Well… guides can really make this look easy. Here we have a guide in Andros make a backhand cast in some decent wind and hookup pretty much instantly.
Sure made that look easy.
Fish Tails
09
Nov 11
Jim’s kinda big bonefish
Jim and Ian (Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures) were in Grand Bahama and they were testing the “red shirt” theory. The theory says that bright colors, like red, kind of ruin your fishing. It didn’t work out that way, though, and Jim ended up landing this total pig of a bone… eleven pounds… yeah… eleven.
Damn. Going to have to break out a red shirt for Hawaii.
Damn.
04
Nov 11
Interview with Bob Rich
I sat down with Bob Rich to talk bonefishing recently. By “sat down” I mean to say I called him and I assume he was sitting while I was sitting. Bob is a pretty interesting guy. Not only is he the author of “The Right Angle,” be also has owned a baseball team and a soccer team. He’s a sportsman in a really broad sense as well as a very successful businessman. He also has a home right on a bonefish flat in Islamorada… and if he wanted me to stay there and fish… ya know… I totally would.
He and I have a couple things in common… minus a few billion dollars, he and I both have unlikely grand slams and fishing featured in some way in our respective splits. The book is an interesting read.
Are you motivated to go other places to fish, or when you have something like a great place in Islamorada overlooking a bonefish flat are just motivated to go there as often as possible?
We love our trips to the Bahamas because when you are out on a boat and you are sharing bow time, you know, Islamorada bonefish are so big, but you can fish all day for one or two shots, so if you have two anglers on a boat you can be in that second position, depending on how you set up your rules, you can not see a fish for so long your hand is shaking and I think as people are getting to know the sport, it is more fun to go where the fish are plentiful, albeit smaller. We still love our trips to the Bahamas and I’ve fished bonefish all around the world, the Seychelles, Christmas Island and more, but I would say our two favorites would be right at home in Islamorada as well as in the Bahamas.
Where do you go in the Bahamas?
We used to go a lot off the corner of Grand Bahamas to Deep Water Cay. Deep Water went through a metamorphosis where they sold to some developers and they literally started to discourage people from going there. They based this on a false premise that if they sold all their properties they wouldn’t need their weekend guests like ourselves but what they discovered that there were a lot of people who were going to buy a place, but they were going to spend maybe a week a month there. They literally realized that they needed weekenders so now they have new ownership and have rethought their early premise and now Deep Water is back on our list.
Ironically, Bjorn, there are a lot of places that you go in the Bahamas where you might have a lovely location but you still have to get in the car and drive 45 minutes to get to your put in and one of the nice things about Deep Water is that there are fish right off the dock and you are right on the dock so you can get a lot more fishing time and a lot less car driving time.
I’ve actually gone out of Mcleans Town a couple of times and caught my first bonefish right behind Deep Water.
You can go and have 100 shots a day and it can be off the charts and I think for fun fishing, the Red Bone Tournament has expanded into a couple of locations. It was set up by a guy named Gary Ellis as a celebrity tournament to find a cure for CF which his daughter had and it has grown from one tournament in Islamorada to almost 40 tournaments around the country and they do several really nice locations and places like North Riding Point and Deep Water, but I’m of the school where I refuse to turn a bonefish into a number. I don’t want to be in a situation where it isn’t about the searching and finding and fighting the fish and it becomes about racking up points. Especially in the Bahamas where you can have such great numbers automatically, I guess I follow the school that you may or may not have met guys like me, but I’d rather just fish for the fun of it and I don’t care how big they are either, just to look at each one, when you look at it, as a bonefish.
We used to go to Deep Water twice a year with Sandy Moret and we had a guy on the trip and every day when everyone would come in, people would ask how everyone did. “I did great, I got 6,” “Wonderful, I had 12,” and he’d just wait and we’d finally ask him and he’d always have the highest fish count. We later found out that he paying off one of the guides to back up his lies. He actually got dis-invited on the trips. The guy that got 5, it doesn’t matter what you caught. When you come back to a fish camp, for anyone who hasn’t done it before, whatever you say, half of the people are going to be happy, half are going to be sad, so why do you even need to say how many you caught.
That’s something I’ve learned over time. I used to be so excited about my day that I’d share all the details and now I’ve realized that me sharing the details might make someone’s good day feel like a bad day and there is no reason to do that.
