Tarpon | Bonefish on the Brain

Tactics — 4 Comments
17
Jun 15

When the first cast falls apart

On this FL tarpon trip every shot gained in magnitude and importance because there were so few of them. So, each flub was a massive failure, bringing down the skies and ripping out a bit of my soul (to be dramatic about it).

One of the problems I had was on that first cast to really close in fish. Conditions meant we didn’t see fish from too far away. Often we’d see the fish 30 feet away, maybe 20, sometimes 10. Always they were coming at us, closing the distance fast. Trying to get a cast at a 100 pound fish 20 feet away is harder than it sounds on the face of it. The rod is 9 feet. The leaders were were fishing were between 10-13 feet. That means your cast, if you can call it that, was basically the length of the rod and the leader.

Ever try to load a 12 weight with no fly line out? Or even just a couple feet? It doesn’t work so well. You can’t load the rod and you can’t make the cast. On the first cast, everything would fall apart and then… oh calamity.

Trying to correct from a bad cast, that hurry, that rush… nothing goes right when you find yourself in that mode of “trying-to-recover.”

In retrospect, I should have shortened the leader so I could have more line out, so I could have loaded the rod for the super-close-in shots we were getting. A 13′ leader is a clear-day luxury we didn’t have, but tried to insinuate into the situation. It was the wrong call.

The second lesson, which will be learned and re-learned a hundred times over an angler’s life is simple… when it feels like you need to speed up, that’s exactly when you need to slow down. Take out the panic and get methodical with it. Think mechanics, not fish, and concentrate on the movements of your hand, your arm, the rod, the line, and not the movement in the water of that shot evaporating in front of you. If you don’t get it right, it doesn’t really matter if you had a shot or not and you won’t get it right if you panic.

I heard or saw this in some military show or movie… the infantryman’s proverb of, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”

Truth.

Speaking of casting, here’s Davin, aka Windknot, aka Flatswalker, talking about another bit of casting that he diagnosed me with and that I tried to get right on my last couple days.

All the other stuff — 1 Comment
16
Jun 15

Truths I don’t want to hear

Not fishing, not catching, most like running from the storm!

There are these sayings one hears (I’ve heard them come out of my own mouth even) that can really drive you mad.

Maybe it is a tolerance thing and you hit it at a certain point, say, day 3 without a tarpon really even looking at your fly. Maybe it is 4 days. Regardless, there is a point when you you can see it coming, you know someone is going to say one of these things and you want to run up the tracks and flag down the locomotive before it hits the washed out bridge (you, fishless, or rather me, fishless on day 3-4 is the washed out bridge in this case).

Two of the most egregious of these sayings are:

“You can only catch fish when you have your line in the water.” Yes… true, but the other side of that is the “There is a fine line between fishing and waving a rod around in the air like an idiot.”
“That’s why the call it fishing, not catching.” True… but I’m out there to catch things, not just share their water. I know I’m supposed to enjoy “just being here” and all that, and I do, but I am there because I want to connect with the sliver king, because I want to do some catching.

These are thoughts you have when you mostly don’t catch anything. I had lots of time to think about these things since my hours on the bows of various skiffs was mostly not taken up with casting to or fighting fish.

Sure, I can laugh at it all too, so don’t take anything above too seriously. At the end of the day, I don’t. But a good rant is cathartic.

Locations — 3 Comments
14
Jun 15

Back From Florida

I’m back. I’m back in California from my week in the Keys where the fishing was hard and the friendships easy.

I’ll get to posting later this week, but I wanted to give a little color to events of the past seven days.

In short, we got our collective asses handed to us by Mr. & Mrs. Tarpon. Seems like the big fish had mostly stopped running the ocean side flats by the time we got there, although there were a few big herds seen and cast to (although not by me).

The number of tarpon seen in a day, sometimes counted in the hundreds, on this trip were often counted in single digits. There were not water jugs poured over any heads in celebration on this trip, but it had its moments, although mostly of the friendship type and not the fishing type.

I’ll get some stories up over the next few days.

Matt and Ty

Davin on the lookout.

Me, Bill Horn and Dan Dow, running.

A bit of weather to round things out.

Locations — 3 Comments
03
Jun 15

The Mad Dash

The trip to the Keys is right close now, just a few days away. I fly out on Sunday, should be fishing on Monday. And so it goes that there is a mad dash to get all my gear put together by the time I need to head to SFO for my red-eye.

The rods are sorted, although not all here. I have my Orvis H2 8 weight, my Redington Predator 10 and a loaner Predator 12, which should be here on Friday along with a super-secret reel for the 12, which I’m excited to get my hands on.

Going through my lines in the garage I found I was short a 12 weight line. Now… it could be I’m NOT shore a 12 weight line, I may have just mislabeled, which is the sort of thing I’m prone to do. I don’t have the time to find the line scale and weigh all the lines, so I just bought a new one, which should be here tomorrow. Along with that was an order for backing, because while it is possible I mislabeled the lines, I never labeled the spare backing I have at all and so don’t know if I have 20# or 30#.

Back in 2012 when I went to Cuba and managed my largest tarpon to date (about 85#) I was really, really nervous knowing all that weight and tension was on 20# backing (my plans to get 30# blew up the day before I left). So, 30# backing is on the way.

I got the gear bag out and started putting the odds and ends you want with you out on the water. Tape for fingers, super glue, wire, spare tip tops for rods and other things that fall under the heading of “Misc.”

