The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust is on track to plant 1 million mangroves in The Bahamas after 2019’s Hurricane Dorian, and we’ve partnered with them on a limited batch of sun hoodies that directly support their restoration efforts.

We also went down to Grand Bahama to capture their progress and discovered just how deeply rooted these mangrove trees are in the health of the local fishery, greater ecosystem, and communities that call The Bahamas home.

This year, we logged 48,548 flight miles. Along the way, two cameras “went swimming” and one drone took a very impressive nose dive. We flew to the Keys for an *almost* Grand Slam. We chased grey ghosts in Hawaii. We designed our first-ever surf collection. And we earned our B Corp Certification.

It’s been a big year. So we rounded up a few highlights—photos, notes, souvenirs, and moments that made 2025 one for the books.

It’s somewhat of a surprise to discover an iconic surf town right here on one of the barrier islands, only a few minutes away from Charleston’s historic downtown district. Folly has unexpectedly become one of the East Coast’s most prominent surf spots, despite only having a handful of proper surf days per year.

Welcome to the Lowcountry. Charleston is where we call home—headquartered on a stretch of coast with winding barrier islands, flood tides, Spanish moss, an occasional Bill Murray sighting, and the best damn oysters in the lower 48. And this might sound weird coming from a brand that worships the sun-fueled summer months, but our home state really comes alive when fall rolls around.

We’ve teamed up with Trout Unlimited, the legendary nonprofit protecting our waters since 1959, on an exclusive run of sun hoodies featuring a custom rainbow trout design.

A uniquely wild place, the 1.5 million acres of the Everglades and its labyrinthine waters offer up a massive range of fishing opportunities—especially for inshore species that thrive around mangrove-lined shorelines and grass flats.

Perrin James is an underwater filmmaker and friend of Free Fly, based on the Big Island of Hawaii. From the art of spearfishing to chasing down once-in-a-lifetime hurricane swells, Perrin specializes in freediving cinema and telling stories that inspire action. We caught up with him after a 3-week trip to Raja Ampat—a remote Indonesian archipelago, made up of hundreds of islands with vivid blue waters and untouched reefs teeming with marine life.

Whether chasing bass or stripers inland, or casting to a school of stringing tarpon in crystal clear Florida Gulf water, something about catching fish on a fly rod captivated Paul from an early age. So much so, that it shaped his life and dream career as the captain of a sportfish mothership operation—spending days on the ocean pursuing billfish and stalking the flats for bonefish and permit.