bonefish, bonefish, bonefish

Nice bone Bob.

So, turns out Bob White is doing some pencil illustrations for a book about the Keys called “Seasons on the Flats” and some of those drawings are starting to show up.  It was mentioned here a while back by the author of that book, Bill Horn. I mentioned that I’d like to see Bob do his work on a bonefish and Bill commented:

You’ll get to see his bonefish art next summer. Bob is illustrating a book I’ve written, due out next summer, about the Florida Keys’ flats

Yes… this is good news.

Worth a read over at the Costa Del Mar blog “The Watery Rave.”

I hadn’t been over there in a while.  Looking good… looking really good.

This from an epic story about traveling down to MX in a veggie oil powered van to convert the locals and find fish.

We first thought that the U-joints were bad, but eventually determined that we broke the transmission mount and that the entire driveline was getting torqued upward. Mexican’s are very resourceful people and at a small repair shop in Cabo they were able to find our exact part within 30 minutes and had it installed in no time flat, which prevented Chris from having to tolerate the local dog population.

Well, that was just about the longest I haven’t updated the blog in about a year. So… where was I?

I was up in Montana for a second Christmas with my girlfriend and her family along the Yaak River. Stunning country and a great way to ring in the New Year.

In short, this is a very exciting year and I’m very much looking forward to it.

From the perspective of the blog, I think there are some good things afoot as well. Here is what I’d like to see happen…

• A very exciting trip is shaping up with some amazing anglers.  I’m low man on the totem on this one, by a ways, so it should be a really great learning/drinking experience.  That’s around April.
• I’m hoping to get 3-4 more reels to test.  Anyone with connections to reel makers who want to help get this to happen, please let me know.
• I’m hoping to do 6 or so more interviews. I’m always open to suggestions for folks to talk to.
• I may end up with a second saltwater-type trip later in the year, but this might not be so much of a fishing trip as a special kind of family trip… more on that in a few months.
• I hope to sneak a trip in to San Diego to catch a California Bone and maybe a trip to Florida, if I can swing that on the end of a business trip.
• I should tie about 300 flies.
• I should give away about as many… and I need some help figuring out a good plan to make that happen.
• There should be an e-book released soon with contributions from me as well as Davin from Flatswalker, Bruce Smithhammer, Pete McDonald, Gracie, Bob White and more.  Should be a good read and I hope I can count on all of you to buy one two copies.

Alright… so… let’s get 2012 started.  It is going to be a fantastic year.

Wow… what a year 2011 was for me.

I started out the year as a stay-at-home dad with a very-much less than awesome domestic sitch.

In the span of 365 days I re-joined the working world, ended a 7 year marriage, moved into my own place, became a part-time single dad and found a very, very nice woman to close the year with. Upgrade.

I’m still a dad, just not 24/7.  That takes some getting used to, but I’m adjusting, as is my little sidekick.

From a fishing perspective, I had two trips to the salt. The first was to Andros South as part of FIBFest II. What a fantastic experience.  I’ll always be grateful to Andrew at Deneki for that opportunity.

Andros

The second trip was to Hawaii to close the loop on the past 8.5 years and I pretty much did just that, although the fishing was beyond tough.

I had some nice carp and some decent trout fishing in there too, but my days-0n-water saw a steep decline as I dealt with the plummeting Domestic Tranquility Index and new job at a startup.

As 2011 comes to a close, I have to say… I feel more excited about my future than I have in a great, long while.

Thank you for reading the blog and being a part of Bonefish on the Brain.  I’m looking forward to keeping it up in 2012.

Happy New Year and I hope you have ample time in the salt in 2012!

(PS – I’m in Montana as I write this and won’t be updating until I get back to Cali around the 3rd).

I remember being on the East End of Grand Bahama, trying to find some fish, and watching a “guide” on a flats boat with his client not far from where I was standing.  The angler on the bow was casting out and then stripping in with his rod tip about 3 feet above the water.

I could surmise two things from the scene…

1. this was not a full-time guide and while he did find a mud to cast into, he wasn’t going to provide the kind of insight needed for the situation.

2. the angler likely had not done this before and likely wasn’t going to have much success.

When you strip your fly in, you want to be tight to the fly… you want the fly to provide you with as much information about what is happening to it as possible.  Slack in your line is the information killer.  Put your tip in the water and you reduce most of that slack.  A pull on the fly line moves the fly almost instantly and a tug on the fly is felt by you just as fast.

Glad to see the folks at Deneki agree.

Here’s their post about putting your tip in the water.

From Xmas -

Head east, past the cruise ships, tourist traps, and taxis, past the miles of coastline, muddied by the winds of the last fortnight. Small bays open unexpectedly around corners glimmering blue through vignettes of seagrape groves, crowned by black and white reefs. Spindrift mists the windscreen, blurring details. The horizon seems impossibly far off.

I’m glad that there were some pretty big changes in my life in 2011, but I’m also glad that some things stayed the same… like the Flatswalker blog still being awesome.

Got news last night that Marty passed away.  Marty was a really, really good guy.  He loved fish and the places they are found. He was a real cornerstone of conservation down here in the South Bay. He’ll be missed.

Below is a post about Marty’s bolo from earlier in 2011.

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Marty showed me his new bolo from none other than Louie the Fish in Hawaii (Louie and his son guide for bonefish as well).

Nice... carved from bone, I believe.

Looking good Marty!

The first previews for the second season of Buccaneers and Bones is now live.  Check it out.

The first episode will air Friday, December 30, at 12:30AM and 6:30AM, and Saturday, December 31, at 10:30AM and 5:30PM (all times Eastern). Future episodes will air in these time slots in the following weeks.

Now, I’m looking forward to this. I like the guys doing the fishing and I like the places they are going… and… I kind of love the fish.  So, yeah, I’m looking forward to this.

For your viewing pleasure. A recent YouTube nugget.

Now, there was a time in my life when I’d have lots of fly fishing loot to report out.  This isn’t that time in my life.  My big gift was a couch, which is key for my new single-dad-life.

This year was much, much more about that little girl. She had a blast.  I think she had more gifts than the rest of the family put together, and it was wonderful.  She woke up excited, bouncing up and down.  She marveled at the eaten cookies that had been left out for Santa and she excitedly ran to embrace her doll that Santa had brought her.

It was a fantastic day.

She did well this year.

We did watch the DVD Connect that I got for my dad and enjoyed the footage of Yellowstone and Cuba most.  That was about the most that fly fishing played in my Christmas this year.  My daughter did receive a copy of Olive the Little Woolly Bugger.  That’s promising.

Hope you had a great Christmas and hope you find yourself on some bit of water soon.