The first sea fish I ever caught was a garfish, so the salty seed was sown decades ago but it lay dormant until I started fishing Long Island Sound and was introduced to striped bass and bluefish. Billfish and tuna followed, but at the end of the road lay a flyrod and attached to that rod was a spectre, a ghost, a grey ghost - the bonefish.

My first encounter was on the amazing flats of St Francois, they were breath taking in their power and beauty. Yet it wasn t the bonefish that really blew me away it was the other inhabitants of the flats, and in particular the trevally. Now I'd caught these on conventional gear and appreciated their fight, but to tangle with them on a flyrod was a whole new world, a world where obsessive / compulsive behaviour is the norm and nothing else matters. I sit here today, the sun is shining I have fine fishing literally outside the door but I dream longingly of sand in my boots, the fly line ripping through the guides and only the wind for company. The flats are a starkly beautiful environment, a place where the sea blends with the sky and sense of creation envelopes you.

The fish:

Depending on where you are in the world depends upon what you will find cruising the flats. In the Caribbean you will find, bones, permit, tarpon, jacks, 'cudas, snook, cobia and a whole host of reef dwellers. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans you will find, bones, trevally, milkfish, 'cudas, and again a myriad of reef fish.

But are they easy to catch? Well as with all fish sometimes yes sometimes no.

Bonefish. Masterful crab and shrimp hunters can be broken down into three groups. Group 1 – un-catchable, not interested in anything presented to them. Group 2 – easily spooked, will follow and investigate all flies presented but unless every thing is perfect will not eat. Group 3 – feeding frenzy will eat anything thrown at them. But no matter which group they are in they are great fun.

Trevally are big bruisers that will chase anything big, bright and making lots of splash, but again this does not mean they will eat it and they have a habit of turning away when it looks like the take is a cert.

Milkfish. Without doubt the most challenging fish. They are algae and plankton feeders so you fish for them with bits of green coloured fluff. When you find them daisy chaining then they are feeding and are sort of catchable if they are not doing this they are essentially un-catchable. So un-catchable that until about 6 years ago no one had ever taken one on a fly, until Arno, a Seychelles guide cracked the code, but even today there have probably only ever been a few hundred caught.

The Places.

So make it easier and open your eyes to the fluid world that surrounds us and the list grows immensely. Bahamas, Cuba, Belize, Mexico, Venezuela, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Christmas Island, Seychelles to name but a few. Most of these places make great holiday destinations in their own right, but to go to where the best fishing is you need to ditch the family and your friends pack a very light bag and be prepared to travel and accept all of the hardships that follow.

The Tackle

Strong, reliable and saltwater proof, those are the only criteria that matter.

The reel: When I started on the journey I thought I could get away with a relatively cheap reel ie less then £100, I had one of these and it lasted a day before ceasing solid. I quickly realised you really do need the best available and in my opinion the best are made by Steve Abel in California, closely followed by Tibor and Van Staal. Ross and Vossler are good but I have destroyed both in the space of 4 days and at a couple of hundred pounds a go it becomes expensive. Simply buy the best, buy it once the Abels will set you back the best part of £500 each (or more if you are a right tart and have them custom anodised like I do) but they will never let you down. Obviously the bigger the fish the bigger the reel will need to be to carry enough backing to cater for those long powerful runs. For bonefish an Abel Super 8 will do you for ever but for trevally, milkfish and tarpon you ll be looking at using Super 10, 12 or the Big Game 4 series. Like all branches of angling one set up will not cater for every opportunity offered to you so you need to have all your bases covered, the opportunities tend to come at you very fast.

The rods: This is really down to personal preference, but 4 piece is the way to go and then you can pack them away in your hold luggage. I have extensively used the Fulling Mill Gold series and whilst I ve broken a few they have performed very well. In addition to these I have examples from the now defunct Reddington Nano Quartz Titanium series. These are some of the finest rods ever made but as they cost $1000 dollars each and unsurprisingly never took off, but they are amazing to fish with, needless to say I have broken these too. To back these up I have a couple of 12 weight SaltWater specials built on a combination of Harrison blanks and (I kid you not) Russian Kevlar tank ariels. These are bespoke rods built to my own specifications, these are designed to battle the toughest fish in the harshest conditions and with a dead weight lift of 13lb at the tip they put real pressure on a fish. Sage, Thomas & Thomas lead the mass market field but as with all things you pays your money, you takes your choice. Generally I will take 6 or more rods with me on a trip. Two 12's are always rigged ready for the giants, a 10 is rigged for Smaller Trevally, Permit, Triggers and other reef dwellers and the 8 is always on hand for Bonefish, leaving me a spare 8 and a 10 in case of mishap.

