On of the highlights of the BFFA is the annual all-day program presented by a prominent and interesting personality
associated with fly fishing. This year we are honored to to have Stu Apte with us on Saturday February 11th.

Fishing is Stu Apte’s life. He grew up in Miami with fishing guides as his heroes.

At age 12 he landed his first tarpon, and
four years later he was fly fishing the same south Florida waters he’s fished for more than 60 years. All through military
prep school and the University of Miami, Stu split his time between studies, fishing, and golden-gloves boxing, developing a reputation – in all three -- as a fierce competitor and a firebrand. As a fighter pilot in the Korean conflict he flew some of the first jets, and as a Pan Am pilot for 34 years he had the opportunity to pursue his fishing passion all over the world. When he had time off, Stu headed to the Florida Keys.

In the late 1950's he began guiding part-time out of Little Torch Key, then full-time in 1960, after a Pan Am layoff. The close-knit fishing-guide community based in Islamorada was cool to newcomers, especially aggressive ones, and looked on Apte as “the pilot who thinks he’s a guide.” So Stu went his own way, specializing in big tarpon. Giant tarpon catches were rare and he was determined to change that. Waking hours were spent fishing or preparing to fish, devising new strategies, techniques and gear. He devised a modified blood knot and acquired an interest in an airplane so he could scout the flats.

The Stu Apte Tarpon Fly, popular since 1958, was featured on a 1991 US Postal Service stamp.

Apte guided Joe Brooks often. History was made in May 1961 when Brooks landed a world-record tarpon aboard Apte’s boat Mom’s Worry. At 148- ½ lb it was the largest ever caught on fly. In the mid-1960's, when few women fly fished for tarpon and even fewer guides considered guiding a lady angler, Apte led Kay Brodney to a 137- ½ lb silver king. For 50 years Apte fished with Ted Williams. Ted taught him how to pole a boat and called him “bush” because he considered Apte’s skills “bush league” compared to his own. When Williams finally started calling him “Stu,” Apte knew he had made it.

Stu could find the fish, make them eat, and land the big ones in record time, and his name became synonymous with tarpon. As word spread he developed a huge following: by 1964 he was guiding 300 days a year and referring another 400 days to other guides. He also set his own records: more than 40 saltwater light-tackle and fly-rod world records in all, including the two longest-standing fly records: a 58 lb dolphin (1964) and a 136 lb Pacific sailfish (1965), both on 12-lb tippet.

In 1967 Apte was the first to catch a tarpon over 150 lb on fly (breaking Brooks’ record in the process). He caught two record tarpon in one day in 1977; the second, 82- ½ lb on 6-lb tippet, is the longest-standing tarpon fly-rod record on the IGFA books. And one day in 1982 Apte set two 12-lb tarpon records, one in the morning and one after lunch. Since the mid-1960's, when he trained the guides at Panama’s Club de Pesca and was the first American to fish for tarpon and snook on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, Stu has championed the fishing opportunities in Central America.

His 1976 book Stu Apte’s Fishing in the Florida Keys and Flamingo remains a classic, and he continues to share his vast knowledge and superb photography in books, magazines, videos, and on TV. He collaborated on one of the earliest shallow-water skiffs, the 16’ Fiber Craft, and was a member of The Saltwater Fly Rodders of America advisory board, a founder of Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited, and the recipient of the 2003 Ted Williams Award from Chuck LaMar’s Mercury Outboards Grand Slam Celebrity Fishing Tournament. He is the master at fighting fish on light tackle. Intense and confident, Stu works at the “exactness” of fishing. “Study your adversary carefully and never underestimate his courage and determination. Make every effort on your part a positive one, and don’t waste a motion.” As Stu strove for perfection himself, he brought it out in others.

In 2008 he published an autobiography, Of Winds and Tides: A Memoir, which will be available for purchase andsi gning at the program.

The program, for club members and by advance registration only, will be at our normal meeting venue, Memaw's Bar
B-Q on Eau Gallie Boulevard. Breakfast will be served at 8:00 and the program will run from 8:30 AM until about 4:00
PM. Price, including breakfast and lunch, is only $20 per person. Don’t miss it!