We all have a place where we first wet a line in pursuit of bonefish (or at least there is a pretty good chance of that if you are reading a blog called Bonefish on the Brain). This is where I first saw a bonefish.
There are some bonefish here... the biggest I've ever seen with my own eyes.
It’s a nice place. It’s very nice. It’s been a few years since I’ve been here. I hope to make it back. Indeed, there is a campground here that is cheap and I often have dirtbag fantasies about spending a week in a tent here living off of slightly cool beer, Ritz crackers and peanut butter.
It will forever be a special place to me even though I didn’t hook a fish there. I saw them… and they were frigging huge. Dear god man, they were big.
I want to be there right now.
The flat is pretty big and it bends around a point so you can’t see the whole thing from the far edges. The bottom is a far cry from white sand. It is a “rubble” flat comprised of old, dead coral. The live stuff is still kicking, just further out from the beach than you’d be walking. The coral and the urchins make your choice in wading boots kind of important (leave those dive type shoes at home, you need more protection out there).
There are deep cuts through the flats and those are useful things if you are a bonefish and want to travel up onto the flat. Those fish will emerge from and disappear into those channels.
I have heard that there are also sometimes fairly large sharks in those deep cuts. Keep that in mind.
It would be great if I could tell you what kind of flies to throw… I don’t know. I didn’t hook a fish and didn’t have a follow (out of the 7 fish I saw). You do have to keep in mind the coral… and you need to put that into the mental calculus when it comes to tippets and spare fly lines (more than one fly line has been donated to the fishing gods because of that old coral).
I want to make it back there… I need to make it back there… I will make it back there… someday.
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- Happy 4th - Distant American Bonefish - Palmyra (0.885)
Tags: American Bonefish, bonefishing, first bonefish, fly fishing
I used to have dates in high school do the same thing as this post.
I recognize that place. Spent many a day there in my childhood, chasing papio with the spin gear and picnicing with the family.
Yeah, it is kind of a special place. I didn’t want to name it, since places like that can easily get way too much pressure.
Norm Zeigler, The premier snook on a fly guy, says there is no such thing as a “secret spot!” Where’s the love??
Well, this particular island, in the Pacific, has basically one flat on it… this is it. It wouldn’t take toooooo much guessing to figure out where this was if you were really, really interested. Think of it as a scavenger hunt.
[…] I talked about wanting to go back there, to where it all started. The place I saw my first bonefish is a special place to me for many reasons and to go back there, it feels like bringing things full circle. […]
That’s great. The countdown begins