Spring 2016 Howler Brothers on the Website

Spring 2016 Howler Brothers

From the Bros

We are Howler Brothers. We are not really related by blood. But we are bonded by many shared callings: Surfing, fishing, paddling and the good things that come with these pursuits. Things like fire pits, really good tequila, limes, and pre-dawn coffee.

Above all we’re united by a belief in doing things the honest and pure way (which is not usually the easy way). We design and craft all our garments, and everything we make, with these passions and values in mind. Put our products to the test. Heed the call.

Their Story

Howler founders Chase Heard and Andy Stepanian spent their adolescent summers haunting the waters and fish of Florida and Virginia and riding the ripples those states call waves. Both Heard and Stepanian now live in Texas where they raise families, work hard, make music together, chase fish with fly rods and make runs to the nearest coast or river when the opportunity arises.

Their vision for Howler – and the name Howler Brothers – was inspired by a sound they each heard on surf trips to Costa Rica: the call of the loudest animal in North America, the Howler Monkey. If you’ve heard it, you know how loud and startling the sound can be. But, after hearing it a few times, the sound becomes a part of the collective feeling of being in Central America and serves as a constant reminder that you’re in a good place, doing something you love.

With this emotional connection as a base line, Heard and Stepanian formed Howler Brothers to craft limited run, high quality clothing and goods that draw inspiration from the style and tradition of surfing and coastal sports. They set out to make gear that works in the water, on the boat, and around the fire pit when the stories are told. Clothes you might wear when you’re hearing Howler Monkeys from your hut after a day well spent. Or clothes to wear when you’re wishing you were.

Their Products

Howler Brothers clothing designs honor the soul, passion and timeless style of sports such as surfing and fly fishing but update historic garment ideas with modern influence from waves, water, geography, fashion and art. Every garment and accessory is crafted with functionality and attention to detail at the forefront. We avoid trendy or overly traditional ideas and use small batch production and collaborations with artists and craftsmen to create original, alternative offerings. Our base of operations, Austin, Texas, is miles from the nearest ocean but provides daily inspiration with its vibrant and diverse creative culture.


Howler Brothers Spring 2016 Highlights:

* Gaucho Snapshirts in Hibiscus and Crabs- the now iconic shirts are available in two new fresh embroideries for Spring 2016

Click Here to see the Howler Brothers Gaucho Snapshirt- Crabs

Click Here to see the Howler Brothers Gaucho Snapshirt- Hibiscus

* Loggerhead Shirts- A technical shirt with plenty of sun protection and "fishy features" that doesn't make you look like a cloned zombie.

Click here to see the Howler Brothers Loggerhead Shirt- Grand Slam

Click Here to see the Howler Brothers Loggerhead Shirt- Silver King

* Horizon Hybrid Shorts- the iconic shorts that made Howler Brothers famous. Enough structure to pull off parties and runs to the grocery store but are always ready for an unplanned swim, boat ride or even a fumbled beverage.

Click Here to check out the Howler Brothers Horizon Hybrid Shorts in the Dark Earth color

Click Here to check out the Howler Brothers Horizon Hybrid Shorts in the Coral Red color

* H Bar B Snapshirt- Down there in Austin, Texas, where the Howler Brothers reign from, the western snapshirt is standard fare. But, you certainly don’t have to roam the ATX to rock our H Bar B Snapshirt. Has become one of our best selling short sleeve shirts of all-time.

Click Here to check out the H Bar B Snapshirt in Cosmic Plaid: Bison

Click Here to check out the H Bar B Snapshirt in Cosmic Plaid: Green

* Ranchero Polo- Voted as "Shop Favorite" shirt for Spring 2016 up at Mad River Outfitters!!!! Cool up front.....fiesta in the back. This is one polo that is going to turn heads.

Click Here to check out the Howler Brothers Ranchero Polo in Cocoa Heather

Click Here to check out the Howler Brothers Ranchero Polo in Stone White

* Pescador Shirt- season after season.....the un-disputed KING of fishing shirts. Howler Brothers set out to make the perfect all around fishing shirt; one that works on the boat and in your waders but doesn’t make you look like a giant tropical fruit that got into a knife fight when you go get a beer on dry land......and they did it in spades! Be sure to check out the video link on the website!!!

