LowerSacTrout.com

Each year, I travel somewhere exotic to catch fish one can't catch in the Lower 48.  Most years, I'm hosting a group, taking the whole lodge, or most of it, just for my group.  

UPDATE - Christmas Island (CXI) 2018 Trip Report - 
The trip was a raging success.  All 7 of my clients had the time fo their lives, and some landed 'fish of a lifetime'. Congrat's to Zach and his 85+ lb Giant Trevally caught on a 10 wt. after 45 min. battle.  Epic!! 
Tons of bonefish were caught. Triggers, bluefin/barred/yellow trevally, wrasse, grouper, snapper were all landed.  Nobody got ill and all flights went off without a hitch.  There might be plans to return within a year.... stay tuned.  


Christmas Island Hosted Trip - 2018 - SOLD OUT!!  

Hosted trips are a great way to travel without worring "Did I forget something?", or "Am I where I'm supposed to be right now?"  Christmas Island (for example) is halfway across the ocean in the middle of nowhere.  Having been 3 times already, I have answers to all of those questions, to make the trip easier. 
If you're thinking about taking the plunge into the world of International Fly Fishing Travel, consider a Hosted Trip.  The Fly Shop hosts a bunch of different trips to different places. Some are advertised on their website. Some are trips I plan and advertise here, on my site. 
www.theflyshop.com 

CHRISTMAS ISLAND - Bonefishing mecca of the world. Fly to Hawaii, take a 4.5 hr. flight south, and you're there.  Days where anglers release +20 bonefish are fairly common.  Shots at Giant Trevally are always part of the daily activity... and they can run up to 80 lbs.  Outside, in the deep water they have tuna, wahoo, milkfish, billfish, and more G.T.'s.  Some places, (The 'Korean Wreck')  an angler can release up to 10 different species in a day.
The place we stay is "The Villages"

Here's a video of the 2013 Hosted Trip -  the trip was a raging success !! Congrat's especially to Dave scoring his largest bonefish ever, and largest fish on a fly ever !!  Kevin scored his first (and 30th) bonefish !!  Marshall landed a whopper GT.... and everybody else had excellent trips.

The 2016 trip to Christmas Island was a huge sucess.  Everybody caught a ton of bonefish. I walked alone on the last day and ended with 36 fish to hand.  I mean....it just doesn't get much better than Christmas for numbers of shots at bones per day. Many GT to 25 pounds were caught. Triggerfish were landed and lost. (They have sharp teeth!!!!)  One day we got into Milkfish.  An incredible fighting fish that runs like a bonefish and jumps like tarpon.  Yellowfin tuna caught trolling just outside the lagoon provided fresh sashimi for all.  
 

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The summer of '11 was great, living inside a National Park, smack dab in the middle of some of the greatest trout fishing on the planet.   My wife and I spent 4 months at the Big Ku Lodge, hosting anglers from all over the 'lower 48'.  We fished some oustanding water in the Katmai Park/Bristol Bay Region of Alaska.  We spent June and July swinging flies and skating mouse patterns to rainbows in the 23-27" class.  Our home water, the Big Kukaklek River, was the perfect river for a spey rod, so we spey'd a bunch.  August was full of crazy-productive bead fishing for BIG rainbows behind spawning sockeye and September had a liltle bit of both swinging and beading for big trout. Overall, living and working inside a national park for 4 months was a great experience. 

Here's a sneak peak of our summer :

 
Katmai Park 2011 

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Christmas Island - 2010
We had a great time, despite a couple days of rainy weather. Fish were plentiful.
Bonefishing was excellent and some big GT's were caught.
See pictures on my TRAVEL PHOTOS page.

Spring of 2009, we went to the Bahams.
We did a DIY trip to Long Island. After getting in touch with people who'd been there before, we were dialed in to where to go for good wade fishing without the use of a guide or boat.
 
Sarah working a creek mouth near an old Haitian wreck      35 lb. tarpon on bonefish gear!

Mission accomplished. 

We were rained out mid-week, so we only fished 3 full days, but we caught bonefish, tarpon, barracuda, and shark on the fly!
Email me if you'd like info about DIY fishing on Long Island, Bahamas.

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Traveling

to fish is one of my favorite parts of fly fishing. 

I've been lucky enough to be associated with TFS (The Fly Shop), which has opened the window of opportunity for me over the past two decades.

I first started travelling in 1999, when I went to Paradise Lodge on the Mexican Yucatan. Here, I got bit by the saltwater bug.  Scoring a Grand Slam on my second day ever flats fishing didn't help. The tarpon fishing there was like nothing I've seen since. I will return to this place in the not so distant future!

In 2001, after a trip to B.C. for salmon and steelhead, I had the opportunity to explore a river in Kamchatka, Russia - that had never, ever, been fished before.  TFS has been running these "Exploratory Trips" in Kamchatka almost yearly.  What an adventure that was !! I'd do it again in a second.

       
-Loading up-                                                                     -Rob with a trout too fat to hold upright. Ozernaya R. Kamchatka -

4 hours of flying in Russian Helicopters got us into phenomenal trout fishing on untouched waters. 
Mouse flies were the norm.

I spent four summers in Alaska guiding for just about everything that swims in rivers up there.  I did three seasons ('05,'06,'07) for Rapids Camp Lodge on the NakNek River out of King Salmon.  RCL is a top-notch operation, with great planes, lodging, food, and guides.   

 -Another day at the office - Ugashik Narrows, AK.-

Then, I did one season of guiding for Kings at Hoodoo Sportfishing Lodge ('08) on the Aleutian Penninsula.

-Spey caster Stephen from England with 'another one'-

Between spending my summers in Alaska, I reverted to the opposite end of the spectrum and hit the tropics during the California Winter and early Spring.

I spent quite a bit of time living at this Archipelago off the coast of Venezuela - called Los Roques.

 
-The Island of Gran Roque. Home away from home-            -Horse Eye Jack, Los Roques-

I went down to help run the operation, train new guides and just make sure our clients were having fun. I tied and sold hundreds of flies while there and developed some bonefish fly patterns that are sold nationally now.

One season, I spent some time on a tiny atoll in the French Polynesia area of the South Pacific belonging to the Cook Islands.  Researching the movements of bonefish and the numbers of fish in the atoll was the primary goal.  It wasn't a bad gig.  Living on a working Black Pearl farm was very interesting.
We had to go out every few nights to troll for dinner - kinda like shopping. There were no stores, so we relied on catching tuna and wahoo so we had something to go with our rice and coconut.  I lost 20 pounds on that diet!

Of course, I tried to help out whenever I could...

   
-WAAAAHHOOOOOO!! We eat tonight! -                               -South Pacific Bonefish from Penrhyn, Cook Islands-

My wife and I travel quite a bit together, mostly chasing bonefish. We bonefished on our honeymoon and on our first anniversary.

-Sarah's first bonefish, 8 lbs. Bahamian out island -

During summer of '08, we hit Baja for some 'non-flats' species. We had a blast.
 
Sailfish x2-

-38 lbs. Bull Dorado-


Since then.... 

A trip to Paradise Lodge, Mexico and also a trip to Venzuela for Los Roques Bones  - See videos on the VIDEO page !