Saltwater fly tying and fly fishing workshop

Qualified – Train the trainer, Advanced Trainer Leave No Trace Principles, Certified group facilitation and first aid.

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A Saltwater fly tying / fly fishing workshop

Learn to tie and to fish unique flies and patterns , that swing, for sea trout and bass.

Morning session – 09:30 – 12:30

Tying flies that swing, with Brian

• Fly types
• Materials
• Hooks
• Balance and colour
• Simplicity

Lunch at The Yard restaurant

Afternoon session – 14:00 – 17:30

Fishing the flies that swing, with Jim – using the flies you’ve tied

• Location selection
• Line types
• Leader construction and essentials
• Reading the current
• Swinging the fly, the different types of swing and when to make them
• Single handed and Switch rod line determinations and presentations

Workshops available on demand (when conditions allow) two people only per day

Casting gear

• Rods - TFO – Deer Creek & Echo3,  switch rods # 5 #6 & #7’s @ 11’-0” – 300-550 grains
• Lines – Rio Switch line 7/8, Guideline PT and Vision ACE – Rio outbounds 11F
• Leaders – Rio VersiLeaders various options (accordingly fit to circumstances)
• Reels – Echo Ion 8/10 – Vison Nite (saltwater resistant NOT proof)
• Line tray – available here shortly

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“Using traditional presentation techniques to catch fish that are holding in current to feed adds so much to saltwater fly fishing that it should be explored for the pure joy of discovery. Engaging the difficulties of proper presentation is perhaps the most wonderful part of fishing with a fly rod.

The simplicity of casting a long line and stripping back a fly is a way of fishing with the fly rod but it bypasses the full scope that understanding and using traditional presentation techniques encompasses.

A true “new and exciting frontier” for saltwater fly fishing would be to embrace and explore the central and fundamental role that reading current understanding drag and skilful presentation have always played in fly fishing. To understand these energies and use them artfully is the essential core of what it has always meant to be a knowledgeable and gifted fly fisherman”

Ken Abrames -

Conclusion Photos and notes

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Costs of workshop with options

Option One - bespoke to your requirements Tea/Coffee on arrival Saltwater Lure Fishing Workshop

Including Lunch at The Yard Restaurant Total Fee €165.00 for one person - €200.00 for two people

Option Two - bespoke to your requirements One night stay with B+B 100 metres from SEAi HERE Tea/Coffee and light refreshments during your day Saltwater Lure Fishing Workshop

Including Lunch at The Yard Restaurant Total Fee €205.00 for one person – € 255 for two people total  – 2 people maximum.

Social media

A happy but very concerned bass fishing guide

I guess it’s that time of year for me, all customers have finished for season 2012 and I have a little freedom and time to fish for myself! Thoughts on a season.

I wish.

Lately it’s been pretty hectic for many reasons and at times I have felt, a lot like many other people in this country I’m sure, that I am doing too much maybe. At the moment this is a hard cold fact of nature and it is necessary for ‘survival’. The semester for the BSc degree started way back four weeks ago, I have been lucky to have started on an IT systems implementation contract during mid-September and of course I still had commitments for guiding bass fishing customers up to this weekend, so it’s been breakneck to be honest and I feel a bit tired at the moment.

It might seem difficult at times but these simple elements are links in a chain that must remain connected. This year’s college semester subjects are Sustainability & Regulation and Human resource management in the tourism industry, challenging no doubt but the degree is part of the overall strategy regarding development of my angling tourism business. One of the highlights of this year (there has been some) was to finish as runner up in the Wexford business awards tourism category. It has been remarked to me that considering the competition it was no mean achievement for a one person show.

There is always the fear of coming out of the back end of a fully committed season at the close of October and not being able to find employment for six months. April of the following year is a long ways away and this challenge has always existed for as long as I have been guiding. Being seasonally self-employed has its draw backs too! Things are terribly difficult at the moment for many people and so I have been very lucky indeed with my short contract, considering the current state of the country. It cannot be denied that this continued financial stability supports the momentum of the guiding business in terms of insurances, public liabilities, promotion, maintenance, development, planning and the normal associated costs of any professional operation.

