Saltwater Fly-Fishing

EDITOR'S NOTE: To take the biggest fish of your life on fly tackle, fish with Captain Cliff Jones, one of only two fly-fishing guides in Orange Beach, Alabama. Or, if you want to catch speckled trout at night under the lights and experience an altogether different form of fly-fishing, head to Orange Beach now.

QUESTION: You also fishing around gas rigs for cobia. Tell me how you do that.

ANSWER: I pull up to the rig and look for them. Of course, if you see them, obviously that's what you try to catch. You can flip a live bait to cobia or a plastic eel. If we don't catch any cobia, I'll make a blind cast around the rig. Of course, I consider seeing cobia the best way to fish for these fish because then you know the cobia are there to begin with and that it's worth your while to spend time on that rig to see if you can catch the snapper. In my opinion, covering a lot of rigs becomes the key to being successful.

QUESTION: You really like to fly-fish for these fish, right?

ANSWER: Correct.

QUESTION: You're fly-fishing primarily for snapper and speckled trout, right?

ANSWER: When I'm offshore, I'll for anything from red snapper to king mackerel and all species of fish in between. When I'm fishing inshore at night, I'm fishing primarily for speckled trout and redfish.

QUESTION: Tell me how you get these snapper up off the rigs.

ANSWER: I'm chumming the snapper up by using small fish cut into little pieces like those frozen that you find in Killer Bee Bait's Chum Bag. I'll set up a chum line. If I don't catch anything in 30 or 40 minutes and I don't see anything, I'll move on. I'll know that it's a dead rig or the tide's not right there or any number of things, which will make me move on to another rig.

QUESTION: You can see the snapper come up behind the boat?

ANSWER: Sometimes.

QUESTION: Then you'll cast to them with what kind of fly tackle?

ANSWER: I use heavy fly tackle, 11-weight, 12-weight and 13-weight Fenwick fly rods.

QUESTION: What weight fly line are you using?

ANSWER: Twelve and 13.

QUESTION: What kind of flies are you using?

ANSWER: I use the ones I tie myself.

QUESTION: What are they called?

ANSWER: I use a lot of Clouser minnows and Deceivers.

QUESTION: You sell your flies, right?

ANSWER: Correct.

QUESTION: What do you charge for your hand-tied flies?

ANSWER: Twenty-four dollars a dozen flies and up.

QUESTION: What makes them so special?

ANSWER: They're tied with tender loving care.

QUESTION: When you get the snapper up and they're in the chum line, how do you catch them?

ANSWER: I make sure the bait falls at the same rate as the chum so the fly looks natural to the fish. If your bait doesn't fall at the same rate as the chum, the fish won't bite it.

QUESTION: You're talking about your fly bait?

ANSWER: Both fly bait and regular bait. It's the same thing.

QUESTION: So you're sight fishing for these snapper when you're fly-fishing for them?

ANSWER: Correct.

QUESTION: Are you picking out the snapper you're going to try to catch?

ANSWER: When snapper come up, I try to cast to the biggest snapper in the school. That biggest snapper won't always be the fish that takes the bait because another fish may beat the big fish to it.

QUESTION: Tell us the biggest snapper you caught fly-fishing.

ANSWER: I've gotten an 11-pound fish so far.

QUESTION: What's the average fish you'll catch fly-fishing?

ANSWER: Five to seven pounds. Sometimes you can do better than you can with regular tackle because they're not accustomed to fly tackle, and therefore won't be so skittish.

For more information on saltwater fly-fishing, contact Captain Cliff Jones at P.O. Box 1027, Orange Beach, AL 36561, (334) 981-1827, or e-mail himÿat nautico@gulftel.com. You also can visit his website at www.offshoreflyfishing.com.

Tomorrow: Night Fishing For Speckled Trout