The Watery Rave

Stuart, Florida—When members of Florida Sportsman Magazine’s online fishing forum decided to hold an informal fund raiser/tournament/back patting to help the daughter of a member on the website, Costa was quick to get involved. They put together prize packages that helped many of the participants blow the dust off their wallets, while at the same time calling on their professional fishing team (The Costa Nostras) to participate in the event.

Known by the nickname “Bash,” these informal fishing tournament/get togethers of geek-based Internet forum anglers are designed to put a face (and boat) to a name, while affording the opportunity to hide a dozen shrimp in the vehicle of any members who might have hot spotted, spot jumped or blown the bite when it was hot by inviting the entire cast of south Florida computer owners. Included in the draw to the bash were the music of Fresh Catch, a rocking Astro/Reggaskapunrock band and enough beer, meat and freebies to pull several hundred local anglers away from their Saturday couch baseball games.

Word quickly got out that Rob (Pancho) Sabin and Amanda (Call me Mandy and I’ll close your eyes for good) Perryman were hooked up with the local hotshot guide/blog writer so pre-tournament smack was skipping off the docks like a skunky beer on a summer day. Any time Costa brings in their heavy guns you can bet they’re serious, with cooler rations for tournament day limited to a sixer of Dead Guy Ale, five Heinken’s and two bottles of Bud Lite Lime that had been in the cooler so long the caps had rusted. Needless to say, the team was parched by 11 a.m.

Known for its world class saltwater inshore fishing, the 193 mile long Indian River reaches its southern terminus in Stuart near an area known as “The Crossroads” because of the intersection with the St. Lucie River, Intracoastal Waterway, St. Lucie Inlet and Eric Clapton’s beach house. Adjacent to The Crossroads are the Sailfish Point Flats, a six square mile expanse of pristine snook, spotted seatrout and G-string bikini habitat. It was there that Pancho Sabin launched a live pilchard into a distant pothole with a stellar cast.

Unfortunately, the hook didn’t join the pilchard on that cast, and when bait got blown up the fish took the early lead in the event 1 to 0, bringing Poncho’s hook-setting streak to 0-for-May.  Perryman’s cast resulted in a 30.25 inch spotted seatrout, proof that if you cast your bait off and something eats it, she’s going to snake your bite with a quick pilchard pitch to the exhaust stream of that feeding fish.

As the morning wore on the team burned through roughly 200 baits, several of which actually led to captured snook and seatrout, with Pancho owning the kindergarteners while Perryman stacked the deck in her favor with a 28.5 inch slot snook. Thirteen beers, a sushi break and 40 dirty jokes later, team Costa Nostra pulled into the dock at Sandsprit Park looking like a trio of wet dogs in a feather factory.

With over 200 people in attendance, Perryman in her Costa “Girl Power” shirt emasculated the field with her trophy seatrout, taking top honors in the category as manservant Pancho stood in the background holding up the “Applause” sign and occasionally answering questions at the Costa Promotions Trailer.

The event raised over $5,000 for Ryleigh Nicole Hunter, a young lady who lost her hearing as a newborn, but has regained it through a hearing implant. Funds raised during the event will only pay a portion of the bill, to learn more about how you can help, visit  Ryleigh’s Facebook Foundation Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-He…wall&filter=12

Ryabaga, Russia–

In roughly the same amount of time it takes to watch The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo you can take a helicopter ride from Murmansk to Ryabaga and wet your feet in the single best Atlantic salmon river in the world. While Iceland, Scotland, Ireland and Canada tout their historic spawning runs of Atlantic salmon, it’s a small peninsula east of Finland where the Ponoi River meets the Barents Sea that boasts the best Atlantic salmon fishing in the world.

The Ponoi River on the Kola Penninsula sits just above the Arctic Circle, and from a valley lake to the Barents Sea it flows west to east through 250 miles of Russian wilderness that ranges from arctic tundra to mountainous wilderness. Civilization on the Ponoi is limited to you, your fishing guide and a jet drive driven jon boat. Oh, and a luxury tent, masseuse and pastry chef.

At the Ponoi River Company guest start arriving in Ryabaga the last week in May and it’s a full-on salmonfest through the first week of October. Beats are measured in miles, daylight is perpetual and a bad week is less than 20 fish per angler. Where most Atlantic salmon anglers shoot for hooking one fish in a day, on the worst day of the year on the Ponoi you get that action in triplicate and explosive surface strikes come gratis. On a good day, one angler standing in the river in front of camp can catch more fish than are hooked in the United States in an entire year.

