I started Gillies & Fallon Guide Service in 2004. I’ve built my business with a focus on developing long-lasting relationships with clients who share my passion for fishing and respect for the fishery. Understanding how they take their coffee and how they like to fish helps us both hone-in on the essence of what fulfills us.
In Maine I focus on shallow water striped bass, casting flies to fish that we can see, in and around the Kennebec River. This can be an incredibly rewarding way to pursue stripers and is a new experience even for many veteran saltwater anglers.
Come Labor Day, I move my base of operations to Falmouth, Massachusetts on the south shore of Cape Cod, to chase false albacore. These heart-stopping speedsters offer a very visual hunting experience. They can eat flies well…and then become highly selective. Searching for the fish, figuring out what they want, and then making the cast under pressure is addictive. Once the albies depart the waters around the Cape, I head to Beaufort, North Carolina where the false albacore fall run is just getting going.
As a guide, I get to work at being a better angler every day. I truly enjoy passing on knowledge I’ve gained over 30 years of running charterboats across New England. As a former outdoor educator and science teacher, part of my passion includes helping people learn more about the incredible fish we chase, how to become a better angler, and the environment where we play. I’ve worked as a professional fly casting instructor at the L.L. Bean Fly Fishing School since 2005. My past work as a boarding school dean and a ski industry executive specializing in guest experience, human resources and safety/risk management gives me a breadth of background in providing safe and memorable trips. I’m a founding member and current President of the Maine Association of Charterboat Captains, belong to the American Saltwater Guides Association, and am active in promoting responsible fisheries management and cooperative research.
Sharing the joy of watching the sunrise as we work fish pushing up onto a flat or the peace of a mid-morning coffee break as we drift down river with the tide is really important. I don’t take my office for granted. If that ever happens, it’ll be time for me to do something else.
I’ve always been happiest when I’m ALL in. A month of bird hunting in Montana one November convinced me that wasn’t enough time. The next year I left my job, bought a travel trailer, loaded up the shotguns and dogs, and hunted from Montana to Mexico for four months. I hated just skiing on weekends. Going home on Sunday sucked. Next thing I knew I’d been working in the ski industry for 12 years.
I’m a perfectionist, quietly competitive, and really, really patient. My mission is: Building better anglers, one trip at a time. My motto is: See the fish. Cast to the fish. Catch the fish.
Home Water
The sand and mudflats of the Lower Kennebec River, Maine (where I live now) and the rips and structure around Cape Cod, Massachusetts (where I grew up and fish spring and fall).
2-3 Lines
Amplitude Grand Slam
The Amplitude Grand Slam is the best striped bass sightcasting line I’ve ever used. It shoots like a dream but also loads quickly for the “Oh shit” quick shots that happen more often than we’d like. It deftly handles a range of flies from small shrimp to clunky crabs. While it was designed for tropical conditions, it behaves surprisingly well in New England waters.
I rely on the same line for a lot of false albacore situations. That combination of distance when you need it plus quick to load is required in any albie line but the advantages of a floater are often overlooked in this fishery. The ability to pick up a long line and recast to fast moving fish buys us many second or even third shots. It’s a difference-maker when the fish are fussy or just ram-feeding as they cruise across the surface of the water. A floating line also puts a lot of novice albie anglers in their comfort zone. That’s important when the mayhem of speeding, frothing albies reduces a good caster to a trembling mess.
Sightcasting to stripers and false albacore is different than the blind casting, chuck and duck style that is often employed in Northeast saltwater fishing. The Tropi-Core on the Grand Slam line really helps it behave, especially as it comes off a wind-blown boat deck. You may miss the fish, but not because your running line is a tangled cluster jammed against your stripping guide.
Sonar Titan Sink 3/5/7
We don’t always get to cast to fish we see. Sometimes it pays to dredge, especially when you’re searching for bigger bass or blind casting for albies that just won’t stay up. This line gets down but has so much less hinge that it still feels like fly fishing.
Most Like To Fish
I’ve got two – wherever I’m fishing next with my dad and the Kennebec River right in front of my house when we’ve fully restored this striper fishery to where it should be.
Two Truths And A Lie
The more time I spend fishing and guiding, the more I realize how much I have to learn.
I’m not a fly-only guy. I love to chuck hardware too.
I don’t have an albie problem.