If I’ve had better domestic fishing trips, I can’t remember them. Blitzing Albies, fish from the beach, pool and locol luches at the BT, fantastic food and one questionable movie night. Others have made posts on the forum, but now, you get to the REST of the story…
k:
This is Seth. He’s not very tall. (More on that later). But the man knows how to host a fishfest. And he’s not afraid to move quickly–in a boat or on foot.
I rolled into NC expecting a typical fisherman’s hangout–coupla folding camp chairs, a pop-up trailer, and maybe a double-wide with a bag of Cheetos in the corner. Instead, We pull up to the pad in Atlantic Beach, and Seth promptly escorts me to the back deck:
This is Kary, who I fished with all week. Like Seth, he’s a contractor in North Carolina who can find the albies as well as any guide. A man of few words but plenty of fish.
Kari was great to fish with. Unfortunately, on our second day, he had to head back early to “get in a little beach time.” We naturally figured he meant fishing, but when we got back to the house, he was curled up in the sand with his new towel:
Wasn’t sure what to make of that. But, you know, whatever. Figured maybe it was an East Coast thing. In any case, we were introduced that night to another East Coast thing–an Atlantic City fine-dining establishment with good fries and a better-than-average percentage of drunk chicks:
The bad news: The BT serves shots. The good news: Those shots helped this man keep albies around all day by supplying a constant chum line.
Here is Seth again, fishing from the beach. Note the albies busting just beyond him and to the left:
Up to this point, the fish hadn’t really come into casting range. But a few minutes later, Seth and I were both in the surf, and about a dozen albies came in real close, right up to the narrow sand bar in front of us, only about 20 yards down the beach. Now, it isn’t very often that flyfishing can truly be called “athletic.” But in that split-second that Seth and I had to go after these fish, as I stood there with my mouth open, unable to believe how close these fish were, Seth was literally racing across the water. Remember, he isn’t very tall, and sprinting quickly through thigh-high ocean is never easy. But if it was 20 yards away, Seth beat me there by 15. And once there, he remembered the Golden Rule of flyfishing-ESPECIALLY albacore fishing:Get yer fuckin’ fly in the water. Fast. The result:
This is a guy named Harry, who is known in many on-line striper circles and apparently catches the shit out of some monster spring stripers at the mouth of Chesepeake Bay. At night. He currently holds the 20-pound tippet class record on a fly, and other than some suspect video selections, seems to be a good guy and is as obsessed an angler as any I’ve come across:
Real deal vs. fakie:
And a few more flies. The clouser and minnow types worked best, but of course that crease fly at the end was the favorite–they ain’t afriad to move for that thing:
If you’re still with me, here’s a couple closing shots: The lighthouse in the background, and yours truly heading back from a little beach session. Good times.
back to the pad:
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.