I think it is important to have a view of yourself that is honest and takes into account your flaws. Sitting where I sit (as the guy who writes a bonefishing blog), it is easy for people to assume I’m an expert bonefisherman, that my casts are always true and that I’ve caught so many bonefish that I hardly celebrate or hoot when I hook up.

In the words of the Avett Brothers (The Weight of Lies):

I once heard the worst thing
A man could do is draw a hungry crowd
Tell everyone his name in pride, and confidence
But leaving out his doubt

Here are things I am pretty sure about myself, as an angler.

• I continue to be a better trout fisherman than I am a bonefisherman.
• My casting is better now that it has ever been in my life, but when you put me next to a really, really good caster, you know I’m not in the same class.
• I am prone to put a 20% trout-set in my hook-set, the kind where you strip, but also sweep the rod a bit off to the right. Still screws up my hook sets.
• There are some days where I just can’t see the fish.
• I really suck a tying with deer hair, so I don’t do it.
• My Merkins are getting better, but largely still suck.
• I prefer a reverse Gotcha, but almost every guide selects the standard and most plain Gotcha’s, making me wonder if they are just creatures of habit or if I am barking up the wrong tree on those patterns.

In short, I know my faults and want you (the reader) to know that I have no super powers… really, I’m just a regular guy who loves the flats.

On the deck in Cuba.

One of the fun things about my last couple trips has been fishing with people really at the start of bonefishing.  Back in Andros, it was with Rebecca Garlock and in Cuba it was with Charlie Levine.  Now, they were both coming from different places.  Rebecca has been fishing the long rod for a while now, but hadn’t really done anything in the salt.  Charlie has spent a good number of days in the salt, but mostly in the deep, dark blue stuff with conventional tackle.  There were some parallels with the two experiences though.  Basically, both were kind of hard on themselves.  They felt the pressure to make it all come together. Of course, it all works better when you slow down and, of course, they both got it to happen.

Here’s Charlie’s story over at BDOutdoors.

Stoked in Cuba

Yeah, well, I was out with an old college buddy last night, so instead of something thoughtful, you get a YouTube vid. Good news is that no fish appear to be wildly mishandled in this one.  Some dramatic music for some pretty relaxing times.

This is me, fishing with Avalon down in Cuba in the Jardines de la Reina.  This is back in the mangroves… deep in the mangroves and Matt Hansen was Johnny on the Spot with the video.  What you’ll see here is me botch two bonefish in about 4 minutes.  It was pretty difficult stuff to fight a fish in, but it was exactly what I wanted to be doing.

Warning… there is some profanity, in case you are worried about your ears bleeding.

I just got this photo from Cuba taken by Matt Hansen.  I know exactly what happened here and I think this picture pretty much sums it up.

We were pushing through the back country looking for bones and we had just emerged into a little lagoon.  Off to the left flashed an impossibly large bonefish tail. I made the cast right on its nose and it ate almost immediately. It went streaking across the lagoon, pulling off 100 or so feet of line and then it took a slight left detour, brushing up against the clump of mangrove right below where my rod tip is.  The fish came off.  This fish was my immediate reaction to losing the fish.

It probably would have been my biggest bonefish ever.  That tail haunts me.

Gone.

Yeah, not the Crooked River in Oregon, which I fished a long time ago. I’m talking Crooked Island in the Bahamas.  This report is courtesy of Fly Paper, the blog by Scott Heywood.

Damn fine picture.

I know Rebecca’s email was partly in good fun, but I got to thinking about what’s happened to my trout fishing since I discovered bonefishing.

I have to say, I do it less now and if I had to choose between walking a stream and wading a flat, I would likely pick the flat 99 times out of 100 times.  I guess I need to explain that I LOVE walking my streams. My home waters are dear, dear places to me. Sacred, even. It is an odd thing to acknowledge that they’ve slid down the pecking order and that places like Alaska or Montana are now further down on my desired destinations than Abaco and Andros.

I don’t know how to fit it all in.  I want to get on the flats every opportunity I can and yet I know that I really can’t do it that often and that I have many, many more opportunities to fish places like the McCloud, the Metolius or the Madison than I do Belize or Los Roques or Christmas Island.

At the same time I see my trout fishing slump, I know that my bonefishing has probably made me as good an angler as I have ever been.  My casting is much, much better.  I can understand stalking fish now. I understand gear better and know many more knots.

I am more well rounded, but my days on water are down to the 20′s now.  My high was the one season I guided when I was on the water (either fishing or guiding) for a total of about 200 days that year.

This weekend I’ll actually be back up on my home water (with Matt, who I met on the Cuba trip).  I’ll be on the McCloud and maybe the Upper Sac or the Pit or Hat Creek. I’ll enjoy it.  I’ll love it even.  Still… it isn’t the flats.

Have you had this experience with your own fishing?  I think I’m probably not alone.

The McCloud... Upstate California.

The tarpon was first and that was clearly the pig of the trip.  After we finally released that fish we went looking for some bonefish.

We found them.

Really, I think the guides could likely produce bones pretty much all day, but they like chasing the tarpon when they are in, since they don’t stick around all year and the window is about three months long.

The bones weren’t big, maybe 3 pounds, but they fought well and we even had one little cluster Fuque where I got a knot in my running line that went through the guides.  Jim worked on getting the knot undone and I hand lined the fish, which meant it had PLENTY of slack.  The thing turned around and started swimming leisurely back toward us. The thing came so close to the boat that I just figured I’d wait and pull it’s head out of the water. That’s exactly what happened and we managed to land the bonefish pretty much without the rod.

The next flat we went to was ocean-side and as I got up on deck Jim asked the guide “you ever see any permit here?”

“Sometimes” was the reply, although it should have been “Sure, in about a minute.”

There was Mr. Permit cruising right toward us.  No time to switch rods, the bonefish fly would have to do (a Peterson’s Spawning Shrimp). The fish lit up on the fly, started chasing it down doing a little erratic dance behind it. I SWEAR it ate, as did Jim, but I was tight to the fly and there was never any sort of resistance on the line. Just like that it bugged off and I was left, about 2″ from a Cuban Grand Slam.

Kind of cool to come so close.  I know it is mostly luck and “right time/right place” that gets you those Grand Slams and I was pretty damn close to getting it right.

That’s why we keep fishing.

Photo by Jim Klug, Tarpon by Cuba

Really… I can’t complain at all.

Rebecca is ruined… ruined for #20 flies and fish that don’t show her her backing.

I understand.

She was driven to write a complaint letter to Andros South (read it there).

It’s been exactly one year since I came home from a week of fly fishing for bonefish at Andros South and I have a couple of bones to pick over the following issues I experienced (suffered) as a direct result of a week at Deneki Fly Fishing paradise.

Rebecca's first bonefish

I had to go home.  I didn’t have that much vacation time or idle money and I needed to get back to my girls. However, the trip wasn’t over and the gang that I left added some members and kept going strong.

Luckily, Jim Klug was still there with a camera and he kept on putting it all in pixels (here’s the gallery of that second week).

Here’s one of the folks that joined just as I left.  Miles Nolte is a name you might recognize.  He’s an author and the new voice of angling at Gray’s Journal.

Nice fish Miles.

I got to talk to Miles a little in the lobby of the hotel before I headed back.  He was excited about the week ahead.  I can understand why.  Wish I had been able to stay and head to the Island of Youth with Avalon, but, life was calling.  I feel pretty fortunate to have been there for the week I was.  It was a very special trip and one I’ll hold close for a long, long time.