How to Spot Fish on Saltwater Flats, with Jason Franklin

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

James Hathaway

Bass, Fishing, Bonefish, Wilderness, Flyfishing, Trout, How To, Steelhead, Bluegill, Fly, Orvis, Sports, Salmon, Panfish, Education, Rosenbauer

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2024

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are there any tricks to spotting fish on saltwater flats, especially if it's your first time? You may be disappointed to hear that there is no magic bullet and every place you fish will offer different species, water color, and depth. But Jason Franklin [37:36] has a lifetime of experience helping his clients to spot bonefish and permit in the water, and he gives us some solid tips on how to develop this skill.

In the Fly Box this week, we have an unusual number of great tips from listeners, along with some questions Tom attempts to answer, including:

Will a 2-weight rod give me more enjoyment than my 7 1/2-foot 3-weight when bluelining on my local streams? How about a 10 foot two-weight?
What is the purpose of tying a tippet ring on the end of big dry flies?
Three great fly-tying and fishing hacks from a listener
A listener describes how he fixed a bobbin that kept cutting thread using a fly-tying bead.
What hook sizes can I cast on my 5-weight when fishing for bass? And would it help to put a 6-weight on my rod when casting larger flies?
What do you think of trying weedless carp flies for fish that are in pockets between weeds?
If I am tying various styles of streamers in a range of sizes, should I get a rooster cape?
Do I need to dry out my fly line before putting my reel away?
I want to try a tenkara rod but my fishing buddy says it's not fly fishing. What do you think?
I could catch trout on Woolly Buggers but had trouble catching them on small midges. What should I try in this tailwater the next time I go?
Three tips from a listener on getting success when tight-line nymphing.
Is it possible to get transcripts for the podcasts?
What is the process for experimentation with new fly patterns?
A listener adds another common way to break a fly rod
When you talk about leader length, do you include the tippet?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast this is your host Tom
0:14.1	Rosenberg and my guest this week is Jason Franklin of H2O bone fishing on
0:21.9	Grand Bahama.
0:23.4	And Jason's an old friend and he's an amazing guide.
0:28.4	And I wanted to talk to Jason about tips for sightfishing, tips for spotting species like bonefish and permit and tarpin in shallow water.
0:42.4	And you know I was and Tarpon in shallow water.
0:42.9	And you know, I was, I was, I was,
0:46.2	I was looking for some panacea
0:51.8	that Jason could tell us saying, oh, you always have to look for this or this or this.
0:57.0	And what I realized in the process of doing the podcast with Jason is that there isn't a panacea, you know different light
1:06.3	conditions different depths you really have to kind of get used to the local
1:12.0	environment for spotting fish. I mean, he does,
1:14.8	Jason does have some great tips on how to spot fish, but probably not what you were
1:20.6	hoping or not what you expected. So if you're going to be doing any saltwater fishing
1:27.2	this winter or summer, and you're
1:29.8	going to be sight casting in the shallows,
1:32.0	I think you'll get a lot of good information out of
1:35.2	this just just no no magic bullet.
1:42.0	One small announcement. I have a book that I wrote a number of years ago called
1:48.3	Fly Fishing for Trout the Next Level and I put a bunch of videos in there with QR code so that I could explain things better through videos.
1:58.0	And the videos weren't working for a while and I got a number of letters into the podcast mailbox telling me that the videos were broken
2:06.2	and not working.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from James Hathaway, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of James Hathaway and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.