Last November I was invited by once Seychelles client now good friend, Brian Iannacchione, to join him in Texas to saltwater fly fish with another friend, legendary South African now American and world renown fishing guide, Jako Lucas.  As much as I wanted to join these buddies, I knew it was during peak smallmouth bass fishing at home.  I didn’t jump right on it.  Well, I’m happy to say, by January I accepted and here I am.  We just got in from day one and we had an exceptional time.

We’re staying with Jako at a remote part of the TX coast.  I’ve fished much of the region over the years for redfish but never this exact area.  Naturally its scorching hot, as is all of TX much of the year, but the weather is good with partly cloudy skies and 10-15 mph wind.  We left the harbor at 6 AM under absolutely perfect conditions.

As a guest of Brian’s, you know he told me to step to the bow when we stopped.  But I’d have none of it.  This is a trip he does every summer and he absolutely loves it.  I was happy to kick back and enjoy the sunrise while emptying what was left in my Yeti.

There’s a lot of fish around this time of year.  There’s one of America’s favorites, the redfish, along with seatrout, flounder, jack crevalle, alligator gar, black drum and sheepshead.  The nice thing about this crew is that we view all fish equal and whatever opportunity pops, we’re going for it.  Jako has seen excellent pods of jack crevalle at our location at sunrise so the boys rigged a big black fly on straight 60lb and made that the first pursuit.

We fished this area for about 90 minutes.  Brian made a few casts but it was more to loosen up.  The one thing you need for saltwater fly fishing is patience.  Tide and winds continuously change and fish move.  You may not see much when you start, but in an instant feeding fish can explode on you.  But that didn’t happen.  At 8 AM sharp, Jako had another jack spot in mind.  Off we went.

I was ready for the bow and Brian happily took a seat.  One thing about fishing in this heat is that you need to occasionally take a break to hydrate and replenish your energy.  Some people don’t like the sounds of sharing turns in fly fishing but on the sea it’s kind of nice.  Brian kicked back and I got in the cage.

As the years go by, the technology of flats boats combined with line management tools improve.  Everything in fly fishing continuously changes.  The “cage” is a comfortable platform in the bow to cast from that elevates you for better vision and has a basket to manage your loose line.  I must say it only took me a minute to feel right at home.

While Brian’s session was slow, I got lucky.  The jacks appeared literally a minute after I stretched my line for a cast.  I was armed with my new Winston Air 2 Max 10-weight with the floating SA Amplitude Textured Grand Slam .  For fun, I had on a jack killer, a beastly size popper.  A supercharged crevalle quickly decided to make the feathery chunk of foam his breakfast.

Like every hook up with a crevalle, I got smoked.  These fish take off at an unexplainable force.  You can see me doing my best to clear the line in the photo above.  Its never a guarantee you won’t hang up and break your fish off.  If you look closely, I had the line around my left leg.  I was lucky to clear it in time thanks to help from Jako and feeling the hitch with my bare feet.  Fish on!

All jack species fight hard.  Anglers without experience battling such strength are often shocked at the shear power.  By using a straight 60lb leader and not being afraid to tighten the drag on my Bauer fly reel, I was able to subdue this big fish in a few minutes.  A speedy landing is essential for successful catch and release and the shorter fight not a bad thing for a torn rotator cuff either!

The shoulder was hurting after Mr. Crevalle.  I gladly handed the cage back to Brian and chowed down some yogurt topped off with a Kate’s.  Brian got one cast over the next hour but no luck.  It seemed my catch was lucky and the high sun sent the jacks home early.

We jockeyed around the next few hours.  We headed between two jetties to meet a strong outgoing tide.  Going out with the tide this time of year are female blue crabs to release their eggs. You could compare these numerous swimming crabs to a mayfly hatch on your favorite trout river only it takes much larger fish to eat these crabs.  These crabs, some 6” or more across the back, attract a bit of everything including giant redfish (called bulls) up to 50 plus pounds.  Unfortunately, today only the birds and other anxious anglers were enticed.

There are tarpon this time of year in TX but very few.  Brian wants a TX tarpon like I want my first Atlantic sheepshead.  Jako took us to a place but the silver kings weren’t around.

Our last adventure of the day was a run to the flats to try and find the sheepshead.  Jako says the best time of year for these hard to catch attractively striped fish is spring but it was worth a look.  As a flats fanatic, mainly because I love hunting and sight fishing to fish, I was stoked.  It didn’t take long to bump into a few contestants.

The players however, were not the sheepshead, but rather small redfish.  We refer to them as small and for this species they are, but the ones we caught were pretty nice.  We nailed a few this size and I can tell you, these are great flats fish for 7- and 8-weight rods.  We had a blast!

We called it a day around 2 PM.  This may sound early but when you’re on the water at 6 AM, its an 8 hour day.  Typically, by midafternoon its not only hot for the fish, its hot for anglers and most are wiped out by the time its 90°.  With Jako you have the option of a half day early and again late and we will take those hours tomorrow.

Day one was a dandy.  We landed a few and one stud of a jack.  I mentioned it was a tough decision to leave WI in the summer, but after today I’m glad I did.  Not only was our fishing excellent, but it was fantastic to catch up with Brian and Jako today.  We’ll get back after it in the morning.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing