Well… you might want to do so quickly before every last mangrove in Bimini is taken out, filled in and turned into golf courses and resorts… because the world doesn’t have enough golf courses.

I found this little video of Bonefish Ebbie talking about the Bimini Bay development that is dredging up bonefish habitat to make way for pure and bottled greed.

Read more about the badness that is this Bimini Development.

Bonefish Ebbie can be found here.

Fresh on the heels of seeing a douchebag bow hunting for bonefish in Bimini, I see this…

One man’s gamefish is another man’s bait! Bonefish are a fantastic bait. Bright, shiny silver, hyperactive on the end of the leader, and tough as nails. We carefully hook ‘em through the eye socket and they can take a good hit and still keep on swimming.

I know this sort of thing is subjective… they eat horses in France, other places people eat guinea pigs, people do all sorts crazy things that are morally subjective.

Still… guys talking about using a bonefish as bait… a fish that is so economically important to so many folks… uff da… come on folks.

Yeah... what he said.

I saw this video, which shows a total fuqueing douchebag with a bow trying to kill a bonefish in Bimini.  He missed.  The douchebagocity of this just leaves me speechless.  This guy is mayor of Douchebagville, a town in the country of Douchebagistan.

(looks like the Mayor took his video down… good call)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNvMsqTvm1I&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Seriously… WTF?!

There is, now, a special place reserved in hell for the total piece of trash that took my chest pack out of my car last night.  I’m a country guy, and didn’t lock my car, so, I guess I was asking for it… but still… I think I have every right to condemn this person to a hot and painful eternity.

The loss is really  confined to the trout/bass/carp side of my fly fishing life, but that means the lion’s share of my flies… I’m guessing somewhere between 200-400 flies…  a bit of everything, softhackles, trico spinners, massive stone fly nymphs, green drake dries, smolt, fox poopahs, elk hair caddis, adams, pink alberts, PT’s, copper johns… everything.

The thought of re-building that arsenal is daunting and not something I look forward to.

Thanks, a-hole.  You are first against the wall when the revolution comes.

When the revolution comes... this is your view, you bastido.

No, not from a massage parlor… the fishing kind.  Today when the monkey went to sleep I went out for one last round of fishing.  The tide was a little better and the water just looked more… fishy.  I managed my first fish while changing up my retrieve from super fast to super slow… evidently, slow and steady wins more than just the race.  First fish of the day, a Leatherjack, about 12″ or so.  Next, I saw a small log floating 50 feet off shore… fish were attacking it, hitting it over and over again.  I got a cast out, slow retrieve and the smallest fish  of the bunch hammered it… Jack Crevalle, about half a pound, little guy.

As I was standing there, casting, retrieving, casting, retrieving, ya know… “fishing.”  All of a sudden, I saw a tail going in front of me, swimming fast, about 5 feet in front of me… the forked tail was clearly visible and it was… um… massive… I’d guess 20 pounds… maybe more.  Safe to say that my interest was peaked.

Bait were popping, boils were sporadic, butt pretty frequent, but still… cast, retrieve, cast, retrieve.  I was starting to think about heading back, hoping my daughter had slept during her nap and thinking it was a bit of a bummer than my jig clousers had not produced.

Tug, set, bigger tug, line going out, clear the line and it was clear this wasn’t a little guy.  Now, the last nice Jack Crevalle I caught here was on a 7 wt. with a cheap Cabela’s large arbor reel… the reel did not do well (grinding is not a good sound when reeling).  This time I was fishing my TFO Clouser 8 wt., the rod I brought to the Bahamas, and my TFO Large Arbor 357 reel.  This fish didn’t stand a chance.  So nice to have confidence in your gear.

Of course, I have no pictures of any of this, since my waterproof camera took a header yesterday and is not recoverable.

The trip was a good family trip with lots of pool time for the 3 year old.  The fishing mostly s-ucked, but ya know… I didn’t get to fish the best tides, I got to fish the tides when my daughter was sleeping.  The surf was also much rougher this trip than I had seen it before.  As always, I was amazed at home much the river mouth had changed in just a few months.

Now… back to my bonefish fixation.

PS – The “Biggest Doucebag” award goes to the guy I saw this morning walking around in a “The Working Class Can Kiss My Ass” T-Shirt.  If you own one of these you should feel bad about yourself. If you WEAR one of these, you should jump off a really high building.

Saw a story on Moldy Chum about a mangrove-crushing, environment-destroying developments in New Providence.  It isn’t pretty and the good folks at Secret Soul Fly Fishing Adventures (Aaron Bain and Clint Kemp) are pretty pissed about it… and you should be too.

You can read the whole story here from The Tribune.

It seems like over-development is a real emerging issue all throughout the Caribbean.  I would have thought that this little economic blip we are coming out of would have stopped a few thousand bulldozers and chain saws, but it continues.  I’ve read stories about development threatening Bimini and fears about development in Belize.

This makes me grumpy.

This is a theif in the Denver area.

Catch this guy, who has robbed some Denver area fly shops for about $10K in gear.  Read the story on the Hooked Fly Fishing Blog here.

For two days I went out and turned up zeros.  The mud flowing from the river was visible, clearly, from the 4th floor deck.  Darn rain.  Today I went out anyway… back to the river mouth.

It was EPIC.  The gulls and pelicanos were crashing bait and the fishing was amazing.  I must have landed 30-40 fish, mostly Jack Crevalle.  This was on my 8/9 Albright with a 7 wt. sink tip… trying to improvise.  I had my 7 wt. with a clear sink on the shore.  I had many fish on back to back casts.  It was just a crazy, crazy day of fishing.  I was out for three hours, longer than I was supposed to be fishing.  I was bringing some fish back for some of the guys working at the resort and when I had “enough” I headed back.

Went to grab that back up rod… missing… stolen, really.  Well… the fishing will remain amazing, but my estimation of the local fisherman took a bit of a nosedive.  Probably not fair, but, the wound is fresh.

About a 2 pound Jack Crevalle (aka Toro), last fish of a great day of fishing.

I guess the bright side is that I get to do some rod shopping now.  This will be my Christmas present from my wife.  I’ll probably try to fill the gap I have in my rod selection with a solid and pure 8 weight, since I have another 7, although it is a 2 piece and not a 4.

UPDATE: Went out the next day, my last fishing day of the trip.  The fishing was almost as good although the biggest fish was a bit smaller.  I have bruises on the right side of my ribcage from the fighting butt.  Those are good bruises to have.  Caught five species of fish.  I had some really good fishing down from the beach with one big fish and lots and lots of smaller fish.  I do have a strange rash now on my legs that I’m about 95% certain is from the river water, but hey… again… gotta take the bad with the good.

Fish Species caught on this trip:

• Pacific Jack Crevalle
• Gafftopsail Pompano
• Keeltail Needle Fish
• Ladyfish
• Leatherjack

This is one of the very, very few non-bonefish related posts you’ll find here… but I just couldn’t resist posting this.  I read today in the Florida Fly Fishing Magazine Blog about the Sarasota Shark Tournament.  Not only does the tournament require sharks to be killed and gutted prior to weigh-ins, but some competitors appear to have purchased tarpon tags to use tarpon as CHUM for sharks.

That, my friends, if fuqued up.  Read the story here.

Hey look! I'm a douchebag!

From FFFM:

Like me, I hope you find the actions of the sponsors and participants of the Sarasota Shark Tournament disgusting. If you would like to share your views with Marina Jack, I’m sure they would enjoy hearing from you at: 941-365-4232, or by Fax:  941-957-1291 or email: banquets@marinajacks.com

It is time for events like this to stop.

Some fights should be easier than they end up being.  In Florida, the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust is trying to make bonefish a catch and release only species (they are also trying to get permit to be catch and release only).  In Hawaii there is a long cultural history of eating bonefish (O’io), but the cultural depths of that practice in Florida are as shallow as the flats where these magnificent fish are found.

We know a few things about bonefish in Florida…

• They are big
• There are about 300k of them in Florida waters
• That number is a fraction of the bonefish population of 30 years ago
• A single bonefish contributes about $3,600 per year to Florida’s economy and about $75,000 over its lifespan.

So, the importance of bonefish minus the cultural weight of the fish should make this pretty easy… right?  Maybe, maybe not.

I read in the minutes (page 29) of one meeting of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission where the Coastal Conservation Association Florida took the bold position of opposing any change to size, bag or gear restrictions and also opposed catch & release for both bonefish and permit.  They also opposed a tagging program.  Ah… with friends like these, Florida’s remaining bonefish may want to slide down to Belize, where both permit and bonefish are protected species and catch and release only.

To help the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust out, check out their page about making bones C&R in Florida and let your voice be heard.  Let’s not be out-conserved by Belize.  Come on folks.

lease support BTT’s effort to make bonefish catch and release in Florida by contacting the Commissioners and voicing your support.  You can contact them by email (link to email not working) or by mail at the address below:Mr. Rodney Barreto
Chairman
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Farris Bryant Building
620 South Meridian Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600