bonefish, bonefish, bonefish

A great guest post on the Deneki blog by FIBFester Pete McDonald, who writes the Fishing Jones blog.

The drink is called sky juice and it’s a mixture of condensed milk, coconut rum, gin, and whatever other bottles are open at the time. Torrie Bevans mixed it up at the Slack Tide on what happened to be my last night at Andros South and it made the start proper.

via Lessons Learned on South Andros by Pete McDonald.

Wishing I was having one of these right now… as it would mean I was just in from a bonefish flat somewhere in the Bahamas.

As with any other national treasure, the owner country is selfishly possessive. To have a Kalik , you have to go to the Bahamas.

via Bahamian Kalik Beer.

Thanks Youtube for this little gem.  The sound track is disabled (Youtube, that sucks).  This is a first bonefish, unguided, after days of effort.  That feels about right.

As an aside, my little girl starts pre-school today.

I decided to go through the interviews I’ve done so far and see if there were any trends in what folks are throwing.  I was surprised at the variety.

There is no clear winner and some of the folks I expected to be clear favorites really didn’t turn out that way.  Here are the cliff-notes:

• The Nautilus was the favored reel by Kristen, Vince, Joe and Vaughn… that ties for top reel of the group.
• Paris and Craig both like the Abel Super 8 and Scott and Vaughn also favor Abels, for the draw at the top.
• Paris,  Shane, Scott and Vaughn all like the G. Loomis GLX, making the GLX the top rod of the group.
• The Scott S4S was second with three anglers, Vince, Kristen and Joe.
• Joe and Vince and Kristen all throw a Scott s4s with a Nautilus reel, the only exact matches of my interview subjects to-date.
• Aaron and Davin both like Lamson Lightspeed reels.
• Davin and Craig both like to throw Winston B2x rods.
• Bill and Lori-Ann like the Sage Xi3.
• There were other rods and reels mentioned… Ross, Tibor, Galvan and St. Croix were mentioned as well.

In the interviews I’ve done thus far, there were a few rods I had to look up.  I had never heard of a Gatti or a Pieroway before… rods used by Chris and Butch respectively.

The most expensive pairing would be the Abel Super 8 (around $775) and the Orvis Helios (at about $795) for a cool $1,570.

The cheapest pairing, as close as I could figure was the Okuma SLV ($55) and the Ross Worldwide ($229) for a whopping $284.

If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you know which direction I’d likely go.

The take away, for me, has been to throw what you like… what you can afford (or trick people out of).  It comes down to personal preference.  The next time someone tells you that all the pro’s throw this or that, you can call BS and say that actually, folks throw all sorts rods at all sorts of price points.

No need to make it too complicated or to put too much mystery into gear selection.  Heck, remember that you can even throw glass or grass if that’s your bag.

“Thoughts from the Flats,” a blog from BVI.  A good read.

Then on the way back to the kayak only ten feet from the missus, who was looking at me and taking photos, I saw a huge bone, at least 8 pounds.

via Thoughts from the flats….: Lost bonefish and very spooky permit.

A couple of guys are going to fly from Santa Barbara to Christmas Island, and then on to New Zealand (not without stopping).  It is not a short trip.  These guys had to take out the four back seats to add X4 the fuel capacity.  I’m just glad they are going to try and find some bonefish while they are in Christmas.

The aircraft has been modified slightly for the journey: it was originally designed to carry 335 litres of fuel.

“We will be carrying 264 gallons [1200 litres] mostly housed in a huge rubber ferry tank that occupies the space where the four back seats used to be.

via No plain delivery for this plane | Stuff.co.nz.

Basically, if you are going to head to Cancun or Cozumel, bring a rod… just bring a rod!

Enrique, hopped out and indicated for me to get my gear ready which I quickly did. Enrique closely inspected all my knots and then wanted to see my fly box. He chose a size 8 tan Crazy Charlie and knotted it on with a non slip loop knot. The speed with which he did this told me I was in good hands.

via Cozumel & Cancun Flats Guiding & Offshore Fishing – A Cozumel Bonefishing Adventure.

The definition of sweetness… a photo essay on the Pine Island Angler blog.  Nice, nice, nice.  Check out the blog for all the goodness.

Here’s a quick photo essay from my third trip back to the Keys this year. I fished with two of my buddies Capt. Mike Bartlett of Key West and Capt. Rob Kramarz from Cudjoe Key. Both are great guides and will show you an excellent time on the water.

via The Pine Island Angler: More Key West Bonefishing, August 2010.

A sample... go to the blog and check it out.

I enjoyed my recent interview with Lori-Ann Murphy of El Pescador.  After talking with her I did some more poking around on-line to see what I could find out about development or over-development in Ambergris.

The first thing I found was nice little video by Wil Flack, good friend of Lori-Ann and seemingly all around good guy.

South Beach Belize… it sounds pleasant, doesn’t it?  Wouldn’t it be nice to retire down in Belize… grab your rod in the morning after you’ve had your coffee and go and catch a bonefish in out your front door?  It does sound nice.  The downside is that they have to dredge the bejesus out of the flats and bulldoze the hell out of the mangroves to get that front door there.  All those mangroves are where the fish live/grow/hunt.  You nuke the mangroves and you nuke the fishing.

I don’t even know that much about saltwater fishing, but I can understand that pretty well.

This is what greed looks like.

Sounds like these guys have been botching the job since day -1 (and more).

You can seen the construction, right up against a protected area.

It is a little difficult to figure out what exactly is happening on the ground.  I found the website for Ambergris Caye Citizens for Sustainable Development and their listing of the status of current projects. They seem to think that the project has not been green-lit, although it is easy enough to find folks selling South Beach Belize property.

It sounds like the project is on hold for now.  Before you go and drop some coin on a little bit of raped and pillaged Belize, just think that these guys sold plots for a project that isn’t even in the bag.  That can’t be good.

I have no idea, but I can’t get this video to embed in this post… here’s a link to a video called “How South Beach Belize Will Impact Ambergris.”

(First, just a note, you can be entered to win some Skinny Water Culture gear by emailing me the account of your first bonefish. bonefishonthebrain@gmail.com)

As you may have guessed, I dig Skinny Water Culture gear.  So, I was really excited to read on their blog about a bonefishing trip and a re-capture of a bonefish tag.

Nice fish and nice tag.

They got word back about the fish and it’s 658 days between tagging and recapture.  Awesome.

Bonefish tagging… it’s important stuff.  The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust does tagging as does the Bonefish & Tarpon Research Center at the University of Miami.  Keep up the good work guys!