More tarponish postings, this time from Flatswalker, who is always good for a read.

Day I: Late start, low tide, breezy. Oceanside: small groups, singles, and doubles. Second cast: hooked up! Jump, jump. Sweeeet. Drag singing. Fish off. “Uhhhh… popped ‘im off.” Nope: reel in to find the backing broke! Motored around searching for a #10 yellow line zipping through the water but was forced to admit both the fish, line, leader and fly were gone forever.

via Flatswalker: SaltWater Fly Fishing Guide Blog – Flatswalker.

Simon Gawesworth works at Rio and is primarily known for his spey casting and as a chaser of steelhead.  Turns out that steelhead are just one of his passions along with another elusive, silver powerhouse of the fish world… the bonefish. Rio makes one of the lines you might find yourself sporting if you head out bonefishing and they do some product testing in places like the Bahamas and Mexico. If you want to watch Simon do a bit of casting… you can see him do just that here (YouTube).

You are known for throwing the long stick for steelies, do you like bonefish for the similarities of the differences from steelhead?

That assumes I analyze my reasons for fishing. I don’t know exactly why the steelhead or the trout or the bonefish give me the passion… I’ve never even gone fishing for tarpon, for example,  why not?  I know it is a passion that bites people.  There are differences, vast differences, complete opposites, climatic conditions, scenery, target fishing as opposed to blind fishing.  There are differences there.  But there are similarities, very good fighting fish, the steelhead and bonefish. Silver.

I don’t know what it is, but those three species are my soul. They make me tick.

Where do bonefish rank in terms of what you are fishing for?

I can’t distinguish.  Bonefish, trout and steelhead are all my absolute passions, those are the three I target as much as I possibly can and everything else is pretty much a significant step down.  They’ve all got different appeals.

Are you someone that goes to the same places year after year or are you someone who is out to explore new and exotic places?

Kind of both.  With bonefish I probably  haven’t been to the same destination for the past five trips but before that I always went the same week to the Florida Keys, to the same area and same guides. My kids got to the age where they went to school and I couldn’t travel and so now i have to fluctuate my time off.  The last trip I had was to the Bahamas, the Bahamas for the first time, Mexico before that, Florida Keys before that, then Christmas Island, kind of a bit of variation like that.  Never done the Seychelles, haven’t done Cuba.

How long have you been with Rio?

The easiest answer is that I’ve been at Rio and living here in Idaho for ten year.

Rio makes a lot of lines.  What makes a great bonefishing line and how can those of us who are non-epic casters appreciate the difference?

That’s the dilemma when you sit down and start to draw up a line design.  There is no line that is going to suit everybody or every condition or every location.  There are too many variables.  Where fly line development has gone is that now people are aware that they may need two to three different lines for different conditions.  That makes it a tough one to answer.

I’ll give you an answer that might help.  When I went to the Bahamas last December the lines I used the most were our bonefish taper and our redfish taper. The difference was that the redfish taper is a very short head, just over 30 foot in length, that’s the whole head length. Front loaded, easy to cast.  The bonefish line is a long head, 40 foot, easier distance, very good for picking up your cast. I used the bonefish line on the sunny days because you can see fish at range, 40, 45, 50 feet, and you can cast to the target with those longer head lines.  But, since I went in December, most of the days were cloudy, overcast and gray and we couldn’t see the fish until they were 20 feet, 25, and the bonefish lines just didn’t load up at that short range as well as the redfish line does.

You need to be aware of where you are going, what the conditions are going to be, if you are wading, you are going to see fish closer in and you want a line that will load in closer, while when you are on the bow of a boat, with some height and see the fish from greater distance, you may want a different line.

You’ll mostly want a tropical coated line, but, again, in December, I used our colder water condition line because it wasn’t so hot and if it is cool, your tropical lines will have too much memory.

I love seeing someone out on a trout stream casting 50 feet when all the fish are 5 feet away.  While someone might be able to cast 90 feet, it doesn’t mean that they should. At what range do you find yourself casting to bonefish and how does your casting skill change the game of stalking bonefish?

I would say the majority of my bonefish are going to be in that 35-40 foot range.  I’ll break it down in terms of wade fishing or from a boat. From a boat, 40 foot is closer to the mark. Wading, 40 foot would be a long mark. Obviously, I can throw it to 90 if I need to and if a fish is out there at distance.

I think that everybody who has the ability to throw 90 feet is going to be more accurate at 30 foot or 40 foot and have a better presentation.  Distance isn’t the entire end game.  It is the accuracy, it is the general presentation, it is being able to lead by 3 feet or whatever the guide of the day tells you. Distance is good to have when you need it, but accuracy and presentation are more important.

One curve in this… accuracy is going to important, line speed to penetrate the wind, but one thing that is really important is the ability to change direction quickly. You make a cast and the bonefish changes direction and you have a 45 degree or 90 degree angle change required.  A directional change, and that’s my strength with my spey background, that skill I think is a bonus for bonefishing.

Is there a place on your wishlist?

How long a list  can I have?  Cuba, definitely, love to do that.  I can do that, being English, I don’t have the same restrictions.  Unfortunately, a lot of Americans can’t.  Seychelles would be on there. I’d love to do some exploratory trips to some weird, nuclear atolls that were used in WWII, no guides, just go around and search.  I’d love to do that… but… married, kids, that’s  NEVER going to happen.  That’s just fancy thinking.  Plus, a bunch of islands in the Bahamas, I’ve only fished Andros on the one trip.  I’d love to go back there and I’d like to go to Cat and I’d like to go a whole pile of places.

It would be hard if someone said “here it is, open the envelope, this is your bonefish trip, anywhere you want to go, here is your one trip.”  I might be inclined to go back to Andros, actually, just because of the size of the bonefish we saw there.  You see some big fish in the Keys, but we went onto one flat one day with one of the guides and he said it was a big fish flat. The tide was right.  I saw 20 or 30 that were over 10 pounds swimming around, maybe 15. Monster bones.  I’ve never caught one that size. So, I’d put that up there.  I’d like to go to the Seychelles, I’d like to go to Belize.

Me to!

You see a lot of people over-line their rods. What makes an 8 weight rod match an 8 weight line and when should you think about over-lining?

To anyone who is a novice at saltwater fishing, that is a good suggestion, to overline. Especially if they don’t have the opportunity to really hone their casting skills.  Someone who isn’t a great caster, over-lining is good.  Those saltwater rods are a bit more powerful than those freshwater rods, as a result they need a little more grain weight to make them flex. So, that’s a good reason.  Another would be if you are fishing short range.  If you are fishing the Bahamas in December you are going to have cool, cold conditions and fishing at 10-15 feet, by all means step up a line size because you will need to to get that rod to load.

I would also check on the manufacturers of the fly lines. We do that… we automatically do that (increase line weights).  Our redfish line is a half a line size heavier, so it is an 8 and a half line size heavier so that it loads up for close in fishing. Our bonefish is a little less, a quarter line size heavier.  But again, we do build that into the equation.  If they step up to a 9 line, they might actually be fishing a 9 and a half and that starts to get a little heavy.

If you are a good caster you don’t need to.  If it is going to be a really windy day, absolutely. There is no rod that is going to be crushed by a single line weight increase and that extra weight can really help.

In Christmas Island there is a flat called Paris Flats and they are much deeper and you fish heavier flies with bigger eyes and I was wishing for a heavier line because the flies were much harder to cast.

You’d expect me, coming from a line maker, to say you need three or four lines.  The reality, if you are going to go that far on a trip and spend the kind of money that these trips are, it makes no sense to come with one line.  Just in case I’d have a back up for something a little different.

Fish on!

What are you throwing right now in terms of rod and reel?

Right now I’m throwing the Sage Xi3.  I really do like that a pile.  Before that I threw a T&T Horizon Saltwater 8 wt.  That was a nice rod as well. The Xi3 is great and I compliment that with a Sage reel, a 6080, which is a really nice, tough drag reel. I’ve got a reel by a company by a company down your way, Hatch, a really sweet reel, but my go to is the 6080 from Sage.

When I think of bonefishing I think of all sorts of non-bonefishing things… the Kalik, the cracked conch.  Are there any of those sorts of associations you have when you think about chasing bonefish?

The first thing,  obviously, is that I’m getting out of the Hell of Winter in Idaho, somewhere in the tropics.  Exotic, tropical destinations.  Kalik beer, or Belikin.  So, cold local beers, fresh fish, ceviche.  Down in Mexico they made fresh ceviche out of snook every day and that was delicious.  The smell of saltwater, the smell of the sea side.

It is funny that you ask that now. Those are my current associations where as in the past when my wife and the family would go down in November to Florida, then the associations were Margaritas and hammocks and toes in the sand and just pottering around.  I’d always take a couple of days with a guide, and then in the evenings  I’d fish an incoming tide somewhere.  Now, with the kids in school, we can’t do these holidays.  I now do different fishing holidays so these are my associations now.

Thanks Simon!

Derek started a blog recently, coinciding with his move to Florida to pursue the life of a flats guide.  He was already a guide, but more of the trout variety up in Tahoe.  He and I went out to look for surf perch, the first time either of us had done that, back earlier this year before he pulled up stakes and headed East.

He’s having a good time.

I stopped by one of the local roadside flats and plopped the ladder down in the water. I have somewhat almost given up on this flat due to my lack of seeing fish there. So, I decided to give it one more shot, this time I made a plea with the fish Gods. I told them “I am over it and needed to see some fish today, I have put my time in with no complaining and have not seen a Bonefish yet! It is time for you to kick down some fish.”

via Foot Pursuit Fly Fishing: Step Ladder Bonefish.

Sandy Moret has been at it for a long  time in the US Bonefish Capital, Islamorada, Florida.  He runs the Florida Keys Outfitters and some of the biggest names in saltwater fly fishing have come through his shop.  If you want to jump-start your saltwater game, you can even sign up for his Florida Keys Fly Fishing School.

It seems like you are heavily associated with Islamorada.  What is it that has kept you there for so many years?

I’ve lived here since ’85.  It’s a great place to live.  Lots of good fishing opportunities, lot of different species.  The bonefish… we’ve got some pretty big bonefish here.  One thing about this area that is charming to me is that every day you go out fishing, and you don’t see them as often as you used to, but you have a chance to catch an honest 12 pound bonefish.

Not Sandy's fish, but the largest he's seen a pic of from around Islamorada.

I’ve seen that you are associated with a lot of tournaments.  As a West Coast trout guy, tournaments are a new concept for me. It seems like the tournament scene is its own little world.  What’s the profile of a tournament angler?

Tournaments are an opportunity to get together with like minded people and fish for bonefish and test and compare techniques.  The equipment and techniques we use today developed through tournament fishing to a large degree.  The rods, reels, better flies and better techniques have come from tournament fishing.  I don’t fish any tournaments anymore, although I used to fish quite a few. We run several tournaments here at the shop. We took on the operation of the Inshore World Championship from the IGFA several years ago. They have forty or so qualifying events around the world.  If an angler wins one of those events, we’ll send him an invitation to come and fish here in July. That’s a five species tournament; tarpon, redfish, snook, permit and bonefish.

There’s a fall bonefish tournament coming up in a couple weeks in about it’s thirtieth year.  I’d venture to say it will have some of the top bonefish anglers around the planet.

There’s really no way to measure the effectiveness of your technique unless you compare it to others.  You have a forum with a control group.  It’s the same people that win these things because they’ve developed a technique that is superior.

It kind of implies that luck is taken out of the equation if the same people are winning over and over again.

Yes.  It means that they know the formulas for the leaders, the sink rates of the flies, they know several presentations and stripping methods that work in different situations. I find it pretty fascinating.

Nice fish Sandy!

Florida Guides have a reputation for being a bit intimidating and demanding.  Do you think that is a deserved reputation or is that just part of the lore surrounding Florida fishing?