Click Here to check out the Howler Brothers Pescador Fishing Shirt in Lemon Drop

Click Here to check out the Howler Brothers Pescador Fishing Shirt in Fuzzy Navel

* Howler Hats- have become the best selling hats that we carry in the shop. These sell out season to season so if you see one you like......wail on it like a Howler Monkey.

Click Here to see our full-line of Howler Brothers Spring 2016

Mad River Outfitters and Flip Pallot

Proud Dealers for the Howler Brothers

813 Bethel Rd.

Columbus, Ohio 43214

614-451-0363

admin@madriveroutfitters.com

www.madriveroutfitters.com

www.flippallot.com

Spring Turkey 2016- Part 1

The sun comes up quickly on new hunting country when you don't know your way around or where turkeys want to be in the spring breeding season...It's the sound of a gobbler, before he flies down in the morn, that tells you where to go. How to get there is a mystery when you don't really know where THERE is!
   
So it was Sunday morn...The bird gobbled frequently but I was to far away to answer and didn't want to until I knew what the situation was. Was he in the open? Was he with hens? Were there more than a single gobbler?...'all answers I needed before calling to the bird.

I took a compass course through a wet swamp in the direction of the gobbler...he gobbled still. I came out on the other side of the swamp on a mowed gas line where the gobbler was breeding a hen as I carefully peered north along the line. Three other hens watched the breeding with what I supposed was, nesting, on their minds.
  
I Kee kee'd and clucked to the the hens and they answered at a hundred yards...the north breeze bringing me their soft, rhythmic responses.

The gobbler began to answer and these conversations went on for 30 minutes as the gobbler strutted amongst the two remaining hens.
   
All at once I couldn't see the gobbler any longer...it dawned on me that he was coming!!!
   
I got my ancient single shot, Iver Johnson Bicycle Company .12ga up and pointed in the direction he had to follow to get to me...and before I knew it, he had covered the 100yds and was under ten steps away coming around a palmetto clump. I quiet cocked the hammer and touched off a load of #6 Bismuth and the morning went from a hunt to a celebration of being in the natural world, alone, lost and successful as a hunter...'as my forebearers had been.

  
Now I had a large gobbler to carry along as I pondered where to go and how to return to the hunt camp...'all the subject of another blog entry...'stay tuned...

*****New content headed to the Sandbox also.......Click Here

Flip Pallot shares his Sandbox

Have you played around in Flip's Sandbox?

The page of the website that we have been waiting for!

"Flip's Sandbox" will feature never-before-seen Videos, Cool Prodcuct Features and the new "Sign-of-the-Week".

Will be updating regularly. Hope to see you there......Flip

Check out "Flip's Sandbox" HERE!

Thanks to the fine folks at Yeti for putting this together! 

Be sure to hop on over to their Blog  to read the great article that goes along with this video and be sure follow along with them as well. Yeti Blog.

Then stop back and check out the selection of Yeti products for sale HERE at www.flippallot.com

We DO have a shipment coming mid-month and it WILL contain Ramblers. Stay tuned.

The Longest Day (and night)

by Flip Pallot

My last year as a professional skiff guide was 1992......the year Hurricane Andrew slammed into Homestead, Florida. Andrew changed my life in many ways for the better.

In July of that year, about four weeks before Andrew hit, I was poling a Sport along the Key Largo shoreline. We were seeing a good number of bonefish and all at once he whipped out his cellular telephone and placed a call to his Zurich office to check on the days price of Euro-Yen on the international market.

I wondered then, and still do, exactly what synapses might have to fire in the brain, and in what order, to cause a fellow on the shoreline of Key Largo, looking at bonefish, to think of placing a call to Switzerland. That was my introduction to cellular phones. I hated them, vowed never to personally own one and thought to put a clause in my literature banning them from my skiff.
As the 20th century wound down, I wound up getting a cel phone and reluctantly became as dependent upon them as the rest of the modern world. I still hate them!  Those silly little rings and annoying beeps that remind me of  the sound track of a Benny Hill T.V. show.

I hated cel-phones until yesterday morning........I was headed for the post office to mail some fly samples to Lefty Kreh. On the truck seat next to me was the Devil Cel-Phone. It rang that silly, Toys-R-Us ring...... "Hey Flip, it's Bill Bishop, I'm out on the Indian River hooked up to a sure enough world record tarpon on six pound tippet. I'm by myself and could sure use some help if you can get away."