The fish aren’t huge by Atlantic salmon standards, but they’re thick as a weightlifter’s thigh, average 20 pounds and enter the river with an insolence borne of terminally frigid water and the belief that anything small and insecty needs to die.

Costa sponsored Gin Clean Media spent a season on the Ponoi filming the Atlantic salmon run, and we’ve just gotten our grubby hands on this trailer from Director Nick Reygaert (AKA Ted Nuget lite) which gives a little perspective on the river, the lodge and the fish that Boston Red Sox center fielder Ted Williams called the “toughest sons of bitches that swim.”

Check out the film trailer here: The Incomparable Ponoi

Jose Wejebe (54) passed away Friday, April 6, 2012 in Everglades City, Florida, the product of high winds, the desire to get home after shooting the first episode of the 2013 television season and pilot/weather conditions/kit plane/crap luck error. Wejebe was the only person aboard the plane, which exploded on impact.

Those whose lives were touched by Jose were invited to attend The Celebration of Life, Sunday April 15^th, at 1:30 p.m., at the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) Museum in Dania Beach, Fla. A long-time member of Team Costa, we are shocked and saddened by the passing of the free spirit, adventurer, and all-around groovy person that was our friend, colleague and an instrumental part of the overall Costa vibe. You can find Costa’s tribute to Jose on their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/costasunglasses While you’re there, be sure to like the page.

I first met Jose back in the late 1990’s while running the pro staff and advertising budget for a major boat manufacturer. Jose came to the factory to discuss his sponsorship contract, changes in his new boat order and to check out the new ad mock-up that featured his presence. He arrived ahead of time, on a spring day, dressed in black sneakers, disco jeans and a black nondescript collared short-sleeve shirt.

From the minute I first met him, Jose Wejebe was not what I expected. At the time, I was used to dealing with television show hosts whose personality was morphed by a mom who kicked their dog in front of them and a dad who wouldn’t let them sit on top of the money pile, so I expected a cross between Napoleon and Veruca Salt. What I met was someone who lived life how they wanted to, a philosophy many cater to but few can pull off.

I’d seen Jose’s show Spanish Fly, and even dug the laid back, Yo-Dude attitude, but I also knew that popularity tends to breed contempt and self-importance, and when you line up fishing show hosts it’s the line of humility that’s always the shortest. After all, television personalities are usually just that, a persona built from good fiction writing and far removed from any husk of real dermis. But Jose surprised me.

I have to admit that when he walked into the meeting to discuss his sponsorship contract the first thing I thought was, “Oh, his mother still dresses him.” It was several years later that I realized that he dressed for comfort and left style to the fashionistas, that he lived his life how he wanted to live and that he left judgment to others while he went fishing.

Over time, I realized that Jose was the real deal, one of the best anglers I’ve ever fished with. I filmed a television show with him where we chased jumbo jack crevalle on fly. Jacks are a powerful fish, and these averaged 12- to 20-pounds. The average angler can catch five or six before wearing down, exceptional anglers are good for a dozen or so. Jose caught over 20 that day, often unhooking a fish, stepping back onto the deck, casting and hooking another. It was assembly line tendonitis angling, and he enjoyed every minute of it.

After catching enough fish that we were certain we had a show, he jumped in the water with a camera to get the fish’s perspective, swimming among the 1,000 or so daisy-chaining jack crevalles, an act comparable to shark fishing with a human lure. The point being that he wanted more than just the view from above and what the angler sees, he wanted the natural experience in multiples, and damn the bull sharks that dog those schools.

Years later, his production team filmed a show where I was fishing in a tournament with Stu Apte, another legendary Florida Keys guide and a fisherman, and he and the production crew managed to forget their lunches for the long day on the water. At one point I picked up a fly rod and started casting. The commentary started immediately with, “When we get back to the dock, I’m going to start my truck and drive it through that loop.” Later, he offered to edit out the bad casts in exchange for three pieces of fried chicken (one for each crew member).

The thing is, Jose Wejebe was more than a television show host, he was an ambassador for the sport, a personality that took fishing personal, who genuinely wanted to exchange fishing experiences with others and had the time to talk fishing with everyone. Everywhere. For as long as you’d stand there.

I’ve lined up my share of fishing personalities for shows, seminars and expos, and Jose was the anti-prima donna. If a personality was expected to be in the booth from 1-3, most would show at five minutes to 1, and be on the way back to the hotel or in the air by 3:15. Jose would be there when the show opened, and leave when we told him we wanted to go home. And he genuinely enjoyed the interaction with other fishermen.

