HARRY SPEAR - A LIFE LONG JOURNEY

HARRYSPEAR

A LIFE LONG JOURNEY

Words & photos by Dave Bradley & Harry Spear

I was sitting with my good friend Harry Spear and casually chatting away when I said “you know Harry people are interested in this kind of history, why don’t we record some of this? I’ll write down a few questions to keep it rolling.”

Harry replies with “sweet man that sounds like fun” in his quiet southern accent that his Aussie friends have all come to love.

Harry can you give us an insight to where you grew up and your introduction to fly fishing?

I grew up in Tampa Florida , born in 1950 so it was then a pretty quiet place. I was always the kid that if I wanted to do something I just did it. I was in the 8th grade when I went into the library in school and found this book by Joe Brooks called “Fly Fishing in Fresh and Saltwater”. I thumbed through this book and saw that he was catching all the same fish that I had caught growing up as a kid. I had never seen anybody fly fishing and I didn’t really know how I was going to go about it. I went to my local tackle store and found that I couldn’t afford the rods, so I decided to build my first fly rod. I bought a 1898 Fluger fly reel and a GAF fly line, made my own flies out of feathered trolling jigs, and bound them up with rod building thread onto a 2/0 hook.

In the book Joe had said if you want to saltwater fly fish you need to learn the double haul casting technique so all I did was go practice that and after a while I could make the line fly go the distance. I remember heading down to Bay Shore on a nice summer day at a spot where there were some rocks maybe 50 to 60 feet offshore. I stood up on the roadside railing making a back cast over the oncoming traffic, and after about three or four attempts a Snook smashed my fly and I got about three beautiful aerial jumps out of it and that was it - I was hooked - I was going to be a fly fisherman!

There was a tournament back then, the Tampa Tarpon Tournament (and it still runs today), and they had a fly division and it took me three years to catch one. We would fish the bridges at night, I hooked many Tarpon but they always kicked my butt, we were only allowed 12lb tippet back then. I did finally land one though. From there I moved to the Keys and that’s where I actually learned how to fly fish properly.

I went to college in between and that was easy. At that point I thought I wanted to be a musician but that didn’t work out, so I came back home and discovered my friend Dale Perez had moved to the Keys, so I packed up all I had “which was very little” and hitched over to see Dale. I got a job on an offshore charter boat and Dale was already guiding. The next week he took me out to the Content Keys and shortly after our ride out to “the flats” he points to a Bonefish, asks me “do you see them?” I reply “I don’t see them. “ He quickly says “there’s two more do you see them cuz Ray Charles could see them.” Finally I see them and catch one, and I was hooked. I didn’t want to fish offshore any more I wanted to fish the flats.

That was 1973 by 1975 I was a full time guide, I found the fishing part easy and I’ve always liked people so that was easy. It didn’t take too long to develop a large clientele and build a decent business in those days.

Harry lets talk about gear, what was all that like, rods, reels, push poles etc.. Harry laughs!

My first boat was a Hewes Bonefisher, and for that early era it was a nice boat, though it was heavy and the draught wasn’t great. As a poling skiff it wasn’t an ideal set up but it worked. There were so many fish in those days it didn’t matter if you weren’t sneaking around in silence as much as it does for today’s guides .The tackle wasn’t bad, all fibreglass rods of course, but some decent reels were made in those days. Finnor and Seamaster, if you could afford them, were the pick of the market. The push poles were horrible, “Moonlighter” was the brand, they were super heavy, it was a real physical work out pushing a heavy boat with those poles. If you had to start with all that gear now you wouldn’t be too happy, but over time it all evolved.

The fun bit back then was working out all the country, there was so much of if that just didn’t get fished. When I started guiding there was less than 40 people fishing the flats all the way from Key West to Key Largo. A fair sized group were plugging away in the Isla Morada area, but they mostly stayed in local waters, and then there was us “Middle Keys guides” and we basically had the Lower Keys to ourselves. I went many days without seeing a single boat. Especially from Sugarloaf going west.

Over time you got to learn that most of those flats had something on them most of the time, but a lot of them never got fished, so you could just go and explore new ground and always have decent results. Steve Huff probably found the most new terrain by far in those early days. He was an incredible explorer, his ethics and systems that he used to find fish are what I adopted and I’m as much a product of Steve’s mentoring as I am of my own talents.

Once you figured out where to go you could catch Tarpon most of the year round, but the Bone fishing was great, just piles of Bonefish. The water in the Lower Keys was amazing even on a windy day the water never got dirty on a windward shore, it may have got dusty but never dirty – those days are gone. The seagrass was long and lush, a real dark green colour and in some areas it grew over two feet long. The sand was a dazzling white. Behind Isla Morada the grass was black and when it was glassy calm it looked like ooze making fish sighting a real challenge. You’d be poling along with Tarpon blooping everywhere and you were concentrting hard just trying to get a glimpse of one to throw a cast at, next minute you’d pole over one and it would blast out of the water right under your boat. My heart would almost squeeze shut because you were so on edge trying to see one.