Lines: Weight forward, floating are your tropical workhorses but always have a sinking line of 700  800 grain for deep dredging the reefs, for that is where sleeping Dog Tooth live. Always take plenty, you can lose one in a second and if you have a spare you ll be fishing in minutes, if not the nearest tackle shop maybe 3000 miles away; they also serve as good currency with the guides or locals as does any fishing tackle. 30lb Dacron backing is essential, preferably in a dayglo colour so you can see where it is and where it is going. You can use gel spun braid if you want to maximise your capacity but you will lose abrasion resistance with it. I only use braid on my super size Marlin reel, this is for serious offshore work and easily holds 600m of 30lb and a 13 weight line. The abrasion doesn't matter when fishing blue water but having enough capacity to keep hold of Tuna at a quarter of a mile is.

Files and leaders: Flies depend upon where you are going and what you want to catch, do your research and ask those that have been before you. But always have some orange Christmas Island Specials and a few Gotchas in your pocket along with giant Clousers for those beautiful Trevally. You need to really make time to investigate the fly choice for your venue, do not scrimp on acquiring a few of the correct flies. Leaders, I tend to make my own for the bigger fish I use exclusively Suffix Surf lines for this but for Bonefish I use Scientific Anglers tapered Flourocarbon leaders in 16lb. Play them hard land them fast and give them a good chance of recovery.

Clothing: This is very very important, I can't stress this enough. You need to be comfortable and cool, so layer on the sunblock and use good clothing all I will say with the colours are think tropical camo rather then realtree. The sky is blue and the sand is well sand coloured hence all my clothes match these, remember you are stalking fish in ankle deep clear water with no cover you must use every advantage on offer to you. The best sunglasses you can afford are essential, you are blind without them. I swear by my Maui Jim's but most people just swear when they see the price tag, They catch you fish and more importantly protect your eyes properly and that to me is worth any price.

Memories: I have many great memories from the all too few weeks I have spent in saltwater, but they are without doubt some of the best. Yes, I vividly remember some of my Marlin leaping off the transom 20 feet away (and that has to be the greatest sight in all of fishing), Looking into the mouth of the world record beating Galapagos Shark that had broken my will to live over the period of a couple of hours, we really did need a bigger boat that day. But in equal measure I remember holding my first glistening Bonefish all 6 ounces of it and that first Trevally was something very special.

These are three of my favourites from the flats.

Dogtooth tuna, Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. You would never believe a reel could revolve this quick and still be of use afterwards.

Just to get to Bikini is a test of endurance but to fish it is almost beyond the call of duty. I d gone there in search of Giant Trevally but that just didn t pan out but what I did find was a good population of big Dog Tooth Tuna. These fish are serious bruisers, I d caught a 77lb one in the Seychelles and that hurt seriously even on 50lb gear, here I decided to go to the extreme and catch one on the fly.

Now Bikini is big, its lagoon is 27 miles by 13 in size, littered with sunken ships and the remnants of nuclear tests. My guide Edward took me to the edge of the mighty Bravo crater a mile wide hole, the sort of thing you get when you detonate a 15 megaton bomb. The southern lip of the crater is favoured by the Doggies so we worked the area using the 12 weight gear and a massive 8/0 tandem hook Billfish streamer fly. Using a 12 weight over any length of time gives you serious shoulder ache. We were letting the fly drift back as we mover the boat forward and then when in position I would strip it back furiously. I had a couple of aborted strikes from fish but eventually I got a solid strike and a hookup. This fish went on an incredible run, it took 200 yards off me before I stopped it, the reel must have been spinning at about 6000 rpm and to put your hand near it would have resulted in a world of pain. The fight was savage and unrelenting, I don t know how many times it came close only to rip off another 50 yards and I d have to work it back. Eventually we boated a 20lb Dog which as I was using a 20lb tippet a line class fish and it is reckoned that there has only been about 100 line class Doggies ever landed, it was a proud moment and not for the only time that week I was unable to hold a rod afterwards. Later during that week I hooked up on the trolling gear a Dog of immense proportions probably way over 150lb, the fish came out of the water as it struck the lure after that I couldn t do anything with it, it got to the rocks and saw me off. I m going back at some point as I have some scores to settle in Enyu Channel, but next time I m going equipped to tangle with the 1000 pounders that dwell in that isolated part of the Pacific. If you have been there, done that and need a challenge Bikini is for you.

Parrot Fish, St Francois Seychelles. Some fish are just meant to be and this was one of them.

