on the delta yesterday from sun up to sun down. I have not cast that long and that much for a very long time. I can tell my arms and hands will be sore for a few days.  If I was casting a floating line all day it would have been fine but a 10 weight floater with a large Pole Dancer in the AM and T14 the rest of the day, my arm definitely got a work out.

The day started off very slow. Some dinks here and there and a few all purpose fish now and then. No huge schools were found. We saw Mike Costello in the area so we figured that was a good sign. When the tide changed at 3pm, it was like a light switch. We saw birds diving and bait busting so we headed over there and found a school on the graph and stayed on them for almost 3 hours. It was literally non stop fish after fish for the entire time. The fish were larger than dinks but never got over 3.5 pounds. Lots of legal size fish in the mix. I used my Helios 8 wt with T14 and Wes stuck with his Fenwick 6 wt with a 200 grain line. The fishing was automatic so it did not matter the grain weight of the line nor the size and color of the flies. I changed flies twice in the middle of the bite and it did not matter. As the saying goes “If the fish are biting it doesn’t matter what you use. If the fish aren’t biting, it doesn’t matter what you use”.

In the middle of that striper frenzy I hooked and landed a beautiful 9 pound king salmon. That salmon was either passing through or it was feeding on the baitfish that were there. It was great to get a salmon on a fly again. That was my goal for this trip!

This is our 2nd summer trip to Bandon. The boys had such a great time crabbing, clamming and 4 wheeling the sand dunes last year that they immediately requested to return in 2016. I rented a house this year because there was so much crab and clam processing that it made renting a motel room not practical. Our house was one block from the beach and less than a mile from the marina where my boat was in a slip. It had 5 bedrooms, 2 baths and sleeps 15! I definitely did not want a house that big but it was one of the few available for our week.

The trip was planned for early Tuesday morning departure but when I got home from work on Monday the boys were so excited to go that they begged to leave right away. I figured that might not be a bad idea to break the 6 plus hour drive in half and stay overnight in Medford. We packed the truck and boat and left with in an hour. A few minutes after we left, I got a call from home saying that Emma really wanted to go too so I turned around and went back home to pick her up. I’m glad she decided to go. I think it was a great experience for her. She loved the clamming and riding on the sand dunes the most. The crabbing was fun to for her but the weather was so windy that even crabbing in the bay there were swells and whitecaps. She got a little motion sickness so that made it not as enjoyable for her. Even the boys were getting a little sea sick.

We could have easily caught more crabs but since Emma was getting motion sickness on the boat, we decide to have her and one boy crab off the dock while the other boy and me crab in the boat. We would set the traps then go back to the dock and swap boys, then go pick up the pots/traps and reset them then go back to the dock and swap boys again… REPEAT…… Tougher to pull pots and work the boat at the same time. It was manageable and still fun because Emma still got the do some crabbing. By the end of the trip we tallied 79 keeper sized crabs. We ate almost 20 of them while we were there! On Friday we drove to Charleston and clammed in the morning. We got 4 full limits. That’s 80 clams. That night we ate fresh crab, fried clams, steamed clams, clam chowder, fresh farmers market corn and garlic bread.

There is a creamery in Bandon called Face Rock and it serves up excellent ice cream. The ice cream servings you see in the pics are CHILDS portions! AND it costs $2.00!

We packed it up and started our long drive home Sat. morning. We listened to The Andromeda Strain audiobook on the way home and that made the drive go by a little easier. Again, we are already looking forward to going back next summer!

The wind forecast was calm and the temps were not going to get hot until late morning so we decided to head to the river for some early morning striper fishing. We fished the past 2 mornings for only a couple hours each morning. The air temp was still cool and not a breath of wind. In two short mornings we saw 2 bald eagles (different ones), a turtle, kingfishers, turkeys, beavers and an osprey grab a fish. This morning there was not another boat around. So peaceful.

In two mornings our count was 52 fish landed and many lost. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the stripers were mostly small. The boys fished topwater plugs yesterday for half the time and landed 2 really big squawfish. One was pushing 8 pounds. The rest of the time fishing was throwing flies. We are so lucky to able to fish so close to home. A quick trip in the morning and back with plenty of time to do chores and be productive.

Melanie has always wanted to see London and Paris. I have been putting it off for years but she finally said we can’t go back to the places I want to go UNTIL we see London and Paris. So off we went! We left SFO in the evening and arrived in London the next afternoon. We did not want to pay the prices for sleeper cabins but we also did not want to travel coach. Thank god there was a Premium Coach option. The legroom was much better and the food served was a notch better than coach. Going Business Class for 5 people would be way over our budget.

We stayed in the Mayfair area of London and that area must be real Posh. We had never seen so many expensive cars parked on the street in our lives. We counted 7 Bentleys on a walk one morning. There were Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, McClarens parked on the street! The “cheap” cars were there Mercedes’ and the BMWs.

We visited some of the famous places in London. The London Eye, Big Ben, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court Palace, Churchill’s War Room and the Warner Bros. Studio where Harry Potter was filmed. I would say the Harry Potter studio was the highlight attraction for the kids.