As any hard working bass guide in this country knows it’s a difficult task, not done to put large sums of money in the bank but more as a ‘lifestyle choice’ really, the associated challenges are met as best and as professionally as you possibly can whilst other challenges arrive from sources both predictable and from time to time completely out of the blue. Lobbying pressure is continuously exerted on government ministers regarding the re-opening of the commercial fishery very little is done to examine, promote or engage with the sustainable alternative – I often wonder how exactly does this happen and why?

The last and most important of these links is of course the customer and their angling experiences. Much has been made of the season of 2012 and no doubt as I gain time around me I will write about my own experiences and thoughts of the season here on this website. I am lucky that the customer base I have consists of wonderful people possessing patience and understanding. With many cancellations, put backs, changes and long silent fishless hours it has been beyond doubt the most challenging and frustrating season in Wexford since I started guiding in 2003. I can only say to any customer thank you at this stage for your patience over the season, please expect to hear more from me before Christmas on an individual basis.

The fish are the hub upon which all of this spins and ultimately the environment within which they live is where I guide visiting tourist anglers. This changing angling environment has forced me to re-think the business model, I have had to adapt to the increasing recreational angling pressure on locations in Wexford, many of which were only up to recently empty and silent. Where there was once otter families you will now find four wheel drives! Travelling tourist anglers look to find fish of course but also peace and a ‘sense’ of wildness and isolation, this has largely disappeared from the Wexford coast. What I need most of has become more difficult to find and manage at home.

Coupled to that is the decrease in fish numbers I have experienced on the Wexford coast all season long.

As is normal I have continued to work with Irish based businesses, local restaurants, shops, tackle retailers, fly tiers, B+B’s, charter boat skippers and I hope that through this network of local associations some strength of the many socio-economic benefits of bass fishing can be realised. This is the best way to counter any threat from the commercial fishery, but many people including anglers don’t realise that they are playing an important role in protection and it remains difficult to collate important data.

So after the tenth year of guiding on this coast I am happy and yet deeply concerned. It was a year in which I have learned that even when you speak the truth fabrication and exaggeration seem to hold more importance and credibility!

It’s been a tough year, the toughest so far, for many reasons but I’m out the far side and ready to continue into 2013.

With a new range of Irish tied and designed saltwater sea trout flies, Echo saltwater fly rods a new one day saltwater fly-tying workshop, pike fishing on the fly all evolving and nearly ready, I’m already looking forward to and planning the new season!

It ain’t over yet, its just beginning!

Jim Hendrick

Max the grinder and Thomas the legend – a predator week!

Its the end of another remarkable Irish bass angling adventure. During the last few days the experiences these guys have been lucky enough to have had, have been remarkable. Fish over 80cms and others > 75 over long hard days with many fishless silent comfortable hours in wonderful environments, but the result – little in quantity but generally great in quality. Max landed another fine sample yesterday – @ 77cms

 

 

 

We took a little ‘freshwater’ break during stormy midweek and we tried for some ‘toothy critters’ – going ‘green’ is always a nice change and the pike provided many many opportunities even if they were a little switched off. Pike, bass, wrasse, pollack all landed over the last few days.

Thomas and Max spent a guided week here with me last year – already a third year is on their minds!  Roll on 2013 thanks for the company guys!

Max takes his 78cm’s today – Moby Dick 161st Anniversary

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

Moby Dick – Hermann Melville

A late mid-autumn Wexford bass bonanza!

Thomas and his big fish habit–again!

Thomas has a habit of catching nice Autumn fish in Wexford – a returning customer who travelled last year from Holland with his friend Max - they took some nice fish almost to the day – see this post from October 2011 –

Todays second fish came in at 80 cm’s

We have an interesting week ahead and hope to see a few more like this – Max is next in line I guess! Great fun and great company too! Hang on to your hats tomorrow.

The right place at the right time

Coastal Fly Shop

‘You know, so much of fly fishing, at least as much as the sport relates to migratory or season-dependent fish, is about anticipation and planning, more than it is about how far you can cast, or what bug you have tied on, or any of that.

