From The Water isn’t all fly fishing… or even all fishing for that matter. However, they do have a variety of reports, broken down by Keys location. If you are looking for a FL Bonefish trip, this is probably worth a bookmark or twitter follow.
Looks like more less-than-ideal weather headed for the Keys, with temps predicted in the mid 60’s. If you take a long enough nap you will wake up to Spring conditions.
Pirates of the Flats has been a joy. I was a little surprised on one occasion to have tennis show up on my DVR instead of bonefishing. I really don’t like watching tennis… even the ladies in the tiny skirts… just not my thing. I understand that ESPN has to do what they have to do, just wish they (whoever the “they” is in this situation) could get the tags right.
On my trip to the Bahamas I picked up a copy of Esquire for those hours of plane and airport reading. One story, talking about the Olympics, mentioned the ancient Greek word “arete.”
“arete” — a nearly untranslatable word meaning spontaneous excellence or vitality, a human being human perfectly. (Esquire, February 2010)
That concept bounced around my head for a bit. There are those moments when you are “in the zone.” It could be in a pick-up basketball game, in a product development meeting, on the river or on the flat, but you know it when it happens… when it all comes together.
I think the line between arete and waving a stick around like an idiot is most easy to see in an activity like bonefishing. The arete comes into play when you are at the right place at the right time because you knew it would be… when you see the fish coming from far away because you knew it would be coming from that direction on this tide… when you make a single cast to put the fly in the spot the fish is going to want to see it… when you impart the action the fish would want to see and when you set the hook at the moment and in the way that sets the hook when it needed to be set.
When it all comes together, it is a human being human perfectly.
Now, I’m still green in the world of bonefishing, but I know the feeling. I’ve felt it while tight-line nymphing my favorite pocket-water rivers in Northern California. There are times when I set the hook without knowing why, when I can’t recall seeing or feeling anything, but I just knew there was a fish.
This fish had a bit of that feeling.
That may be a bit of that arete, but being out on the flats of Grand Bahama on the wrong tide, with the wrong fly, making the wrong cast, imparting the wrong action and making the wrong hookset… I would like very much to feel that arete feeling on a flat somewhere with the singing song of a screaming reel.
Just a thought… so eloquently expressed by author Thomas McGuane:
“We have reached the time in the life of the planet and humanities demands upon it when every fisherman will have to be a river keeper, a steward of marine shallows and a watchman on the high seas.”
Just give some thought about how those words apply to you. A good first step would be to support the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust.
OK, that girl you dated in college might have had one on her ankle and your 7 year old daughter may think dolphins are cute, but there is no way of getting around the fact that dolphins are pretty frigging good at catching fish. Check out how these dolphins have figured out how to trap fish on the flats. Amazing.