Bill was on his cel-phone calling me on my cel-phone. What a country!

It was 9:30 in the morning. "How long have you been hooked up?" I asked. "For about half an hour" he breathlessly responded. I've been following this fish with my trolling motor since I hooked up but the battery is running down." 

I was fifteen minutes away from a marina near where Bill was hooked up on the River. He flagged down two anglers that he knew and they agreed to run to the marina, pick me up and take me to where Bill and high adventure waited. All these arrangements were made by cel-phone.

It was a perfect day to set a world record. Clear sky, no breeze at all, no more than six feet of water anywhere within 30/06 range, a great angler on the bow and a totally committed boatman at the stern (that would be me). I figured this should take an hour or so; another hour to get the fished officially weighed and measured and then of course, the obligatory celebration.......which might take longer than the catch and would surely involve adult beverages.

No thought was given to rain gear, sun screen, water, food, flashlights or extra fuel. We would wind up needing them all. Things were gonna get ugly.

As Bill's friends left in the other boat, I tilted the electric trolling motor inboard and fired up Bill's 40 H.P. Merc. I began to take stock of the challenge at hand. "Hey Bill, I'll be needing a pair of gloves.......and where's the kill gaff for when we get the fish up alongside the skiff?" No answer from Bill. Perhaps he hadn't heard me. I glanced toward the bow and got a glimpse of Bill with his head bowed and his lip pooched out. "There is no kill gaff" he softly uttered to the ether. "I do have a pair of gloves under that rear hatch."  Not having a kill gaff would at some time mean that I would be handling a six pound test class tippet. I really didn't look forward to that but didn't want to put additional stress on Bill. The gloves would let me get a good grip on the tarpon's lower jaw, but without that kill gaff the fish would have to be completely played out before we took a chance at boating it. I figured I could just snatch the fishes jaw, drag it over the gunwale of the skiff and we'd be in the record book. 

That was before I got my first good look at the fish. 

Just moments after getting started, the tarpon it made its first jump in my presence. This was a very big fish. Especially on six pound tippet with no kill gaff. My best guess put the fish over 100 pounds. Bill, who'ss a good hand at judging tarpon, agreed.

A plan developed. "We're going to herd this tarpon, using the skiff,  onto the shallows over by those bombing targets. Once he's in that shallow water we'll get this fish pretty quickly even if I have to jump on top of it" I predicted.

Herding tarpon is exactly like herding cattle, sheep, or emus.......except that it doesn't work! Wild tarpon are just exactly that......WILD! Nothing I tried with that skiff remotely resembled herding. The tarpon merely did whatever it wished, to our complete frustration. My vaquero days were over!

I decided that we would resort to my favorite technique. Based on high school physics, the tactic of using angles  and direction of pressure works well in all fish fighting situations. Surely it would bail us out here. Bill knows the technique. He's great at it and has a knack for sensing the maximum amount of drag that a situation will permit. Like a well oiled machine we teamed up on the fish; me using the boat to set up directions of pressure and Bill applying the pressure. This would be over before long.

After nearly an hour, Bill asked me to pass him the bottle of water that was against the rear bulkhead of the cockpit. "Is this all the water we have?" I asked. "I never planned on being here for very long" he responded. I was getting thirsty myself. I'd leave the water for Bill......He was working harder in that heat than I was.

By 1:00 P.M. it was really hot! Those having fished Central Florida in August will remember the temperatures hovering around triple figures. The humidity right there as well. They'll remember those towering, cumulus clouds making up each afternoon, their pink undersides rolling outward while their tops anvil over. Distant peals of thunder announced the afternoon inevitable. This day was classic. How could I not have thought to bring rain-gear?

The tarpon moved steadily south in the direction of the building weather. When it came to a point west of the Haulover Canal, it turned east in the Canal's deeper, cooler water and seemingly gained strength. I was getting thirsty.

At 2:45 P.M. we had followed the fish through Haulover Canal and were entering Mosquito Lagoon. The fish made straight east for the south end of Tiger Shoal and shallow water. We were getting a break! I took a small drink from the water bottle. Not much left. As the tarpon neared the shallow water I began to smell the roses. Finally this fish had made a mistake. Bill and I both sensed that we could soon end this now six hour battle. It was beginning to rain.

