ABOUT
FLYTIDE30A
Fly Tide 30A is a Saltwater Fly Fishing School located on the Choctawhatchee Bay near Grayton Beach, Florida. It is owned and operated by John Burns (AKA Jack) - a retired fishy biologist with expertise in ecological restoration of surface waters, coastal environments, and harmful algal blooms. Originally from New Orleans LA, he began saltwater fly fishing in the 1970s. He has worked and fished internationally, but spends most of his life now on the Gulf Coast teaching and publishing written works on the art of fly casting and saltwater fly fishing. He has also worked previously for the Orvis Company as Fly Fishing Manager and Casting Instructor in Sandestin Florida. His most recent work is titled Florida’s Coastal Dune Lakes – The Physical & Biological Art of Nature.
A Note from Jack
I have always been immersed in water and fascinated by the art, design, and purpose of the natural world. It wasn’t something that happened on a particular date and time – it was without doubt an innate opportunity. Something to recognize, connect with, and live and learn by. Saltwater Fly Fishing has always been a part of that life, wherever it took me, along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico or in other wild places where I worked as an
Environmental Scientist. A career in science and time fishing both kept me connected to water and allowed me to better understand how estuaries function and how we might protect and restore them. I found a way to keep looking microscopically at the secrets of life, in labs and from a boat, when most of my friends had graduated to a desk. I was fortunate to lead and conduct research where nature, and those of us who depend on it, might need a helping hand. A career in environmental science is behind me now, but I never left the water.
I first found a fly rod in Muddy, Illinois. A small coal mining town where I visited my Grandma Foster in the early 1960s. It was a short walk down the lane to the spray pond behind the Sahara Coal Company tipple where my grandfather had once worked. I do not recall many fish from that pond, but I do remember my older cousin, who had been a paramedic in the Vietnam War, digging a fly out of a man’s forehead with his pocket knife.
Saltwater Fly Fishing began later as another kind of accident in the Pearl River drainage basin. Just a short drive east across the Honey Island Swamp, near New Orleans where I was born and raised. I would sling small bright neon poppers for Bass and Bream from a cheap fiberglass fly rod in a canoe. On some days, the tidal influence and brackish muddy waters would transition the fish community from Bass and Bluegill to unexpected Redfish and occasional Seatrout. That river also held massive alligators that were very protective of their nests with eggs and newly hatched young. Regardless, feisty reptiles or not, I was hooked on saltwater fly fishing from the day I hooked my first redfish on a fly rod.
It was an early time when most in Sportsman’s Paradise had little knowledge of fly fishing in saltwater and my younger brother still did not believe I could call an alligator to the boat - but that all changed rather quickly. Fly fishing along the Gulf Coast has since become a coveted practice in my daily life. It’s a place of wonder, discovery, excitement, and peace of mind. The art of fly casting is more than just fishing in a beautiful place – it is an action that provides a mental reset. A gift that slows you down, buffers your neuronic synapses, and engages you physically into a slow dance with nature. Sounds grandiose, maybe a little hippy-dippy, but it’s true if you can connect with it like the rest of us believers.
There is much to be savored in the early days that include beliefs, science, and the art of casting flies. Fishing tight loops, in sultry air, while filled with the illusion of a trophy tarpon that could turn a placid pond into a frothy sea. It was a time and place where you have that moment to temporarily bend the universal laws of nature and reign supreme over big ocean roving predators. That may be the pinnacle for many fly fishers in saltwater, but fooling a beautiful Brookie in a languid spring-fed creek was just as rewarding. The use of an artificial fly to target unsuspecting fish is an acceptable endeavor when we consider that mimicry is often employed by nature for many devious or recompensive purposes. Eye for an eye – fly for a fish. Maybe the recognition of an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object was the mental gate to the creation of the first artificial flies. I don’t know, but I am very happy someone thought of it and passed it down to me.
That is what now defines me and ends up in a personal bio on a web page. It is the definition of who I am and what I do – I teach people how to cast a fly rod and how to fly fish in saltwater. A routine dance with nature that slows me down and enables me to pass on this ritual of fly fishing to others who might also become a new believer. Another tight physical loop in the air, with a fly attached, thrown by a more relaxed and grinning disciple to water, nature, and the art of the cast.
If you would like to share in this passion for life, water, fly fishing, and the biological curiosity of nature, you can find me with Jeni, and Ed the cat, in an old growth hammock between the Gulf of Mexico and Choctawhatchee Bay. You might even spot me in a boat tower, with a Bahama blue hull, chasing whatever might eat a fly. Just look for the FLYTIDE30A Flying Fish somewhere between New Orleans and Apalachicola.
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Sincerely,
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Retired Biologist / Active Fly Casting Instructor
FLYTIDE30A
ABOUT OUR LOGO
Our logo was created by Andrea Larko, a talented artist with a passion for fishing. Her Zentangle style and colorful pieces were what drew Jack to her work. After reaching out to her to create the logo for Fly Tide 30A, he learned she was the artist from some of his favorite reels created by Abel.
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You can find her work through Abel reels, Able Women, Simms, Vedavoo, Mountain View Sports and Tempress products for Yeti Coolers along with many others including Teton Valley Lodge, TCO Fly Shop, Headhunters Fly Shop, Snowman Custom Rod Works, Homewaters, Yellow Creek Trout Club, Trout Unlimited, Project Healing Waters, Wounded Warriors, Salty Roots, West Branch Angler, Hook Shots, Casting for Recovery and Tail Finn off the top of my head. Her work is also featured in the Drake magazine, Fly Rod & Reel magazine and Fly Fisherman magazine as well as being featured on the Fiberglass Manifesto, Dun Magazine, Vagabond Fly, Midcurrent, Frankenfly, Alaska Guide List, Double Hauled, The Fly Fishing Consultant, The Itinerant Angler, The River is my Mistress, Moldy Chum, Tight Lined Tales of a Fly Fisherman and Fishwest to name a few.