It was the only day during that trip I had my own guide. We had a right laugh in the morning catching endless Bones, as the water dropped off the flats we went off in search of Triggers. A lot of motoring and not a lot of catching followed, we eventually ended up on the finger flats at the northern end of St FranÁois, Here we found a school of Parrot Fish. We approached slowly and I got a cast in only to semi spook them, but they did not flee just circled and came right back in front of me. I again cast into their midst and twitched the fly and instantly I was attached. The school erupted and went everywhere, the one I was hooked into went over the edge of the coral head and down, normally this would spell disaster but not today. I was a couple of yards from the edge of the coral so I strolled over to it and brought the fish up and in, it all happened very quickly. We tailed the fish and my hook was embedded in the scissor  the only part of its mouth that has flesh the rest being bony beak. The fish weighed 8 ? pounds, that was inconsequential more importantly it was the third one ever to be caught and the first of the year at St Francois.

Giant trevally, St Francois Seychelles. Eventually you catch what you desire.

I'd been the equivalent of twice around the world after one of these ferocious predators, I was sure I'd catch on at Bikini but ended up only losing a fish over 70lb at the boat, but that was on gear not the fly.

We'd fished hard all week, I'd had 5 different species of trevally, including the ultra rare golden, about 150 bonefish and the first cobia ever caught there, it was the last afternoon and I was prepared for one last walk to the reef. Richard was done in and stayed by the skiff catching bones, our guide Dean and I set out across a mile of sun baked sand to the western reef. A few of us had battered an area on the west known as Rat Race all week but no one had come near this part of the reef, which is understandable when you consider the size of the place, it could probably go all year with no one visiting. We immediately found surf dwelling bones and a few triggers, I promptly broke my 10 weight. Then we saw them GT's numbers of GT's. I cast at a pair, one of them turned I stripped faster the fish turned away at the very last instant, I thought my chance had gone. A big blue fin appeared, I love these creatures so I cast stripped in came for the clouser and was simply bullied out of the way by a giant trevally that seemingly came from no where. I was attached to what I sought. I held the fish hard as it tried to find the sanctuary of the reef edge. The powerful rod and reel did their job and we soon tailed a fine 20lb GT. It was a great moment. It had been a day of monster fish for all but the GT's were the talking point and whilst mine was fine it was Dennis' 60lb colossus that stood above all.

As we all know it is not always about the fishing but the people you meet and friends you make along the way. It can be hit and miss as you are stuck with whoever books up for a week, I've met my fair share of people you don't want to eat dinner with but conversely I have made some great friends who I am glad to say will be sharing many more adventures in the future.

The future: Where next?

It was a difficult one, for places to rival St Francois are a little difficult to come by. I knew of the place but to get there is difficult and horrendously expensive but it is possibly the greatest saltwater fishing on earth and with a lure like that you know you have to go. Circumstances sometimes come to your aid and it has for me in this case. In Rich, Phil and Dennis I know I have a group that will not say no and in this case they leapt at the opportunity for a bit of hardship in pursuit of a dream. So I had my party, I just need the means to do it. I just happened to see an acquaintance from many moons ago had started his own travel company and wanted to put together a trip to the mighty Cosmoledo, all my birthdays had come at once.

Let me explain a bit about Cosmoledo. It lies in the chain of southern outer islands of the Seychelles (where else) and is totally uninhabited, infact to get us there involves chartering an aircraft to fly you 3 hours to Assumption then charter a boat to sail there and pick you up, Cosmoledo is then a 10 hour sail away. It is an 8 mile wide atoll with bonefish flats that can take you 3 hours to walk across, trevally in such numbers that is known at GT central for Planet Earth and the biggest milkfish anywhere.

After finding the facilitator the rest was easy to sort and we'll be there in March for a week.I shall enjoy living with the rhythm of the tides as we are moored in the centre of the lagoon for the week.

After that in May I have a date with the Silver King himself. I'm headed to Cuba in search of tarpon more specifically giant tarpon. Small tarpon run to 20lb, baby tarpon are upto 60lbs with giant tarpon being 60lb+ this time of year is giant tarpon season with fish in the 150lb class a possibility.

The Isle of Youth is again a live aboard operation similar to that which we shall be doing in the Seychelles. It is a newly opened area of the nature reserve on the southern Cuban coast and is an area that in its first 6 months of operation has seen over 6000 tarpon jumped. In addition to the tarpon are the other main players the permit and the inevitable bonefish so the grandslam is a real possibility.

Where do you go from there? I'm not entirely sure but I'm certainly going back to Cosmoledo in 2008, after that we need to look at Farquar, Providence, Christmas Island, Fanning, Kanton and if I could ever get a boat to go there Rongelap.

Maybe I could tempt some of you to join in and we can have a fish-in?