I did not expect the food to be as good as it was there. The boys and I had fish and chips everyday we were there. They make killer fish and chips.

We had Afternoon Tea (High Tea) 3 times and that was a HUGE hit with the kids. I have to admit, it was pretty scrumptious.

Getting around was a breeze with the use of the “Tube”. Easy to get on and off and it stopped at all the famous attractions.

After 6 days in London we took a train to Paris. A nice meal was served on the train and it was wonderful to see the French countryside. We rented an apartment in the 8th District and it was gorgeous. Still close to the Metro (subway trains) but in a quiet neighborhood with nice bakeries and restaurants nearby.

We also visited some of the famous sights. Eiffel Tower, Palace of Versailles, The Louvre, Musee de Orsay, Notre Dame Cathedral and Montmartre. We took a food tour of Montmartre and it was spectacular. The food we tasted was fantastic and we went back everyday until we had to fly home. The chocolates and crepes were the highlights for me and the kids.

After 6 days in Paris it was time to go home. From the time we woke up to leave Paris to the time we stepped into our house, 30 hours had passed! Only 40 winks here and there during that commute.

It was a great memorable vacation and I think it will be on our minds for awhile.

We fished the hex hatch at the Afterbay with some mixed results. Last year there were lots of fish breaking water to get the bugs. This year there were a lot less topwater commotion but the topwater bite with plugs was good. We had numerous blowups but only landed 5 bass. The bite lasted 20 minutes tops so I’m glad the Afterbay is not too far away for us.

We finally got some GREAT shad weather! The past few weeks it has been atypical for this time of year.  On Weds. I fished with an old friend (Lee Dickey) who had not fished with me for over 20 years. He rated the fishing excellent. By the time we headed back to the launch ramp he had landed 20 fish and lost as many and had many other grabs. That’s just for an evening trip.

The next evening the boys had no basketball practice so we headed for the river to do some shad harvesting. Shad make great bait for crabs and since we are going to Bandon in August for crabbing, we needed to add bait to our existing inventory.

They fished a gravel bar first but it was pretty slow. They landed 5 shad and a couple suckers. We then left for my favorite shad anchor spot. From the time we got there it was non stop action. If the boys did not get at least a bite on every cast it was every other cast. They had multiple double hook ups and they each got doubles (two fish at the same time).

We quit early so we could come home and see the warriors stay alive! It was a great 2.5 hour shad trip for the boys.

We started our shad season on Friday. A wonderful group of regulars and a newbie joined us for the 2 day Kay Mitsuyoshi Memorial Shad invitational. The weather was unsettled and we actually got some thunder and lightning with some rain Sat. evening. The usual shad savvy anglers caught lots of shad and the newbie (Rebecca Blair) landed over 40 fish.

Steve Adachi, Tim Frahm and Victor Inouye were the usual fish vacuum cleaners.

Next week is a busier week for shad but the forecast is for rain on the weekend. Shad are fair weather fish. They still bite but not as readily.

Mike Hendry has been fishing out of Grimes the past 4 weeks and has been giving me stellar reports on stripers with live bait. I have been wanting to try stripers down there all season but could not find the time. On Friday I had a free day and Mike was also available to take us to his hot spots. I invited Benson to join us for the day.

We got to Grimes at 6:45am and Mike was waiting for us on the water. We took a pass along a rock wall and I hooked up on heavy fish. I did not see the fish until the very end of the battle but I could tell it had some shoulders on it. It put me on the reel instantly and that was my primary goal for the day. I wanted a fish to put me on THIS particular reel. I have not fished this reel before and wanted to give it a try.

When Mike finally netted the fish we did not want to stress the “girl” much so we took some quick pics and I took my time to revive her before the release.  According to Mike it was every bit of 15 pounds and I would have say that’s pretty close. Does not really matter, it was a good grab and fight and got a good picture of a fat and healthy striper.

Benson hooked and landed one on fly and I got anther one and that was it for flies. They stopped grabbing as soon as the boat traffic started. Benson switched to live bait and proceeded to catch the vast majority of the fish! I continued to fly fish to no avail.

Ended up with 11 stripers. A very slow day according to Mike.

From there we headed home to hook up my boat so we can do some shad recon. The river has changed a lot since the winter high water. Our go to shad run is no longer able to hold a large group, so we have to find other holding water. The shad are here but not thick yet. They will be in a week or so.

We had a free morning AND it was overcast AND the stripers were running so we decided to make a quickie trip out of Ord Bend to check things out. Michael wanted to throw topwater lures and Matthew wanted to fly fish. We launched at 9:30 am and worked our way down to the Pumps. When we got there we saw stripers busting bait on the surface.

Michael got 7 blow-ups and landed 2 keepers on a topwater bait. Matthew threw flies and hooked 5 and landed 4. I threw flies for a little bit and landed 2.

We had to called it quits and left fish busting around us because we had to get back home by Noon for a basketball tournament. Great quickie striper morning!