I was on a big flat, might have been Paris Flat, but I’m not totally sure.
Phil was with the guide and I had peeled away, walking on the very edge of the flat where the tide was pouring off into the deeper water. The wind was also in this same direction, from my left to my right, also heading off the flat.
The wind was sustantial, as it usually is, but coming off my right shoulder is something I’ve heard called a “caster’s wind” and so it is.
There are days I just don’t see the fish, for whatever reason. In fact, on this day, earlier and with the guide, I was having trouble seeing the fish with the sun right overhead. This now was a couple of hours later in the day and the sun had slid a little lower in the sky and that seemed to make all the difference.
I could see the fish moving toward me along the edge of the flat and I could see some fish also moving off the flat as it lost its water, heading toward deeper water.
The casts weren’t long, but I had several and in an hour I managed six very nice bonefish, including one that was about 6 pounds. It was a very concentrated session of spotted fish and quality shots. Outside of my “shooting fish in a barrel” session I had later in the week at the Wreck, this one one of the finest hours of bonefishing I’ve maybe ever had.
As they were hooked, they’d race off the flat into the deeper water, which seemed an iffy proposition. At one point a GT of about 30 pounds was tracing the edge of the flat, coming toward me. I didn’t have my backback, so didn’t have my second rod, so was unarmed for the encounter. Later, as I was being summoned to give up my bonefish pursuit, there was GT chaoas at the point of the flat I was still a couple hundred feet away from.
Another surprise was looking over to see a massive manta ray mere feet from me, gliding over the deeper water.
This was one of only two days our group was on the boat, as the Cristmas Island Lodge operation has a lot of truck-based options (repairs were taking place on their second boat while we were there).
A good time was incoming.
