Back to normal

Everyone that has up coming trips on the books can all take a deep breath. The weather has appeared to have returned to normal. I will keep you posted on the tarpon migration but I am sure it will be in full swing soon. We did land a nice tarpon on fly today, the fish was caught in the Indian River. The other highlight of the day was a big trout 8.5 pounds on the boga grip but we will call it 9, what do you expect this is a fishing blog. Stay tuned hopefully some good tarpon pictures soon. I apologize to everyone last week that we had to cancel, I lost a total of six trips last week!

my guide service website http://stuartflyfishing.com/
my photography website http://pbase.com/stuartflyfishing

what the Tweet!

Here is a photo I took on my last nice weather day here a week ago.


Everywhere I turn I hear about "tweeting" on twitter, so curiosity got the best of me and I checked it out today. Now I must admit it is not the first time I have been on twitter, about 5 months ago one of the followers of this blog told me about twitter and suggested that I started "tweeting". I checked it out and at that time did not really get it? Now on the other hand, I am much wiser to this social networking thing and I do get it! It is quick and easy and very informative. I love this blog and it has been a great source of entertainment for both me and you the reader but, the biggest complaint is that I don't post often enough. Problem solved, a mini blog, known as twitter. It takes time for me to post something here, I have to edit photos, try to come up with something creative to write and then put it all together, total time is usually over a couple hours per post. On twitter I can type something in about 2 minutes and keep all my clients and fishing buds up to speed. Now don't worry this is definitely not the end of this blog, just another tool for you to stay in touch with what I am up to in between blog postings. Like for example, over the last 5 days I could have "tweeted" that it has rained like hell here and I have lost 5 charters. This is the unfortunate reality to my job. However, the weather is getting better and hopefully tomorrow I can "tweet": (Great day, jumped 2 tarpon and landed a bunch of snook.) You get the idea.
Many of you are already on twitter and you know how it works you just have to sign on as a friend of mine. If you have never been on twitter give it 5 minutes sign up and follow what I am doing on a daily basis. I consider everyone I fish with a friend and I am giving you open invite into my day to day life. My user name on twitter is StuartFlyfishin but I think you can just search my name John Meskauskas to locate me. You can also "tweet" back if you like and let me know what you are up to. The one negative I have found with twitter is locating people. I know it is because my main email is not done through Gmail or Yahoo or any of these other main stream emails, so please look me up and follow my "tweets"

my guide service website http://stuartflyfishing.com/
my photography website http://pbase.com/stuartflyfishing

Fishing report 5-14-09

I have had loads of positive feedback about the new website design and this blog but, if there is one complaint, it is that I do not post as many "fishing reports" as I use to. The main reason is time, there just does not seem to be enough hours in the day. I am also falling victim to my own critiquing. Basically I want to have good photos before I post something and many times I do not have pictures that I think are good enough to post. Photography is a lot like fishing, you catch lots of fish but only some are keepers. So I decide to mix in a good old fishing report every now and again. They will be titled Fishing Report with the date, no special photos just a few grip and grin snapshots.



I must get asked ten times a day, "So how's the fishing been lately?" Do you know how hard that question is for me to answer? Lately? Do you mean lately like today or yesterday and today? Or do you mean like newspaper lately? You know the fishing report that the local tackle shop posts in the paper which is usually some guy that fished 2 weeks ago and he told the tackle shop guy that he caught some dolphin the other day. Basically what I am getting at is that everyday is a new day and if you ask me the fishing is always good, and most of the time great. The last couple of weeks have been a prime example of what I mean. I have had some tough days that we had to work very hard to catch a handful of snook, followed by days were we landed tarpon, giant jacks, snook and cobia all in a half day. The weather has been great up until yesterday when the easterly winds picked up. The beach is full of cobia, some tarpon and still plenty of jack schools, while the river has had plenty of snook. I guess all in all the fishing has been good and great a handful of days. Yesterday it was overcast and windy and we only managed a few snook, today we hooked 3 tarpon, caught a nice grouper and landed a handful of snook but we had to work very hard for it. I would have considered today a tough day but everyone has different expectations, so as long as you get out and have a good time it is a successful day. Here are a series of pictures from this past week.

my guide service website http://stuartflyfishing.com/
my photography website http://pbase.com/stuartflyfishing

I'm an equal opportunity angler

I know this is blog is titled flyfishing and photography but, I must be honest with you, I am an equal opportunity angler. I don't care if I or my clients catch fish on fly, artificial, or bait. Yes I said the dreaded four letter word. I also consider a gummy minnow a fly! As we move into summer here in Stuart there are loads of opportunity, I recently had a charter where we caught snook on fly, plugs, and bait all in the same morning. I like consider myself versatile. I took these sunrise shots this morning while my friend Scott Cormier and I were catching bait for our charters.


