My dad took me bonefishing in Biscayne Bay when I was eight, and I've been saltwater fishing ever since. For most of my life, though, I was a spinning-tackle guy. That's what my dad handed me, and that's what caught fish.
Years later, saltwater flyfishing became a thing. One of my best friends and work partners, Jeff Scheetz, was an avid, highly skilled fly fisherman. We fished together all of the time; I with my spinning gear and live bait, and he with his flyfishing gear.
We debated the pros and cons of fly vs. spinning hundreds of times. I just didn't get it. All that specialized gear. All that technique. No live bait. It looked like a lot of work and an expensive way to catch fewer fish.
That all changed on a coral-cluttered flat on an atoll in Belize, the first day I agreed to give it a go. I did catch a bonefish or two on the fly, almost certainly by accident. But catching those bones wasn't what changed my entire perspective; it was the experience. The cautious and silent wading, the stalking and sighting, and the challenge of placing the fly in front of a school or a lone bone. So yeah, Jeff won the debate because I've been obsessed with fly fishing ever since.
My other passion is music. I've been playing guitar as long as I've been fishing. Those two things ran in parallel for a long time. I founded an online music education company called TrueFire (Jeff was our Director of Education!), and we've spent the last three decades leveraging technology to help people learn how to become better musicians.
That's three decades of figuring out what an obsessed hobbyist actually needs from a piece of software. It turns out that fly fishermen and guitarists are more similar than you'd think. Both notice when something is fake. Both have zero patience for tools that don't respect how much they already know.
I retired from TrueFire last year, which gave me the runway to pursue FishFly. Developing and sharing the tools that my flyfishing buds and I wished existed when planning a trip is my FishFly dream. It's a hobby project. Not a company. Not a team. Just me, a laptop, and thirty-some years of building software for passionate hobbyists, applied to the thing I'm most stubborn about myself.
Today, FishFly offers saltwater fly fishermen three tools.
Trip Scout takes a destination, some dates, and the species you're chasing, and hands back a full trip report — weather, tides, species profiles, fly recommendations, and the logistics. Prime Eat Window is a daily "is tomorrow worth waking up for" score for the flats, blending solunar, tide, light, wind, and weather. The Saltwater Fly Library is a catalog of 204 patterns across 42 destinations, cross-referenced by species and destination. Every pattern has a description. Most have a real, verified photo. When we can't source one, the photo slot stays blank until we find one — no stock illustrations, no invented images. You can learn more about each of the tools in my following blogs or just by digging in and trying it for yourself.
Please consider this version of FishFly as a beta version. It might be buggy here and there; we're missing a few flies and a few destinations, but all in all, it should be helpful when planning your next trip.
I would be most appreciative if you could send me feedback about any aspect of your interaction with FishFly. Of course, I would welcome any suggestions for improvement!
Tight lines!
Brad
brad@fishfly.ai