I think some of it is well deserved and some of it is not.  When you have something you have to do in a short amount of time and a limited opportunity to do it… a lot of people misinterpret  getting yelled at. The guide is just trying to get you to do something that has to happen in a hurry.  I see all the time where people misinterpret that as they are being abused.  The guides want you to catch fish.  It’s one thing for a guide to point a fish out to you and let you see the fish and catch it. That’s about you catching the fish.  It is another for the guide not to care about that and to say “give me a cast over there” and not even try to  show you where the fish was.  I don’t even care to cast to a fish if I can’t see it.  When someone just tells you  to cast somewhere, that’s not even bonefishing in my mind

Guides vary all over the world but I’d say they have a very good cadre of guides here.

What do you think the state of the fishery is down there in the keys.  Do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about what the future holds.

I don’t feel optimistic about any fishery on the planet.  The fishing pressure, the degradation.  In the Pacific you’ve got places where they are consistently eating the bonefish and netting them up in some atoll in the South Pacific.

Aitutaki?

Yeah, that’s it. You’ve got that going on all over the world.  I don’t know how to be optimistic about it.  Bonefishing is great when they are there.  Hopefully they’ll be some preservation and people are becoming more aware of the importance of the species, but it’s like pulling teeth.  If you win 12 battles and lose 1, you’ve lost the war. There’s a lot of that going on.

If you have someone fairly green coming down to the Keys, what do they need to be successful?

They need casting skills.  I find that to be the biggest limiting factor for people.  People for some reason are hesitant to put in the time to develop the casting skills to catch these fish.  They are demanding and they may be a bit more difficult that others, but some days they are dumb as stumps. You do have to bring the casting skills anywhere you go in the salt.

When you say “casting skills” are you talking 90’ in a bucket,  70’ in a 20 mph wind?

40’-60’ in the wind.  I don’t even know if I can cast 80’. There are a lot of great casters in the world.  More than there have ever been.  Still, a lot of people don’t devote the energy to fine tune it.  The cast is a really huge part of catching these fish.

Do you have a favorite rod or reel for bonefish?

Right now I use the Sage Xi3. I think it is a great rod.  I’m using a Tibor Everglades for bonefish.  I’d say, the reason I use the reel is it is bullet-proof. Being on the flats is not a time to worry about equipment failure.  Here at the shop we see a lot equipment and we never, as in never, see issues with Tibor products.

You can tell, Sandy still gets excited about bonefish.

The technology on rod development continues to change and peoples casts continues to change.  If I pick up a rod and use it for 4-5 years I pick up a new rod and say “How could I ever have lived without this?”

Thanks Sandy.

Some would say the Florida Bonefish don’t need redeeming, and, just to make sure everyone is clear about this, I have no way of knowing.  Since I started the blog back in August I’ve been looking for some encouraging news about Florida bonefish and haven’t found much.  I even put the question out on a couple message boards asking for someone to share the good news with me.

The Cliff Note version of the replies I received went something like this…

Bonefishing in Florida can be great, as long as you don’t want to catch bonefish… fish for ‘cuda.

Yeah, see, that wasn’t what I was looking for.  Are Florida Bones just impossible?  Do you need to outcast the Rajeff Brothers to even consider boarding the skiff of your ill-tempered, prima donna guide to go out and look for bonefish that you likely won’t see, and if you do see, won’t be able to cast to, and if you get the cast to the fish, the fish will laugh at your pathetic offering and flip you the fin?

So, I was relieved to have a little email correspondence with Captain Luke Kelly from Key Flat guide service.

A nice Captain Luke Kelly Bonefish

When I asked him about Florida Bonefish here is some of what he had to say:

I have spent my entire life in the lower Florida Keys and have been guiding flats for the past six years or so. I can honestly say I have handled somewhere around 1000 bonefish in those six years, no BS. There are a lot of bonefish down here and the fact is somewhat overlooked. I too have heard of people’s bad experiences bonefishing in the Keys and I know that is due to bad guiding, not the fishery. I often see them poling vacant flats, and showing people no fish.

Now, the lower Keys certainly are not the Bahamas. I have been to Andros several times and that is a different world over there in terms of bonefish, I always tell people the same. However, they don’t have nearly the amount of permit and even tarpon that we have here (especially the permit).