I could have titled this post, "old dog learns new trick". Over the last couple years I have found more and more situations where Hogy lures come into play, from tarpon in the river to snook on the seawalls and the absolutely no brainer, cobia on the beach. However a couple weeks ago I helped Mike Hogan, founder of Hogy Lures, with a seminar at Bass Pro Shops and I learned many new ways to rig his baits. Well one quickly became my favorite so I thought I would share it with you.

It is so simple it is almost stupid! He sells a small wire spiral that you can crimp onto any circle hook and simply twist one of his hand poured baits. My favorite is his 9 inch skinny. I now always have one rigged and ready and last week it came in handy. After beating up on a jack school with plugs they became very spooky, so I tried to pitch a live bait into them, (there is that four letter word again) and they even ran from the bait! So I said to my clients, "before we leave them let me see how they react to this Hogy rig?" All I can say is, WOW! they jumped all over it, so needless to say I have thrown this rig at them a few more times. I am not saying that these Hogy lures are the only thing you need but I will tell you that they should be part of your arsenal. Take the time to check them out. Hogy Lures

Here is a nice big jack that attacked the 9 inch skinny Hogy on the circle hook rig.

Big jack taken on fly!

Yesterday we landed this 60 pound tarpon on BAIT!

I am kind of pissed because this tarpon was perfect to photograph and my settings were wrong on my camera. This is the best one I got but, my shutter speed was way to slow. You should have seen the ones that had motion blur they would have been very cool. Oh well, the quest continues for the perfect jumping tarpon shot!

my guide service website http://stuartflyfishing.com/
my photography website http://pbase.com/stuartflyfishing

This is jack heaven!

Alright already! I will update my blog. I can't tell you the amount of emails I get from people wondering what I have been up to since I have not been updating this blog. For everyone that has been wondering where I have been, I have been fishing! This is my busy season and finding extra time to download photos, edit them and then try and come up with something creative to write about is hard to find. Trust me I am not complaining, I love it when I am busy, there is no other place I would rather be then on the water putting people on fish. I am going to keep this mostly to a photo posting since most of you don't read this anyway. A couple quick highlights from the last couple weeks and if I left you out I apologize, everyone I fish with is worth mentioning.

To start, I had another chance to fish with Michael Katz and his son Joey. Joey is 14 years old and is autistic. I think everyone should take a lesson from Joey. There is no one I fish with that can compare to Joey's attitude, not only does he get super excited about the fish that he catches, he is equally as happy and understanding when one gets away. We had a great day with big jacks and tunnies but, the most memorable part of the day was when Joey lost his tunny that we had worked so hard to catch and all he said was, "everyone has to have a story about the one that got away." That sums up Joey. Thanks for giving me the pleasure to share the boat with you guys.

I also had a chance to spend four full days fishing with Stefan and Silva Schuller. They came all the way from Germany just to fish for the giant jacks that we have off our coast. Stefan is one of the editors for Global Angler, a German magazine that covers fishing from around the world. Global Angler has been great to me, they have featured me in many articles and have published lots of my photos. I actually get a handful of clients from Germany and Austria because of the exposer they give me. Europeans are crazy about jacks and to sum up the trip I will leave you with the words I continually heard from Stefan, in his German accent. "This is jack heaven!"

I guess you get the idea, fishing has been pretty good lately.

Keep checking back and if nothing has changed that just means I'm fishing!

my guide service website http://stuartflyfishing.com/
my photography website http://pbase.com/stuartflyfishing

A long over due report

I have been very busy with my real job as a fishing guide and have been slacking on my duties as a writer and a photographer. So I will keep this short and sweet. I had a great opportunity to fish with Pat Ford for a couple days. On day one I guided Pat, and Paul Heatherington, the Oakley rep. It was a very windy and overcast day, seems to be par for the course this spring. I still managed to find a few daisy chaining schools of jacks and a couple huge mats of bluefish. Pat only took a few shots because the lighting was real bad but it was still a great day for all. Paul and everyone at Oakley has been so good to me so it was nice to treat Paul to a day on the water.

Day two was the morning after the film tour and not only did I have Pat on the boat but I invited Dave Teper from World Angling, the makers of the night's most popular film "Drum" and my good buddy Scott Cormier from Southern Angler. We were greeted to north winds but decent sea conditions. The game was on, we found multiple schools of jacks and Pat got plenty of photos. Dave is a great angler and I am really glad I was able to share with him one of my favorite fisheries. Who knows maybe we will do some filming one day, for all of you that have done the jacks with me I am sure you would love to revisit those memories. All the photos with this post were taken by Pat Ford, he did a great job as always and I can't wait until I have him on the boat again. I have more reports coming up with some of my photos and also about some of my favorite people, so stay tuned.

my guide service website http://stuartflyfishing.com/
my photography website http://pbase.com/stuartflyfishing

Big Night in a Small Town- Fly Fishing Film Tour Stuart, FL

Thanks to Sam Root for the photos, I was too busy to even think about taking pictures so you saved me Bro.

What started out as small talk of a private showing for friends turned into the biggest tour stop in Florida. About two months ago I was talking on the phone with my friend Mike Holliday and the conversation came up about the film tour that The Drake bought from AEG. At the time the talk was cheap and I hung up the phone and headed to the shower after a long day on the water. As I stood scrubbing that days stink from my body the thought of bringing the tour to Stuart filled my thoughts and the second I got out of the shower I called Mike back and said let's do it! At the time we really did not know what we were getting ourselves into, we thought "Dude, we buy the rights to have an independent showing, rent the Lyric, and show it to friends." You can already tell at this point I had no experience with putting an event together. Friends, sure we have friends but enough to fill the Lyric? This is when the work started, first getting accepted by the tour as an independent stop, nailing down details with the Lyric, finding local sponsors and last but not least spreading the word. As all of you know I worked hard at spreading the word! It all went off without a hick up and the first day tickets went on sale we sold 100 seats and by show time we had over 300. 

I may be a bit bias but I thought the show went perfectly, the biggest complaint I heard was that the theatre was a bit hot and I think I was the one doing most of the bitchin'. I told everyone there was going to be loads of giveaways and for those of you that were there, I guess I can say, "I told you so!" 

I am going to use this as another opportunity to thank everyone that gave us stuff to give away. I apologize if I forget someone. Starting with our local sponsors, Crowder Rods (an 8wt.), Maverick Boats (hats), Bug Slinger Fly Gear (shirts, hats) Southern Angler (gift certificates, shirts, decals, fly box) Oakley (polarized shades), and Master Repair, a huge THANK YOU. 

Other contributors were, Shadow Graphics (shirts and an incredible original tarpon painting) Salt Life (hats, and shirts) Buff Headwear (what else Buffs) G Loomis (tackle bags, hats, shirts, decals) Scientific Angler (fly lines, fly boxes) Salty Shores (shirts, hats) Pat Ford (signed book) Whites Tackle ( fly box, hat, shirt) Ole Florida Fly Shop (fly box full of killer flies) Patterson's Saltwater Flies (flies) Stuart Flyfishing, (that's me if you haven't figured it out yet, micro fibre shirts, decals) and finally Hatch Fly Reels (a 7 plus fly reel!!) I am sure I forgot someone and I really apologize if I did but there were so many giveaways that I lost track. 

I would also like to thank Pat Ford for his slide show and also spending 2 days on the water with me. Be on the look out for my up coming post. I would like to thank Rick Murphy for taking the time to come to the show, we all know Rick is one of the biggest names in the industry and rightfully so. A huge thank you needs to go to Dave Teper from World Angling not only for showing up to the event but for sharing an exclusive look at his permit film. I had the pleasure of taking Dave fishing today and I can truly say his is a great angler and a better guy, thanks Bro! Not to mention, their film "DRUM" was a crowd favorite. Thanks to the guys at The Drake magazine and all the film makers. 

I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of people that took their time to come to our event. We had groups from Atlanta, Ocala, Orlando, Fort Myers, Miami, Vero, Melbourne, Palm Beach, Boca, Fort Lauderdale, Naples. Hell, Rob and his wife Lisa drove in from Illinois so Bug Slinger could be represented! So thank you to all of you that made the trip. I would like to say thank you to all my friends, and clients. Like there is a difference? Right about now is when the music starts to play and everyone starts thinking okay dude, get off the stage! 

I want to close by saying, "See ya next year!" 

my guide service website http://stuartflyfishing.com
my photography website http://pbase.com/stuartflyfishing