Every fisherman has a story, and Jose wanted to hear them all. There was never a kid, a fan, a fisherman who he didn’t have time for. He would talk fishing, share tips and techniques and laugh right along with them at their bonehead moves. And then he’d tell you his. Like when he was eating a chicken wing while talking on the phone during a break in filming and put the bones in his pocket and threw the phone overboard.

So what is the measure of a man? Is it his success in the business world? The amount of money he makes or the toys he acquires? Is it worldliness, knowledge, education, recognition, fame? I say the measure of a man is based on the lives he touches, the people he influences and guides and the people he befriends along the way. I’ll take that even further to say that in the end there are two basic desires we all search for in life: we want someone to love and someone to love us. Based on the public response to Jose’s passing, he had them both…in spades. We should all be so fortunate.

By Brent Wilson

You would have to live in eastern Idaho to understand flip flop envy—the profound bitterness and resentment of anyone who doesn’t have to wear socks or fur-lined shoes up to their hips six months of the year. It’s a jealous little pill for a fly fisherman to swallow in the winter months when the best fishing options include icicles on the rod guides and a minimum 40 minute thaw out in the heater-fogged car. It’s all part of the sanity control experiment we call winter, which is why when my parents mentioned a family reunion in the Turks and Caicos in early March I cranked my Internet connection to “Turbo” and double clicked the Travelocity icon.

From there, it was a solid six weeks of REM sleep deprivation before I found myself en route to the Turks & Caicos with two days to kill before the rest of the family arrived. Naturally, I had one thought on my mind – bonefish—okay three things, bonefish, conch ceviche and cold adult beverages.

Bonefish guides run a minimum of $800 per day (plus tips) in Turks & Caicos, and beers are $6 each, so you do the math. I could have an unlimited bar tab the entire vacation or take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime to chase one of the most reveled gamefish on the planet with someone who has spent their entire life refining the technique of spotting and catching these fish. I decided this would be a self-guided trip, after all, my new flip flops have a bottle opener built into the soles.

If there’s one good thing about Idaho winters it’s the amount of free time frozen tundra offers the outdoorsman, which is like saying, “Get the Internet or die a slow death tying flies, looking at old fishing pictures and standing in the living room in your underwear and socks working on your double haul.” So after reviewing a couple of websites and tattooing Google Earth images of the area’s flats on my chest, I identified some flats that looked promising right around my belly button.  One of them involved a very long drive on an unimproved road, which meant I was going to have to check “yes” in the box for Rental Car Insurance.

The rental car company must have known my plans, because they outfitted me with a Chevrolet Spark, a model not found in America simply because the one liter engine and leg room, seating and storage for four small children or one adult and their backpack just doesn’t cut it in a country where most people are larger than a medium-sized dog and like to drive faster than they can run. Knowing I was going to spend a good time walking the flats, I opted to save my energy for that effort, and rented the Spark Clown Car, along with the optional rental insurance.

“Dirt Road” is an Island term meaning “bumpy-ass stretch with minimal trees in your way and only medium-sized rocks,” so I popped a couple of motion sickness pills and headed off on the Cross-Island Expressway until I came upon an incredibly beautiful flat and immediately spotted three cruising bonefish before I was rigged up.

While entering the water I noticed what appeared to be snapping shrimp burrows, so I spent a couple of minutes inspecting the shallows for crabs with no luck. I took out the box of flies I had tied back home and rigged up a Peterson’s Spawning Shrimp.  It was the ticket.

I spent the day cruising up and down the beach looking for, and spotting bonefish, most of which were hovering over the darker patches of flat where there were more sponges and coral heads (and, accordingly, shrimp). I had no trouble spotting them with my Costa Brines with 580 lenses which provided the contrast that made the bonefish stand out like a Coors Lite in a cooler of Red Stripes.

I had the entire beach to myself, except for a couple of nude sunbathers who were quite startled to see a guy with a cloth sun mask approaching. From their reactions, I gathered that most robberies on the island are undertaken by young American males in wading boots carrying an 8 weight fly rod.

The tide was falling on the beach, and I worked my way into open water towards the outer edges of the flat where I landed four or five more good bonefish. The tide eventually worked its way off the flat as the sun was setting and I knew navigating the Bounce House Freeway in the dark was going to be about as fun as self piercing, so I squeezed into the car and sardined my way back to the rental cottage.

