OBX Fishing Report/Review

[Andrew R]

I'm in the Outer Banks this weekend for my gf's friends wedding. While down here, I was lucky enough to book a half day with Sarah Gardner of Outer Banks Fly Fishing, on her boat FlyGirl.

We took off this morning from Oregon Inlet and headed out towards the ocean, stopping for a bit to get my gf's dad squared away as he'd never fly fished before. I have never fished saltwater before and frankly was completely clueless how to execute the casts needed to get my fly in front of these monsters of the brine. After four hours with Sara, I was throwing 10wt sinking line at least 30-40yds and right on the money. I'm still shocked how quickly she identified flaws in my cast and corrected my issues, not to mention teaching me a ton of new stuff.

Caught a couple nice stripers, a species that's been on my bucket list for a while. Then the tough work started out in the ocean, where we were targeting sharks and Cobia. Fishing for these behemoths was exhilarating and stressful but by far the coolest thing I've done on a fly rod. Sarah was patient, instructive, gracious and an all around awesome guide. While I never got one on the hook, casting giant bucktail flies in 10 mph+ winds, on a boat pitching back and forth in heavy waves definitely has given me newfound confidence in my ability to accurately deliver the fly under most circumstances.

If you are down here this summer, I couldn't more highly recommend a guide than Sarah.

[Carl Smolka]

Sarah and her husband Brian Horsley are both outstanding guides and instructors for Outer Banks Fly Fishing. Caught my first striper and albie with Sarah.

Carl S

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[Yambag Nelson]

120 foot cast?  Impressive.  Most guys are lucky if they can throw the whole fly line.

[Andrew R]

Yambag,

I later realized just how far 40 yards really is, so yeah that's probably a bit (or a lot) of an overstatement. I was actually getting the whole line out which was definitely a personal first as I typically get ten yards and a nice cascade of tangled line.

[Yambag Nelson]

lol no worries.  I was half giving you a hard time and half curious if she really taught you hold to cast that far (of course not knowing how far you could cast prior)  in a couple hours because if so I would make a trip down there just for a casting lesson.

[Andrew R]

I actually spoke with her about casting instruction and she told me to schedule a lesson or two with Mark Kovach, who was her primary casting instructor (according to her, "he's forgotten more about fly casting than I'll learn in my lifetime"). She also learned to cast from Lefty Kreh, who apparently took her on as a casting pupil, and it definitely showed.

[Steven Butler]

On what I believe was your recommendation Carl, I finally made it out with Brian Horsley for an inshore trip on the sound (it was news to me that much of the sound isn't much deeper than 3 feet, which he navigated expertly). He put us on all the speckled trout we could ever want to catch, in addition to some striper and bluefish.

Highly recommend him, he's pretty hilarious on top of his skill as a guide too and certainly not one to sugarcoat anything. He definitely told us all about the shark fishing Andrew was talking about out in the ocean and that seems like an absolute rush on the fly. Definitely looking to get back for some of that with him or his wife Sarah.

As always, the one I remember the most is the monster bluefish that got away right at the boat, but certainly caught plenty of others to make up for it.