My honest summary on bonefishing in the lower Keys would be that we don’t have the numbers of that as the Bahamas, but we certainly have large adult bonefish. And most importantly, they offer promising potential for the official inshore slam (tarpon, permit, bonefish in one day) in an area where it is best offered, the lower Florida Keys.

Made in the USA, no passport required (for all you running from the law)

Captain Luke Kelly

Another vote for the “Made in the US” bonefish is just the overall travel time and cost… SFO to Miami can run about $280, but SFO to Andros is about $700… and the SFO to Andros journey times out at about 20 hours there and 18 back.  As has been said by many anglers in many places over the ages, “you are only fishing when your fly is on/in the water.”

I’m a West Coaster… so, I’m a little uneasy at the idea of a tournament when it comes to fly fishing… for me that’s still something that bass folks do while trout fly anglers, like myself, go about our business in solitude all River-Runs-Through-It and whatnot.  The Marathon International Bonefish Tournament (MIBT) turns 50 this year and starts soonish (Sept. 17-20).  It’s a three day tournament, costs $1,000 and the winners get to see Megan Fox naked… ok, I made that last part up.  They have long since dropped the Miss Bonefish crown to acknowledge the fact that women are competent anglers in their own rights… so, good on ya MIBT.

The MIBT has old timey cred

While tournament play doesn’t really set my reel a cranking, this seems like a pretty interesting event.  It’s got the history, it is a no-kill format, allows un-guided teams… doesn’t sound so bad.  I have heard there are other tournaments down in the Keys and places beyond and I’ve never paid much attention.  I won’t be flying down and plopping down my $1,000, but part of me (specifically, the part without $1,000) will be wishing I was on the deck off a skiff getting skunked with a guide berating me for my incompetence.  Instead, I’ll spend the 19th flying from Boston to SFO with my toddler sans my wife.  Should be pure joy.

This = Totally Ruling

Old school… vintage video of flyfishing for bonefish in the Keys.  I can only imagine…

It seems the one constant when it comes to watery ecology is this… things appear to be heading toward utter and total destruction.  The AP story below says that Florida Bay’s ecology is headed toward collapse with the cascade of damage and ruin already a good number of domino’s down the path.  The culprits are pollution, diverted flows, urban sprawl… really this could be just about any water issue around the country.  The more things change, the more they stay the same, they say.

AP Story relating impending doom.

ISLAMORADA, Fla. — Boat captain Tad Burke looks out over Florida Bay and sees an ecosystem that’s dying as politicians, land owners and environmentalists bicker.

He’s been plying these waters for nearly 25 years, and has seen the declines in shrimp and lobster that use the bay as a nursery, and less of the coveted species like bonefish that draw recreational sportsmen from around the world.

“Bonefish used to be very prevalent, and now we don’t see a tenth of the amount that we used to find in the bay, and even around the Keys because the habitat no longer supports the population,” says Burke, head of the Florida Keys Fishing Guides Association.

Doesn’t that sound good??  No?  Yeah, to me either.

Everglades Foundation, one of the orgs trying to get things sorted (and it looks like they are having some success).

This was sent to me recently and I thought I’d share.  I’ve been fairly scared off of DIY Florida bones after hearing countless assertions that the FL Bones are smarter than most, less numerous than many and just plain tough to find in the first place.  So, it gives me heart to relay this little tale from Vince Stanley.

This June after years of blown casts, broken leader, and fouled flies I finally landed my first Florida bone at Islamorada, the PHD capital of bonefishing. For several mornings as we prepared to go tarpon fishing a very large school of double digit bones appeared around the condo dock. This little flat is a flats boat magnet. We had a “Captain” fish over us as the jerk stated we didn’t have a chance in this wind.”

After our engine took an unscheduled vacation I had time to really pursue this action. I noticed the bonefish favored one little sandy hole. They would turn on their side and flash as they ate SOMETHING. I had a MOE size #8 in my “possible” fly box. It was tied from junk cluttering up my tying bench. Third cast, 6 pound bone. No guide, no boat, no sweat until it made a run to go under the dock. My host snagged him with a huge net.

The Junk Fly

And so, there you have it… the tale of Vince’s first Florida Bone, caught on a self-tied fly.