Rain may not be the right word. Suddenly I couldn't see Bill's fly line through the downpour. Hell, I couldn't see the front of the skiff. The lightning strikes and thunder claps were simultaneous. From under the bills of our fishing caps we looked at one another and smiled........
Nothing but a little Summer freshet which would cool things off and invigorate us. Wrong again. 

Soon we were freezing and the only one who seemed invigorated was the tarpon.
The squall broke apart after about 45 minutes and miraculously lightning failed to strike the skiff. The battle moved North. 

The cel-phone rang. It was Bill's wife Jane calling to see who had won the battle. "It's Flip, Janie, Bill is still fighting the fish. We'll call you when it's over." She wished us good luck.

It was getting to be late afternoon and the struggle had taken us three quarters of the way North along the Mosquito Lagoon. Bill seemed to be making some progress. He was backing the fish up now and then. I put on the gloves. 

An hour later my hands were really getting hot and sweaty. I took off the gloves. The phone rang......."Hey Flip, it's Keith Holcomb, I heard you guys were battling a really great fish and I just wanted to wish you well. How's Bill keeping?" The call was short but encouraged us. We were eight and one half hours into this fish.

At 6 p.m. a whopper of a storm came at us from the South. Lightning was spider webbing across the rooftops in the small town of Oak Hill as we followed the tarpon northward, now in the deeper Intercoastal Waterway. The tarpon made a sudden run and series of greyhounding jumps to the east across the Waterway. Another skiff with two anglers aboard saw the fracas and pulled up alongside. "Need any help?" one asked. "Man, we could sure use some cool water if you have any" I answered. They did. We drank. It was heaven sent! 

"You've been on that fish since nine this morning?" he said, disbelieving.  "That's right. With no food or water" Bill replied.  That's all these guys needed to hear. Their skiff was on plane in seconds, headed north. Soon they were back with sandwiches and cold drinks. They fed us and stayed around for a couple of hours directing traffic in the Waterway so that passing boats would not cut Bill's fish off. They left after dark, wishing us well.

8 p.m., another phone call. "Flip, it's Billy (Bill's Son). I heard about the battle. All of Orlando knows about it. Do you guys need anything? Never mind, I'm going to trailer my boat over the New Smyrna Beach, launch and meet up with you guys. I'll bring a headlight, some beer and sandwiches..........See you in about 45 minutes!"

Right away the phone rang again. My wife Diane. "What happened to you? You were going to be gone for an hour or so and you've dissappeared".  I filled her in and she wished us well. "Call me on the cel-phone when it's over" she ended.

Bill had an idea......."Grab the phone and call Scott Tripp, a local guide on the river. Scott will have a kill gaff and will probably bring it to us. His number is programmed into my cel phone."

I gave Scott a call. He had already heard from a friend that Bill was fighting a big fish on the River. "We're not on the River any more Scott. I said. The fish took us through Haulover and up the Lagoon. Right now we're in the Intercoastal Waterway at Oak Hill. Can you bring us a kill gaff?" "I'm on my way!" he said, and I could hear his sneakers hitting the terrazzo before he hung up. He really was on the way!

It wasn't long before we spotted Scott's skiff screaming through Shotgun Pass, heading our way. Scott anchored his skiff down at the edge of the Waterway and jumped in with us. He had brought some water and the kill gaff. 

The storm wrapped around us and blew alternatingly warm and cold bands of air  as the lightning continued to blast just west of Oak Hill. It looked like Fourth of July fireworks and illuminated the fly line often enough to allow me to keep the skiff positioned. I kept thinking about that flashlight that Billy was bringing. He should be along shortly.

By 10:00 P.M. the water had come alive with phosphorescence, which old time Florida folks call "Fire in the water". Every single thing that moves in the water takes on a bright, blue, green glow for as long as it's moving. The moment it stops moving it stops glowing. Fire in the water is shocking to witness that very first time. It's hard to describe this phenomenon to someone who has never seen it. Small shrimp and baitfish on the surface glow like comets blazing across the night sky. The engine and the boat hull are aglow as they move through the water. The fly line glows as it's dragged along, cutting the surface leaving a blue, green scar, and most amazing of all is the incredible glow of the tarpon as it jumps free of the water, leaving a million glowing droplets suspended above the surface. As I try to discribe fire in the water I realize that it really can't be done.......It's not just me..........It can't be done! Your own eyes have to see it. I hope they will.