It was pretty intense back then, there were big wads of Tarpon rolling down the flats constantly. When that was happening it was pretty easy, all you had to do was get something in amongst them and drag it through the group and bang you were on. Funny enough is was hard to get the older anglers to fish for them! They’d

say “oh they’re too stupid, why would I fish for them, let go chase a Bonefish or Permit.” I’d push them and say “oh come on let’s just go jump a couple just to keep me happy.” We’d go jump a couple and then head back to the Bonefish flats.

I did have guys that wanted to Tarpon fish but I also fished guys that could care less, they’d be everywhere and they wouldn’t fish for them.

Now Harry let’s talk about flies, I know we guides are always tweaking flies with that little extra modification to achieve true perfection!

I was a tweaker, in fact I tweaked my way out of some good flies, you know what I mean!!

But the real limiting factor in the early days were the hooks – they were horrible and heavy. We’d have to sharpen hooks constantly, not like the new chemically sharpened hooks you get today. With the original style hooks we didn’t strike them properly, we’d jab strike them - pull hard, relax, and then pull hard again. If you strike that way the hook never sets in properly, so we lost way too many fish. I believe Ralph Delph was the first guy that started just holding firm on the take and setting the hook in properly rather than using the double yank method.

Once Gamakatsu and Owner hooks hit the market it made a lot of difference and we’d scale down in hook size for all our flies. Some guys used big 5/0’s but I never liked those as they landed like a sinker and you couldn’t cast them properly.

I believe I was the first one, at least in my area, to start using the smaller hooks. There were a few places where the fish started to get harder to produce an eat and I started tying smaller flies on 2/0 hooks. I recall a trip to Homosssa

where we started with bigger flies and the fish were spooking so we switched to these smaller flies and started getting a bite every shot.

Pretty soon Billy Pate slid over in his boat and in his southern draw asked what we were using as he was having trouble feeding them. We handed him some small flies and it worked, he started getting bites.

Tournaments, tell me about the history of those.

I didn’t start with the Gold Cup, my first tournament was the Fly Bonefish Tournament with Bill Leavy. I think I fished four-five and can recall telling Steve Huff, “I’m never going to win one of these things.” Shit would happen, fish would fall off or break off and Steve said “don’t worry Harry you’re going to win a pile of these things.” He could see, he knew what it took, he’d won a bunch and then when it all fell into place and I won my first one it was easy. You realise there are a bunch of small things that make a good team, the right tackle and working together. Watching from the back you’re the director once the talent has hooked the fish, once I figured out the little things it was easy. Once you fish the same angler a lot there’s not a lot, of conversation, you just have a sixth sense of communication. As Middle Keys guides we had a lot more country open to us making it a lot easier to fish a five day tournament. Steve Huff has been friends ever since we met each other, we were best man at each other’s wedding and also keen competitors. There was a ten year stretch where we won or finished second in every tournament we fished in.

To be a good guide you have to hold a lot in your head. You’ve got to constantly consider wind, tides, and water clarity. Combine these elements with terrain and the way the target fish behaves under certain circumstances and you’ve just got to weasel your way into their lives and connect yourself with

the little gossamer of thread and have some fun. I’ve always had a knack for it even as a little kid, I’d out fish my older brother and he’d be pissed!

Retirement, Harry what brought you to that? Changes in the fishery or people?

Several things really. Well you know how I told you back in my day there were 40 people over the entire Keys when I started, yes that’s 120-130 miles counting the Marquesas, 150 miles and then there’s the back county, a lot of territory. When I left there were thousands of anglers. Then there’s the water in the mid 80’s, I was in the middle of Florida Bay on one of the outer most banks and could see this mud offshore and I thought there must be a ton of fish out there but no, this mud cloud was endless it went to the north forever, I’d never seen anything like this, miles of it..

About three years later that mud made its way into the Atlantic and it went across the Lower Keys and stayed in Florida Bay. This killed the seagrass, it made the grass suffer greatly, like a drought on land. The whole Keys suffered greatly from this, so now you have thousands of people and a diminished fishery.

Does that mean there’s no good fishing left, hell no, there’s great fishing but it’s just not how it was and the combination of these things and my kids moving away

to attend college started me thinking about my options. We sought out some different areas and moved into west Florida, which allowed me to start my skiff company.

I’m really enjoying the challenges of that, taking me back to when my life was based around poling skiffs. I like to keep my skiffs based around poling not anchors and electric trolling motors.

I’ve also enjoyed watching my son Luke start his guiding career. I’m blessed to watch him progress, and being passionate about guiding, he wants to be great at it. It’s fun watching him develop and I’ve helped him, you’ve helped him, Gjuro Bruer has helped him a ton. I’ve just stuck with sharing with him the knowledge details, go here or go there, try these types of flies, and other technical hints to help him develop his own methods and clients.

I’m sure we’ll see more progress from him and more to come from Spear Boatworks.. it’s been fun.