And sometimes, no matter what you do to prepare, no matter how far you’ve trained that cast, and no matter how sexy those bugs you tied up over the winter are, it’s still ultimately about finding yourself in the right place at the right time.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

To the extent more of us figure that out, that’s good for fly fishing’ –

Kirk Deeter – Editor at large – Field and Stream

Visit the fly shop HERE

Get well soon Johnny Rix

See you in sunny 2013 – lucky for some!

Available NOW @ www.thecoastalflyshop.com

Rajeff Sports is a small, personal, company of fly-fisher folk residing in Vancouver, Washington. They are the vision of Tim Rajeff—the culmination of his huge personality and an outlet of both creativity and service to the industry. Currently Rajeff Sports distributes Echo Fly Rods to the world and Airflo Fly Lines to North America. They strive to provide quality products and customer service to their fellow fly-fishers.

As the founding father of Rajeff Sports, Tim tends to be busier than your average bald guy. When in the office, he spends all his time designing new lines and rods, addressing managerial-type-stuff or helping with customer service. When he’s out and about, you will find him teaching casting classes, giving seminars, or pursuing fish in various waters.

Tim’s extensive knowledge of fly rod design and performance stems from his early childhood patronage to the Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club in San Francisco, where he became a young and successful competition caster. Tim has received a gold medal in the World Casting Games in single hand distance as well as winning the national overall fly accuracy and distance championship. Tim first began designing rods in 1980, and was one of the first people to use and adapt graphite fly rods in competition casting.

After spending his youth fishing and casting in California and Oregon, Tim’s fishing career took a turn when he took a job working for the Fenwick Fly Fishing School in Montana during 1973. In 1985 he made the trek north and began guiding in Alaska, eventually moving on to develop and build the first fishing camps on Russia’s Kola Peninsula, 60 miles above the Arctic Circle. He spent six years managing these camps before returning to the states in 1994. Upon his return he began working for a premium domestic rod manufacturer, where he worked as head of the engineering department and the Fly Brand Manager. He worked there until 2001 and along the way learned every aspect of fly rod design and manufacturing.

Saltwater pike on the fly

Silja from Balticflyfisher

Spends her time travelling around Europe from casting event to casting event, running the BFF Casting School, giving lessons and going fishing. On top of that she also answers technical questions on tackle, casting and of course fly fishing in general. Just recently she caught this fish a tad under 10 kgs in fact just a week ago!

Silja also recently took medals at the Fly casting world championships.

Fisheries protection quad patrol in action

I unexpectedly came across the Inland Fisheries Ireland fisheries officers yesterday after noon as they made a patrol along the Wexford beaches – commitment and investment like this can only help Irelands angling and tourism industry. We need it to work on a number of levels.

Well done too to the guys after a recent number of successes on the Waterford and Wexford coasts.

Bass fishing on the fly 1886

Sporting Dramatic News 1886

Sea Fishing Fly-Fishing Bass Flies Fishermen Swain

A page taken from our volume of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News volume 2, but only contains pages from March 1886 to September 1886. A high class weekly journal featuring sports, arts, literature music and the drama. Each page is approx 11 x 16 inches (280 x 410)all are genuine antique prints and not modern reproductions. Please note as these papers are very old they are very fragile and brittle so should be handled with care.

Do I see early softbait prototypes in the top left too?

Leave no trace

“...the person who goes with reverent feet through the hills and valleys, accompanied by neither noise nor dust to scare away wild creatures, stopping often, watching closely, listening carefully. Only thus can they, at length, feel at one with what is, after all, their natural environment”.
ROBERT LLOYD PRAEGER, 1937

The Leave No Trace Guidelines

Leave No Trace principles

Wexford

A saltwater shoreline

Rebound - I'm living in the wrong country!

Wexford October Sky

After a week like last week its not easy to get back to ‘normal’. Normal for me exists out here with people under the sky. Its amazing how quickly a week goes, at times it lies before you, vast and with endless possibilities, and then suddenly its gone and then I am left without the great company I had for five intense, fun, challenging, interesting and incredible days. Thanks Rob and Ronan.

I should be used to it by now, it never goes away!

Head Hitters

Robert - October 01st VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL