As every avid fly fisherman knows, God willing, there will always be a couple of days on the water during the year that make you go “damn…it’ll be awhile before that happens again.” These days are to be cherished like gold as they don’t happen often, and many times they will come when you least expect them. I personally have felt that these kind of banner days will often present themselves after you’ve been humbled as of late.

In 2025, I had a day fly fishing from the beach in Southwest Florida that truthfully may never be replicated. In the area for a long weekend getaway, the day started pretty normal…early wake up call, grab a coffee, rigged up a fly on some 20lb fluro that seemed nice, and hit the beach. I lucked out from the jump as the wind was minimal, and water crystal clear. With that said, within a few minutes of walking on the sand I was seeing huge schools of baitfish, with predators lurking nearby…Snook. Although I’ve been fortunate enough to get more familiar with fly fishing for Snook off the beach in the past two years, this is something that is still relatively “newer” to me that gets my heart going. Not only do these fish put up incredible fights and jumps, but they can be tough off the beach…spooky, line shy, and very picky on the retrieve.

Lucky for me on this day specifically, the fish were AMPED up…it seemed that any small mullet imitation was getting obliterated. Leading fish by a couple of feet with a long leader was the ticket. Throughout the day (and another day to follow), easily put a dozen nice Snook to hand DIY’ing it from the beach. Great fun.

However, and as crazy as it sounds, the Snook were not the stars of the weekend in my eyes. While casting into a school of about 6 snook, I noticed two other huge fish that were lurking just outside of the school…I threw a cast, stripped, and had one of the fish start to follow…after a little bit of quick strips to coerce, boom…fish on. The fish immediately when airborne…a huge Gator Seatrout. For those that know, catching a true beast of a Speckled Trout on a fly is one of the toughest tasks in the salt…sure you can catch them in boatloads when stacked up and the fish are smaller, but the true 26+inch trout are beyond smart and picky. I was objectively shocked to see this fish at the end of my line. After a solid fight, and a few close calls towards the wave break, I landed the biggest Speckled Trout of my life…although I did not get an exact measure, my guess is that this fish was 28-29″ inches long. Unreal.

The day could’ve stopped here and I would have been ecstatic. BUT…clearly I had an insane amount of juju and luck on my side, as this wasn’t even the highlight of the day. After a little bit of a lull from the Snook, I got distracted by some Sheepshead that were messing around a really shallow section of surf. Upon watching these fish, I was noticing some dinner plate sized silver flashes moving quickly through the flat. My gut screamed “Pompano” as I have actually never caught one of these fish on a fly, and it was been on my list for awhile. After a long lead through, I started to slow trip and to my excitement immediately saw three pompano raise to chase the fly! I kept stripping and stripping, Pompano slashing at the fly, and finally had a UNIT of a Pompano come out of nowhere and smoke the fly. Line starts screaming…backing almost immediately. Pulling stronger than the Snook and beast Seatrout. After a long fight and a near crucial mistake of leader going between my legs while landing, I landed not only my first Pompano on fly, but the biggest Pompano I have laid eyes on. This was one of those fish that even looked 2x the size of some of the others in the water…as much as I would love to say I will see another Pompano this size on a fly in my life, I doubt it. Stoked would be an understatement and after this fish, I called it a day to find a cold beer.

Not to be dismissed, I also caught a handful of ladyfish and my first ever giant Houndfish on this weekend. The Houndfish was another new species, and an awesome sight fishing moment.

In all fairness…I want to come back to earth here for the end of the blog post. For every day a true fly fisherman has like this, you will have 10 that genuinely kick your butt. You will also have fish that break your heart. Exhibit A in 2025 for me was with my Dad chasing musky in TN for two days..had a huge musky finally eat at the end of our last day that broke off after grinding it out for 15+ hours on the water. Why I bring this up is days like this on the beach wouldn’t be as appreciated without some of those tougher fishing moments. Most importantly, fish aside, days like this where everything goes right make me extra thankful for the time spent with my Dad and friends on the water where everything didn’t go right. Why? Because at the end of the day the stories become memories, the people you are with mean more than getting the actual fish in, and make us better in the end. In summary…have some fun, enjoy the day, and know that it will all wash out in the end.

Tight lines and thanks for reading!

Joe