Of course, there are things I can’t control… like the weather. I’m prepared for rain, mentally and physically. I know it will pour. I know we’ll be chased off the water some days, maybe every day, but I’m going anyway because this is the time, that is the place and you only catch the fish when you are there, ready to go.

So… the mad dash to the finish line will continue for a few days. Can’t wait.

So… good, maybe? Or bad, maybe? So hard to tell, and maybe impossible to predict.

Conservation / Locations — No Comments
20
May 15

The Fieldworkers Club goes to Belize

Right? I mean… who wouldn’t want to?

I like this concept.

Locations — 1 Comment
04
May 15

Florida is happening

Davin spanking a baby

Two years ago I went to fish Florida for the first time. I had a block about fishing Florida for a long time. Florida, I was told, was hard. Like really hard. It wasn’t a place to go if you wanted to catch fish if you couldn’t make a 300 foot cast in a hurricane. Oh, and the guides would yell at you, maybe tell you were were a bit overweight and that no one really liked you..

I wasn’t ready for Florida.

But in 2013 I went anyway. It was tough and wet and I didn’t catch that many fish, but I also realized just how much of the center of the sport Florida really is. If you fly fish for bones or tarpon or permit, you need to come here, to experience it, to test your metal.

I went back last year and I’m going back again this year. I’m going back and most of the crew from 2013 is heading back too. Davin and Matt are going to be there, Eric is coming too, I have a day fishing with Derek and there will even be some new additions.

It feels good to have a trip on the books, but even better when it is a reunion of friends, far flung, geographically dispersed and coming back together.

I’m excited about the Keys, about seeing old friends, making new memories.

Who knows… maybe it will rain every day again and we will get in 2 hour of fishing, but even if that happens, I know I’ll still have a pretty good time.

Locations — No Comments
12
Mar 15

Tarpon Fishing in the Keys

MidCurrent has a great piece up on helping you have a good Keys tarpon trip. You should read it.

One point the article makes is that the weather is often pretty bad in those most tarpony of times, May and June. On my one previous June tarpon expedition I experienced this firsthand. It rained, hard. There were brief respites, but mostly, it was wet.

I wrote a piece up for that trip. It didn’t get published, as these things usually don’t. One of the criticisms was my insistence that the Sunshine State wasn’t too sunny. I had a line like “It was wet, even for Florida…” that struck a reviewer as nonsensical. Even if it smacks of cognitive dissonance, the Sunshine State IS wet and June is particularly so.

Typical

I got that line wrong though… it wasn’t “wet, even for Florida,” it was as wet AS Florida in June. It is the fool who heads for Tarpon in the Keys during the peak migration with nothing but flipflops and sunscreen. Bring a light rain jacket, and your patience and your optimism. The latter two items are sometimes difficult to fit in the same bag.

I’m heading back to Florida this June. I expect to be rained on, hard, because it is the Keys in June. I hope also to get shots at some fish bigger than my 4’8″ 8 year old.

Taking a page out of that MidCurrent article… anyone have suggestions for cheap digs in Marathon around June?

Locations — 1 Comment
25
Jan 15

Tag some tarpon in Belize with Andy Mills

Adam Marton is back at it again. He’s organizing another trip, August 15-22, back to El Pescador in Belize. This trip is to tag some tarpon and the along on the trip will be Andy Mills, the guy who wrote the book on tarpon.

What a cool trip that will be, eh?

I love El Pescador. I’ve been there twice and get to go back on our 5th anniversary (my wife uttered those words and I have not forgotten them). It is a great base of operation and the hospitality and guides are hard to beat.

And… there are tarpon there. That’s where my first tarpon came from. It will always be a special place for me.

The final piece, the tarpon.

If you are interested, give Adam a call, or email.

Adam Marton
The Fieldworkers Club,
230 East Ohio Street, Chicago, IL 60611
312-440-1200/office, 312-213-2324/mobile
adam@fieldworkersclub.com

All the other stuff / Locations — 4 Comments
12
Oct 14

Silver Kings on TV

I was happy to be shown a link to “Silver Kings.” This is… well… let them tell you:

Silver Kings is a Docu-Style, Outdoor show about two fly-fishing captains and their clients competing in tarpon tournaments in Islamorada, Florida. Filmed during the tarpon migration, the show exposes the visual beauty of Islamorada and the fast action of fly-fishing for tarpon in the most unique fishing environment in the US… the Florida Keys.

Yeah, that.

The odds of me fishing a tournament are right up there with the odds of me winning America’s Top Model. I’m just not out there, I don’t have that kind of free cash sitting around and I don’t have the vacation time. I’m a west coaster, too, and we generally don’t go in for the tournaments, but I’ve always been kind of curious about what they are and how the look from the inside. This show gives that insider look.

There are two guides in the program, Bou Bosso and Rob Fordyce. I’ve heard Rob’s name passed around by folks as he’s a long time Keys guide with a good reputation. Seeing him on the show… dear god, the man is built like a tank and looks like an MMA fighter.

If you like tarpon or the Keys or have ever been curious about what a tournament looks like from the inside, you should check this out.

Flies — 1 Comment
25
Sep 14

Black Death (because it sounds cool)

I dig the black death fly. I’ve tied a few, cast maybe a couple and landed a fish on zero of those flies, but they look kind of cool and, let’s be honest, pretty flies catch more anglers than fish. Still, this is a well traveled fly and has stuck many a tarpon and should I get a shot, I’d like to throw one of these again.

Bonefish on the Brain Bonefish and all that relates (maybe a bit about tarpon too).

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