It was a pretty epic outing…especially considering I didn’t know what to expect after the long car ride across the island. I’m back home in eastern Idaho, enjoying a rain/snow/sleet mix and reliving the good times from our family reunion in the Turks and Caicos. And I’m pretty sure I even saw my family while I was there.

Alaska holds a special appeal to those that like the outdoors, like a magnetic personality pasted to a stool in a college bar. When it’s out of sight it’s out of everyone’s mind, but open a few windows and let the cold air roll across the top of a few IPA’s and it sticks to your steely medulla like a thorny synapse.

I really had no plans to travel to Alaska, that is until an old friend joined the Navy and relocated there. That’s the side of E-mail you don’t hear much about, the Devil in the black dress that watches over the working man, throwing images of majesty in the face of his In-Box. It all started with a few photos of fish from JJ and the message, “Hey man, I got the commission in Alaska, it’s incredible.”

Well…Crap! Everyone knows Alaska is incredible. It’s just not a place I really thought much about traveling to, and it’s enough of a hassle getting there that I’ve been able to keep it out of the crosshairs for some time. That is, until the photo of the plane arrived.

Stuck to the top of my In-Box was the E-mail from JJ and the image of a red and white bitchin’ little float plane that had, “endless adventure” written all over it. When you work in an advertising agency in Austin, TX there’s an element of creativity that goes with the job, and when you can think of nothing besides big fish, snow-capped mountains, free falling down from the ionosphere, endless daytime and some of the best microbrews in the world, then it’s just a matter of time before the rest of the staff accuses you of mixing Lunesta with your morning vitamins.

Living in a state the size of most third world countries but with the population of South Beach, the opportunity for outdoor adventure is limited by your willingness to drive, or in JJ’s case, fly. So he spends his weekends flying his float plane and looking for remote lakes where he then introduces himself to the local gamefish population via wind drifts while fishing from the pontoons. In other words, he lives out the normal working person’s vacation on a weekly basis.

And I was good with that, until I received the e-mail with a half-dozen dive tank sized silver salmon stretched across the pontoon. If a picture is worth 10,000 words, then I just received the book on how to mindlessly daydream of the frozen tundra. I was two weeks into a three month project with a plastic bag over my head and just enough oxygen to focus on the computer monitor when I fired back an e-mail along the lines of, “I’m there. See you in a couple of weeks,” thinking that would back him away from the lion’s cage.

I’d just poked a hole in that bag and gotten back on track when my In-Box displayed a response along with an attached image. The text read, “So this is just one of 200 cabins you can fly into and rent across the state. We found a site about them and rented this one this weekend. Cool huh?”

JJ has always been the kid who goaded the lion to take a swipe, and I’d just whiffed at the pie-faced kid holding the stick. He ran it across the front of the cage with an email saying, “they’re still catching some Rainbows on the Kenai. We can fly up there, or drive in and get a guide.”

By the time I get home, I’m twitching like a Starbuck employee with a nervous tic to the point that my wife pulls me aside and asks if I need a time out. I explain JJ’s gig and the epic fishing, and mention something about maybe going out to visit him next summer, when she puts a hand on each shoulder, shakes me back to reality and says, “Why don’t you go now AND next summer?”

I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I am married to the all-time greatest female on this planet, but I’d been burning the wax hard and hadn’t been able to spend time with my family, so how was I going to get past the guilt meter pasted to my heart? I mention the trip to JJ, who explains that the lakes he’s been fishing are about done for the fall. I slump into the easy chair until my wife walks in and calls me out, “Go anyway, you idiot.”

Two minutes later I’m filling out my credit card data on a discount ticket website and e-mailing JJ to find out whether he likes plain or peppered beef jerky. Nine days later, I’m standing in an airport in Phoenix with a connecting flight to Anchorage staring at the people in the boarding line and thinking, “Geez, if this plane were to crash land in the bush, I look like the only one here who couldn’t find a way to walk out.” Even the women had a confidence that said, “We’ll eat you big guy, if we have to.”

Before I can get the image of a woman frying my liver on a pan made out of discarded beer cans with a University of Texas keychain handle, I’m knee-deep in rainbow trout. Just me, JJ a pocketful of egg-sucking leech flies and enough salmonids for a good case of tennis elbow.

JJ owned the Dolly Vardens, while I was one with the rocks. In a calm pool, miles upsteam from the ocean, JJ caught a Silver Salmon with a malfunctioning GPS, then hooked several more.

