Just back from a big week in New Orleans where the International Fly Tackle Dealer Show took place. Suffice to say, I’m kindof happy it’s not occuring there again next year. People seemed to be more enthusiastic, shall I say, than they’ve been in Denver and there were a lot of lost souls wandering around in a daze
each morning, with gallon size coffees in hand.
Kara Armano fighting a nice red in the Louisiana marsh.
It wasn’t like business didn’t get done. And I pushed hard for Angler’s Tonic and Fly Rod & Reel, telling possible partners what the mag and Web site can do for them and what their presence means for me and the magazine. I felt like all the relationships grew stonger and I opened up new possibilities as well. So that’s the business news.
What I remember most from the trip, at least what I can tell here, was a day on the water with Backbone Media’s Kara Armano. She handles duties for Redington and Sage and does so very well. She brought all the flies, leaders, tippet, rods and reels that we would need, plus a guide. All I had to do was buy my license prior to the trip and we were good to go.
The guide was this cool dude named Barrett Brown, a New Orleans native who knew some pretty cool marsh and put us on fish right away. But, before all that. you have to be a little careful around this Armano girl, because she has a wicked sense of humor. For instance, in an act that I believe was to point out the fact that I haven’t gotten enough excercise this summer, she came out of the marina with a 12-pack of Ultra in hand. “Ultra,” I questioned. “Doesn’t that stuff contain, like, .5 percent alcohol. Or is that actually an NA beer?”
The Rocky Mountain trout guy comes through with a nice one.
No worries. Under a frying sun, with little wind and water temperatues rating 82 degrees, any beer is good beer. And any redfish would have been a good redfish, but I got one that may have weighed 11 or 12 pounds. Kara landed a couple, too. In between I landed a stingray and threw at a gar. And, I did hook a redfish that Brown estimated to be 30 pounds. Only problem? It turned on the fly and I strip-set into its head. Fortunately the fish came off in a few moments.
On the water Armano and I threw an eight-weight ONE, which is Sage’s new glory stick. It performed just as well on redifsh as it had on my king salmon during my recent trip to Alaska. We also threw Redington’s new rod, the Predator. At $250, that is a great introductory stick for salt water.
Success on the flats is sweet.
Overall NOLA was good to me and that redfishing has perked my interest in a return trip during prime conditions. Probably not this fall, but sometime soon. Big fish in shallow water that aren’t too picky. What not to like—gt
Going back to get bigger.