Billy, the beer and the sandwiches arrived at 11:00 P.M. We could see the glow in the water as Billy's skiff approached from the north. The tarpon had stopped travelling and was swimming back and forth across the Waterway. He was staying on the bottom in the cooler water.
We took this to be a good omen. I surrendered the skiffs tiller to Scott and laid the gaff along the gunwale. It might be needed soon.  Bill's phone rang. "Hey, it's Jeff McFadden.......are you guys still with that fish?".  

This was unbelievable. The middle of the night, food delivery, cel phone communication with the entire Central Florida fishing community, fire in the water, lightning in the sky and a fish and an angler still in the game after almost fifteen hours. "We're still at it Jeff", I said. "We'll call you when it's over". 

A slow, steady beeping from the phone.........The battery was about gone.

The tarpon had stayed within the same 75 square yard area of the Inland Waterway for over an hour. It was 12:15 A.M..  Billy stood off a short distance in his skiff, hoping to see the landing of the world record; every now and then encouraging his Dad. Suddenly he yelled, "Guys, look behind your boat!" I spun around, looked past Scott, who still held the tiller, and saw two huge, fast moving, glowing dolphin shapes pass the skiff on the port side. As they came abreast of us they simultaneously broke the surface with a loud WHOOSH, taking air (I think it was a whoosh). The glow was fantastic and they made a clicking or pinging sound as they passed. Their glow faded about 50 feet in front of the skiff. Just about where the tarpon was. The tarpon and the dolphin were along the bottom.

All at once the drag on Bill's reel began to scream! Really scream! Like it hadn't done in the past fifteen hours. 25 yards ahead of the boat the tarpon shattered the flat calm surface of the black water, sailing five feet into the air, re entering the water with a blue, green crash. On either side of the fish a glowing dolphin........all three now moving north.

They stayed together for the next thirty minutes. Not almost together, or nearly together, but really together. Same speed, same course..........seemingly in touch with one another; connected by some inconceivable bond. I'm not given to anthropomorphism, but unquestionably these dolphin were helping the tarpon.

The lights of New Smyrna Beach came into view around a bend in the Waterway. "This is a really bad area for oyster bars" Scott said. As the man made lights grew brighter, the fire in the water began to fade. We could see the dolphin and the tarpon waking ahead of the boat, silhouetted against the city lights. We could also see the oyster bars to our left and right.

Bill kept steady pressure on the tarpon, a long bend in the bottom of his nine weight, the tip pointed straight at the traveling fish. I watched the trio ahead of the skiff as I tried to keep us in the perfect position. I was watching Bill at the very instant that the six pound tippet very unceremoniously parted. The rod recoiled slightly backward and up. For the very first time in sixteen hours, Bill Bishop was not straining against a tarpon.

In my fishing lifetime I've seen hundreds of fish lost for one reason or another. I've been a member of a good number of fishing teams in a good number of fish fights. Never one that lasted sixteen hours. Never a fight so skillfully fought. Certainly, never one involving so many telephone calls!

The moment Bill realized that the fish had won, he turned to Scott and I and said....."What a FANTASTIC day this has been! I can't thank you guys enough for your help". There was no uttering of oaths. There was no.....I shoulda' this, that or the other thing. He simply smiled, sat down on the front deck and massaged his cramping hands. He might have asked for a beer......I can't remember.

Bill had lots of help during this very long day. And that's the way it's supposed to be. I felt privileged to have been a part of it all and to have helped in some way. As it turned out, the tarpon may have had some help as well. We'll never know if it was the dolphin, an oyster bar or a very tired class tippet that ended the fight in favor of the fish. We' re not meant to know.

The phone rang. It was Jane. "It's over" Bill said. "The fish is gone and we're headed for home". 

The "low Battery Light" quit blinking. The cel phone was gone too.

The “Mothership”- by Flip Pallot

November 2015

For 15 years my dear friend Lefty and I have commiserated regarding a commonly shared health issue…Indigestion, gird, acid reflux…’no stranger to many of us.

About that long ago, I found myself at 7000 feet in the Idaho Rocky Mountains, with a friend, glassing a meadow 2000 feet above us.

