Aaron Adams and BTT are everywhere, carrying the water for most of us who love, like or otherwise fish for bonefish. Found a story from the Miami Herald. BTT went down and met with Bahamian guides to discuss increasing participation in the tagging and reporting of tagged fish. Read the story here.
Tagged bone. Photo from... MIKE MAZUR / FLY FISHING IN SALT WATERS
The never-ending string of good news just keeps on coming. This time it is about Bimini… over-development… taking paradise and crushing it under the weight of “progress.” Do we really need a golf course on every island? When I become the Leviathan, this sort of thing will stop (and I’ll be allowed to fish in Cuba too).
Every once in a while you’ll see a picture of a bonefish held up for the camera by a boga grip. This would seem like a good idea. It sure must be an easy way to grip the fish and control the shaky wildness that is a bonefish. It will let you get a weight on the fish pretty easily too.
There’s a downside, however… and a pretty big one. Bonefish may have hard crushers to munch on the crabs and shrimp and worms that they catch, but they also have pretty soft mouths and a boga grip + that shaky bonefish = some significant injuries to the bonefish.
One of my favorite fishing blogs, The Trout Underground, covered the issue some time back.
The Bad Idea Jeans Boga
A surprising number of searches get directed to this website for the search terms “How to cook bonefish,” or “cooking bonefish.”
Don’t eat bonefish. Really… just don’t do it. I know some cultures have a history of doing it, and for them, I say “I wish you wouldn’t, but understand if you harvest one every once in a while.” If you are not one of those people I just say “DON’T DO IT!”
These are game fish that are way too valuable to be eaten. Go get some Mahi Mahi, go get some carnitas (mmmmm, carnitas) or kalua pig (mmmmmm, other form of pork). Don’t eat bonefish. In Florida, they figure that each bonefish, over its lifetime will contribute about $75,000 to the Florida economy, about $2,500 each year. This is sustainable, catch and release angling. These are good jobs which value local eyes and local color. This isn’t cleaning up the puke from spring breakers… these are good jobs.
If you absolutely MUST cook a bonefish, here is what you need to know….
If you think you can’t destroy the bonefish stock and that they’ll always be there, just ask the people of Campeche in Mexico. There used to be bonefish there and there aren’t bonefish there anymore. Haven’t been bones there for 20 years or more at this point. Netting is what did it. You can pretty well wipe out a whole population with modern nylon netting.
On the rather long list of stuff I didn’t know about you can add the growing body of knowledge regarding bonefish catch and release mortality.
It turns out that, depending on what is lurking nearby and how long it took to take that picture, mortality of bonefish in the R part of the C&R equation can be up to 40%. FORTY PERCENT! Holy $h1t!
(UPDATE: the study referenced here the mortality rate for bonefish that had lost equilibrium was about 30%, another study pointed toward 40%)
Forty percent… as a trout C&R angler, I’m used to thinking of that number more like 3-5%. 40% just seems totally unacceptable and I hope if you are reading this, you’d find it unacceptable as well.
How this came about… scientists, anglers, the Bahamas, bonefish… an intriguing mix that yielded some really interesting and important findings.
Whether a bonefish had or had not lost equilibrium was a significant predictor of predation, with bonefish losing equilibrium being over six times more likely to suffer predation than those that did not lose equilibrium (sciency stuff removed here). All other variables measured during the study (total length, angling time, handling time, air exposure time, bleeding, and water temperature) were not directly related to predation risk.
Fish that were preyed upon did not spend significantly more time further from mangroves than fish that were not preyed upon. In fact, following release 17 (20%) bonefish were observed swimming into open water (N2.5 m deep) rather than staying in close proximity to the shore line or in shallow water.
Longer air exposure and overall handling times were significant predictors of the loss of equilibrium in angled bonefish. Angling time, total length, water temperature, and bleeding at the hooking site were not significant predictors of equilibrium loss.
If you want to read it straight from the abstract, you can find it here, courtesy of Cooke Lab at Carlton University (Canadian). (Thanks Steve for the hook up on this study.)
