Houston Fishing Show, TFO and shark fishing

[Brett Hoskins]

I had the opportunity to meet Rick Pope and all the TFO crew at the fishing show this weekend.

[Colin M.]

Big Orange and Red flies, let em sink…watch your fingers…

[craig phillips]

Yep – BIG red or orange flies, a good chum line, and as short of a steel leader as you can get away with.

[Zach Matthews]

TFO is truly owned by the nicest people in fly fishing.  Within the industry there’s a somewhat grumpy outlook on them; I think their competitors tend to believe that TFO owes its success strictly to its low prices and its off shore production.  But it’s been at least 5 years since the other manufacturers also almost all went offshore, and TFO still owns that market.  That’s because TFO understands customer appreciation better than anyone else.  I mean that.  They get out there and show their banner and their friendly faces at shows and shops all over the country.  Rick Pope is a marketing genius and also a really nice guy.  Rather than grouse about their success, I think the other industry types would do well to learn from TFO.  Whereas a typical fly fishing company will send one rep, who may or may not be all that friendly and is not likely to be well known, to set up a booth, TFO will show up with a fly shop’s worth of staff and a number of personalities.  That’s expensive, but it’s smart business.  I’d be copying the hell out of them if I owned a rod company.

Those bluewater rods have fiberglass in them, which is why they are thicker, but they are also almost indestructible.  If I were going mako shark fishing again, I’d get the 10-13 weight *for sure.*  I know it’s not going to break and sharks are not dainty, and neither are their flies.

Here’s a blue dog; you’ll catch a ton of them in any chum line off shore almost anywhere in the world:

Zach

[Mike Anderson]

Cut up cuda works!  Put a little Cuda blood on the fly if they keep refusing it. Black Tips will get aerial sometimes when caught and IMO fought harder and ran further then the other Sharks we caught.

Oh and we were using 12wt TICRX with Hayden reels for the sharks. They both worked great.

[Mark Landerman]

Nice. Rick is a nice guy and totally down to Earth. Did you run into Shu?

Have fun on the South Fork…………tie a bunch of these. They are money on that drop of water.

http://www.itinerantangler.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?num=1298336550

Oh, and if you are there in July, send me a pm………I have a killer pmd that rips fish off the riffles.

[craig phillips]

Well said Zach.

[Brett Hoskins]

Thanks for all the shark tips.

[Bob Riggins]

I fish for black tips and bonnetheads a lot and the suggestions you have recieved are spot on.

[Andrew Barclay]

One of the coolest things that ever happened to me on this board was a few years back when I asked the community if TFO had any plans to put out rod blanks.

[Brett Hoskins]

I can promise that the Baby Blue won’t be my last purchase from TFO

Brett

[Zach Matthews]

Bob what size sharks are you catching down there?

Zach

[Bob Riggins]

I fish mostly on the flats so I catching black tip sharks in the 30″ to 48″ range.

[Zach Matthews]

I can see that Bob.

[Mike Anderson]

 I’m not real interested in getting a mad bull shark close to the kayak.

I can understand why. Not a Bull but still…
http://saltyshores.com/wordpress/2011/02/23/video/hammer-head-rams-the-skiff-and-snaps-the-push-pole/

[Bob Riggins]

Yeah, hammerheads are huge.

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