We tipped a few at Humpy’s and at F Street, watched eagles flock like seagulls and caribou marching to Sheryl Crow.

We came, we saw, we slipped on wet rocks and filled our waders with freezing water, and then I returned home, ready to return the following summer with the greatest woman on the planet.

Professional photographer Andrew Yates from Boston, gets on the water to fly fish three or four times a year. So when one of his friends who happens to be a federal judge (probably the coolest federale or judge that you’ll happen to meet) rented a cabin near the Galletin River in Montana about a half hour south of Big Sky asked Andrew to come out for a few days of R&R, he was all over it like a lion on a llama.

“We fished the Firehole outside Yellowstone and also the Madison (which is a big river that had a lot of big fish),” said Yates. “There were four of us and it rained every day, with snow, so it was a bit arctic, but these guys are hardcore and we fished six hours or more every day.”

Yates has always owned polarized glasses, usually wearing them when biking or outside. But he’s never had a pair of Costas before. We sent him and his three fishing buddies Costa 580’s with copper lenses to try on the trout streams of Montana.

“One of the guys had a pair of Costas he’d owned for eight years and when he put on the 580 lenses he was just blow away by them. Everyone was. And we wore these things right up to dark every day,” said Yates.

The four road tripped around Yellowstone, ripping lips and doing their best not to slip with a serious case of numb foot. They released rainbows to 20 inches under the gloom and doom of approaching weather.

“Everyone caught one or two big trout every day,” said Yates. “We fished a combination of dry flies and droppers, then went to nymphs with a strike indicator.”

Fishing was good, but it wasn’t epic until everyone put their girdles on. With a Girdle Bug on top and a green flash nymph on the bottom, the visitors started pasting the home team. While everyone likes a nymph now and then, it was the girdle that was consistently getting lunched.

They fished the Gallatin river for two days then switched over to the Madison for an opportunity at some big water. In both rivers it was the guys soaking their girdles that ruled.

“We had this nice little stretch on the Galletin with two or three beaver dams that helped limit the flow,” said Yates. The weather was going to crap, the light was horrible but with the 580s you could see deep into the water and spot fish. Some of the guys caught fish in the 20 inch range.”

The swift waters of the Madison River weren’t going to let these guys off without some put and take, as every member of the group took at least one dunking, with Yates going under with one of his cameras. That’s the price of fishing Montana in October: rain, snow and a frigid clown dunk tank. In other words, just another day of seeing what’s out there.

Being in the chase boat while the pros are filming a fishing video is about as fun at telling a girl (any girl) she looks fat in those clothes, but there can be a good side to it. As opposed to trimming your toenails, looking for skin blemishes and other means of killing time in the blazing heat, you can grab your Minolta Autopak Super 8MM camera and le the dinosaur roll.

What you come away with are the artistic/scratchy/creepy black and white home movie that reminds you of the films in the attic that mom shot of your sixth birthday—the one where you were wearing knee socks and matching red blazer and shorts. Only this has kind of a campy/historic feel, like something that ought to fall out of Howard Hughes’ safety deposit box.

Costa advertising agency guru Austin (Shaggy) McKenna captured the following film last May while on safari with Costa Pros Oliver White and Jose Wejebe. The traveled the Yucatan Peninsula hitting Isla Mujeres (Marlin, Sails and Dolphin), Isla Holbox (hunting giant tarpon and snook) and Boca Paila (Bonefish, Permit, Tarpon), and not once during the finished film can you hear McKenna whining in the background about when he was going to get a chance to fish.

Costa pro Casey Ashley is so proud of his roots that he regularly sings about them in his songs. The 27-year old professional angler/singer from Donald’s, South Carolina recently released his new six-song demo CD titled Release, just prior top rolling into Columbia, South Carolina to fish a Bassmaster Elite Series tournament on Lake Murray this past week.

 With his parents watching him fish the event from a nearby boat, Ashley won the second event of his four-year professional fishing career Sunday with a four day total weight of 61-pounds, 3-ounces, besting another South Carolina native, Elite Series pro Davey Hite. Hite and Mike Iaconelli of New Jersey both had 58-pounds, 1-ounce. Ashley won $100,000 and entry into the 2012 Bassmaster Classic.

 After winning the Evan Williams Bourbon Carolina Clash, Ashley now sits in 9^th place for the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year, an honor considered one of the pinnacles of the sport, with two events left in the season. Ashley has fished the eight event Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments out of a Triton Bass Boat wrapped with a Costa logo.

