The other day I published a post about my experience in Montauk circa 2014. A few days later I found something interesting on the internet. It was a post about the Brooklyn Fishing Club. The BFC was founded in 2014, is based out of Brooklyn, and is led by president Victor Lucio. It's a fishing club that was formed around a few key rules, protect and respect the area you fish, respect the fish and if you kill it you better eat it, and lastly is to photograph everything you catch. It started as an Instagram page and morphed into a club. They have memberships with varying levels and a ton of merch on their website. You can se it HERE
While surfing around I found the BFC hosts podcasts several times a year. I scrolled through the previous guests and stopped and listened to the one with Captain Paul Dixon. Dixon is known as the Godfather of fly fishing on the East End of Long Island, specifically Montauk and the flats along the Long Island sound. He started it all and his influence can be attributed to the careers of several of the
best fly fishing guides in and around Montauk. Dixon owned a fly shop, Dixon's Sporting Life in East Hampton in 1993, before opening and running To the Point Charters. He splits his time between Long Island and Key Largo, Florida where he guides out of the Ocean Reef Club.
He was one of the first to run a flats skiff sight fishing for striped bass and has been known as the first to use the "tease them up" method to attract bass and blues. That involves throwing a hookless topwater plug that tunes the fish up and having an angler cast out a fly that hopefully the tuned up fish would eat. That something he did decades ago. So if you think you started it ten years ago, well, you didn't.
I have had the pleasure to fish next to him out in Montauk during that short two week run I had in 2014. There was a good guide hang hang out there at night and then a most memorable "Knights of The Round Table" session one Friday night at the old Somerset show. Somehow I got a seat at the table with some of the true legends in the game. That was when the bar hang at the FFS was just as important as what happened inside the hall. It was a late, late, late night and let's just say the stories and alcohol were flowing easily.
Dixon is a true gentleman and one of true legends in our sport. He is involved in all kinds of conservation for multiple species including striped bass and is the steward for all things that are good. In 2021 he received the prestigious Izaak Walton Award from the American Museum of Fly Fishing. Below is the link to the BFC podcast featuring Dixon. Thanks to them for the great podcasts which helps me during my long commute to work each week. Below that is the link to the episode.
And then if one podcast with Dixon isn't enough here is another that I found on the Mill House Podcast. You can watch that below.
To read John McMurray's article from 2012 in The Drake just click on it to make it larger