So, what does this all mean? It means dropping the Hero Shot is a really, really good idea if you care about that particular fish living. If you can take a pic of that fish in the water, great… but if you do what I did on my last trip and take the fish out of the water (or have the guide take the fish out of the water) for an extensive photo shoot… well… it won’t go well for the fish and it may only have a couple of minutes left to live.
If the fish is unable to right itself when you put it back in the water, that fish is in trouble. It could even be that these stressed fish even leave a trail of chemicals behind them that predators like Lemon Sharks zero in on.
Jason Lozano, one of the anglers involved in the study had this to say…
With 15 seconds of air exposure 80% of the fish we released in one day were killed by lemons or cudas within 2 mins. If the fished avoided contact with the predator longer than 2 mins their chances increased substantially.
Jason pointed out that some flats clearly had more predators than others. If you are fishing a flat with more cudas or sharks and you take that fish out for the glory/hero shot to the point it loses equilibrium when it is released, well, that fish will likely die soon.
So, to review… don’t take the fish out of the water. It’s a bad idea if you want the fish to survive.
UPDATE: In the study referenced above, bonefish that had lost equilibrium had a mortality rate of 30%, while bonefish that did not lose equilibrium had a mortality rate of about 4%.
Bad Idea…
Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have taken this picture.
Good idea…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbGI3DuFrI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1
This is Fly is a great e-mag focused two things… fly fishing and not being all stuffy. They do a great job on both fronts.
While checking out their latest issue (#20), I saw an article from one of my fav’s, Aaron Adams, Executive Director of the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust. In the article, Aaron is hopping from Florida over to the Bahamas for some epic fishing while pondering why more folks aren’t pissed off that Florida bonefishing has declined significantly since the days of Ted Williams.
Those that know (I don’t, by the way) will tell you that there are fewer fish around, all the dumb ones have left and the game is just harder than it used to be and harder than it really should be.
There are remedies, actions that could be taken if enough people raised their voices to be heard by those in the places of power, but nothing will happen if more folks don’t get barking mad.
Where I live, in California, we may be seeing the last of once mighty salmon runs. One of my favorites places on earth, the McCloud River, once had a salmon run estimated at one million fish, but now sits behind Shasta Dam, while the Klamath River is at 20% of it’s historic numbers and they will likely disappear all together by the time the dams are taken out… in, maybe, 2025 or so. Our the concrete symbols of progress have proven to be be destroyer of species, towns, industries and native peoples.
Let’s learn our lessons. Let’s start speaking up and try to at least keep what we have now and maybe even see it improve a bit. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Think about the day when bonefishing in Florida used to be like the video below, get angry about what has been lost, and write a big, fat check to the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust so they can do what needs to be done.
Here’s how ya do it…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbGI3DuFrI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1
This, of course, is not how most bonefish ARE handled, but maybe your next bonefish, or my next bonefish will be.
A little PSA from the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust. Consider joining. I’m a member.
I came across this story in the Fort Myers Florida Weekly about a new record being set… records are funny, really… this record fish was 2 pounds 6 ounces. The record that was set for for woman angler and 2 pound test.
Now… should you really be trying to catch a bonefish on two pound test? Isn’t that going to tire the bonefish out too much? Is that bonefish going to be able to recover or evade predators?
Joanna seems like a nice lady and I’m sure she’s a great angler, worthy of a record and all, but I just have to question this sort of record making. I’ll actually go on the record as saying this sort of thing sucks.
The record 2 lb test fish.
How long is your commute? I once had to drive 100 miles, but only had to do it twice a month. Mr. Bonefish, it turns out, can put in some serious miles.
Florida has a tagging program thanks to the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust and the Florida Keys Fishing Guides Association. One of those tagged fish was caught and tagged near Key Biscane. From there it crossed the Gulf Stream (something researchers didn’t know they did) and was caught off Andros, about 186 miles away. This more than doubled the longest known movement by a bonefish. This has all sorts of implications… it means Florida bonefish may be intermingling, and maybe interbreeding, with Bahamian bonefish.
That’s a long commute, Mr. Bonefish
Here is the news from Science Daily.