Suntanned toes were tickling the sand around the Dallas/Cowboys Stadium in mid April as the Kenny Chesney Going Coastal 2011 tour rode into Texas like a brahma bull with its tail soaked in Kerosene.  The pride of Luttrell, Tennessee made his entrance from the rooftop like a Big Star at the Cirque Du Soleil bar before taking the stage after a cool warm-up from Uncle Kracker.

From then on, it’s was time to dance the aisles in flip flops, as the top selling live act ripped the stage and delivered the country side of the beach, summer and hometown memories, complete with guitars, tiki bars and a whole lot of love going on during one of the best concert atmospheres in the business. From the second the sun went down, the place was groovin’ and movin’ and shaking to the rhythms of a cowboy gone coastal.

 Costa was there too, with the new Limited Edition Signature Kenny Chesney Costa’s, the hippest shades for tractor driving, girl watching or just hanging out in an old blue chair. Proceeds from the sales of Limited Edition Signature Kenny Chesney Costa’s go to the ocean conservation group Coastal Conservation Association, one of the largest marine conservation groups in Texas. So here’s your chance to look cool and hang tough with the best sunglasses on the market while knowing that next redfish you catch came directly from your purchase. 

 The Kenny Chesny Going Coastal 2011 tour is just getting started with dates across America and into Canada still ahead. So it’s time to check out the hottest act in America and his music at a venue near you before the keg in this closet runs dry and you have to sleep on the porch with a dog named Bocephus. For upcoming tour dates, see www.KennyChesney.com.

Billy Pate (81), Islamorada, Florida—Billy Pate, legendary big fish on fly pioneer passed away April 19, at a Homestead, Florida nursing home at the age of 81. Pate first drew notoriety in 1982 for a 188 pound tarpon he caught on 16-pound fly tippet, a class record for 21 years, and a fish that was at the time the largest tarpon ever caught on fly.

His world record tarpon drew instant notoriety that followed Pate throughout life. A regular in Homosassa, Florida during the spring run of giant tarpon, Pate would fish from dawn to dusk for weeks at a time hoping for a shot at giant fish, and forever sought to be the first to catch a tarpon over 200 pounds on fly.

 A true innovator of the sport, Pate was one of the first anglers to expose the “down and dirty” fish fighting technique so popular with tarpon and big fish anglers today. In 1989  he joined Scientific Anglers to produce “Fly Rodding For Tarpon with Billy Pate,” a video on targeting, fighting and catching tarpon on fly that helped popularize the sport as well as the fish fighting technique. In the video, Pate showcased his custom tarpon skiff which featured a forward raised casting platform and surrounding net system to keep the fly line from sweeping off the deck in the wind. 

Pate partnered with Ted Juracsik in 1976 to help design the Billy Pate Fly Reels, a series of fly fishing reels that were among the first to feature an antireverse system. Since then, the Billy Pate Fly Reels have caught 225 world records, and the reels remain among the top tools of the sport.

Financially solvent, Pate’s family made their fortune in the South Carolina carpet business (he was the president of Wunder Weve Carpets), and later in real estate, and Pate was the consummate Southern Gentleman and had three wives who often joined him on his fishing adventures. Unlimited finances allowed Pate to search the world for large gamefish on fly and led to the discovery of the giant tarpon off the coast of Africa along with the catches of the first blue marlin and black marlin on fly. Pate was also the first to catch six billfish species (blue, black, white and striped marlin, and Atlantic and Pacific sailfish) on fly.

A holder of multiple world records on fly including mako shark, jack crevalle, bonefish, redfish and grouper, Pate campaigned tirelessly for the IGFA to change the bite tippet length for flyrod anglers from 12 inches to 30 inches, feeling the shorter bite tippet length created a disadvantage for fly anglers.

He was an original member of Bonefish and Tarpon Trust, the Everglades Protection Association, the Don Hawley Foundation and the Pate Foundation, and partnered with Islamorada fishing guide George Hommell in 1967 to form World Wide Sportsman, a tackle shop dedicated to fly and light tackle anglers and travel agency for booking domestic and international fishing trips.

In 2003, Pate was elected to the IGFA Hall of Fame, an honor he cherished while contributing the honor to having the financial opportunity to pursue gamefish across the globe. While Pate pursued fish on fly in over 40 countries, he maintained residences in the Florida Keys and in Oregon so he could pursue his favorite fish species (tarpon and steelhead).