In the meadow, herding eight cows, was the bull elk of my dreams! 10 years of plying those same meadows had failed to produce the opportunity to stalk such a wonderful bull with my stick bow. I’d passed on many.

Sid, my younger hunting companion, suggested that we make a fast climb to the lower corner of the meadow where he reckoned the bull would herd his cows to bed down for the day. We started the climb and shortly and attack of reflux brought me to a halt. I drank some cool water and the pain abated. The climb resumed and we gained another thousand feet before reflux, once again , intervened. More cool water and we were climbing again, the meadow nearly reached. Sadly for us, the bull and his harem made it to the thick aspens before we could cut them off. That year, I was 61 years old…and remember Sid commenting… “I hope I can get around the mountains as well as you do when I’m 61 years old”.

That same year, Lefty traveled to  Thomasville, Georgia  where a mutual friend performed an operation on Lefty’s gastric system which, totally eliminated his reflux problems. Lefty had a new lease on life, and to this day, has never had another issue with indigestion! 

I, on the other hand, suffered constantly from indigestion. Each time I exerted myself, especially when it was cold out, I suffered from “Heartburn” or some other form of indigestion…always curable with cool water or some antacid tablet. Twelve years or so passed before I made arrangements to have the same surgery that had given Lefty so much relief. Our friend in Thomasville had agreed to do it for me and I was excited to be rid of such a long standing problem.

Surgery was scheduled for summer or early fall. At the end of the summer I spent a day bass fishing with  old friend Chico Fernandez and his Doctor friend , Robert Cava, from South Florida. It was a GREAT day of bassin' and during a sandwich break the subject of health came up and I mentioned my upcoming surgery to Dr. Cava. “Sounds good, he said…I know the  procedure and sounds like it’s just what you need…However, if it were me, my family or my patient, I’d recommend seeing a Cardiologist and eliminating any type of coronary issue before having that surgery! Often coronary and gastric symptoms mimic one another”.

I, and Chico, hold Dr. Cava in very high regard and so within days I wrangled an appointment with a local Cardiologist who scheduled an EKG, Echo-Cardiogram, and Nuclear Stress Test…the results of which lead to a heart catheterization and the realization that during all those years of indigestion, I had actually been experiencing angina…chest pain associated, not with indigestion, but with a significant heart issue.

My immediate question to the Cardiologist was…”Is there any conceivable scenario within which cardiac stents can fix the problem?”

“Not a single chance, was his rejoinder. You need to schedule by-pass surgery within days!”…And so it was done…Triple by-pass surgery when I was convinced for many years that I had indigestion.

There was some good news within the bomb just descended. I had managed not to damage my heart muscle and the pumping function remained good. The operation was long, with some complications, but successful..... leaving me with no restrictions on future activities whatsoever!

An immediate result of the surgery was the total absence of chest pain. I now fast walk a couple of miles a day along with other activities without a hint of pain and next season look forward to climbing to 9500 feet and dragging an elk out of the woods!

Last evening I found myself on my feet for several hours at a function with folks I had not seen in many years…much hugging and backslapping by the likes of Rufus Wakeman, Rob Fordyce and Karl Andersen…( IGFA Hall of Fame Induction). Really major hugs that I thought would re-split my chest, but everything held up well and I’m simply waiting for time to finish the healing process (with the help of a trip this month to Texas for whitetails)

Glad to be back and as always......Stay Close....more to come!

- Flip

www.flippallot.com

IGFA Hall of Fame

All of us here at flippallot.com, Mad River Outfitters, and those that are involved in Flip's life and "projects".....would like to extend a HUGE Congrats to our fearless leader!!!!!

Flip is being inducted into the IGFA Hall of Fame tonight in Dania, Florida.

He joins an elite group of 110 legendary anglers.

Well deserved Flip!!!! Well deserved.

Click Here for more details on the event at the IGFA on Tuesday, November 3rd

In the meantime…..here’s a an update as to what is going on at flippallot.com:

                    

*  You may have noticed that we have been absent for a few months. Well.....there is good reason. Really good. 

Keep your eyes on the Tall Tales Blog. Flip has written a story about the "misadventures" of the last few months and will explain it all....in his own special way of course. Should be posted within the week.

Have no fear though.........he's back and better than ever and you'll be hearing from us regularly from here on out.

Stay close!