That’s exactly right. Especially, if you are in a bonefish mecca like the Bahamas where you are catching 12 to 20 fish a day or if you are in Islamorada waiting all day for that big slob, that 13 pounder, what you say to people is the least important part of the day. The most important part is your connection to the fish.
When you are thinking of taking a trip, do you mostly go with your wife, Mindy, or is there a core group of anglers that you travel with?
It depends on what species, we aren’t bonefish purists, but having said that, if I someone said to me “you have one day left, where are you going to fish and who are you going to fish with?” I’d choose to fish with Mindy and I’d choose to be wading a bonefish flat somewhere. Wading for bonefish with a fly rod.
I just got back from a trip to the Great Barrier Reef and got my first Grander. It was actually an 1,100 pound Black Marlin. I’ve been looking for him for years and a couple of guys who said “boy, you are going to go home and those bonefish are going to feel inconsequential,” but they don’t, because you are going to light tackle, you are pitting your skills against a wonderfully worthy adversary, so it doesn’t really matter that the fish in Australia would have weighed 1,100 pounds (if we had tagged and weighed it), because I’ll tell you what, I’ve caught 7 pound bonefish that were every bit as exciting as any fish I’ve ever caught.
Are there people you look to bring along because they make you up your game?
Absolutely, no question. Depending on the species I can give you some examples. Sandy Moret and his wife Sue are wonderful travel buddies of Mindy and mine. Sandy’s one of the best fly fisherman I’ve ever met or seen. One of the things where he really excels is that he gets the fly in the water for longer and understands how to get a bit more than anyone I’ve ever seen. You can put him with 10 different guys and he has a feel for the fish and is great at stripping flies.
We’ve gone around the world fishing with Andy Mill. Andy is probably the best tarpon fisherman I’ve ever seen. He’s cut out all of the pieces of tarpon fishing that you don’t need. He’s a great guy to fish with.
The guy I just came back from fishing for Marlin with, Craig Reagor, Craig is a wonderful fishing buddy because he understands the game (he doesn’t get sea sick, by the way), and he understands part of friendship on the water is not just filling the air with words, he understands that you can be on the water with a good fishing buddy and still have solitude and you don’t have to be yacking all the time and telling dirty jokes.
If you mention a species, I have someone like that.
When I think of bonefishing I think of a lot of other things. I think of Kalik beer and cracked conch or Beliken. Are there associations you make when you think about bonefishing that have nothing to do with the actual fishing?
Absolutely, when Walker’s Cay was going, I first started fishing it for bonefish and then got involved in Blue Water fishing. You’d get up way too early and you’d go down the dock and there would be one of the native ladies sitting there and she had a row boat and she was just about as big as the row boat and she’d be selling bowls of Conch Salad for $5 a bowl. That with a Kalik beer… you’re in heaven. You have crappy day, you get skunked, but you just say “I’m going to double up on my conch salad when get in to the dock.” There are memories like that wherever you go fishing I think.
Thanks Rich!
23
Oct 11
Interview with Ian Davis
Ian Davis is a saltwater addict who happens to have a pretty cool job as part of Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures. He’s had a pretty interesting life on the water and he took some time to share part of that with BOTB.
Where was your last trip to the salt?
I was in the Yucatan and Belize. Heading to Grand Bahama on Nov. 2nd, then I’m headed to Bimini to fish a new operation and then I’m headed to Mangrove Cay, on operation down on Andros.
That sounds really rough there.
A lot of behind the scenes work happens on those trips that really separates Yellow Dog from a lot of the competition out there. The fact that we take all our own photos takes an enormous amount of time. Jim and I both spend a lot of time shooting the lodges and the food, I was just at the Trout Hunter in Island Park yesterday re-shooting the lodge. I didn’t even fish. I floated a couple of sections and I had an angler with me and I just let him fish, talked with the guide, talked about the hatches and it is the same thing down in the Bahamas. There no doubt it is a great job and we have a great passion for it, but a lot of these trips are hard work. You are ready to come home after your 10 days stint.
Kind of an awesome shot there.
When you are out on the water a lot, you see some strange things. Is there anything that stands out?
One time I was on the West Side of Andros and we were poling the opening of a creek and it is really muddy and silty out there. We were catching bonefish and I think this was probably April or May, and way in the back part of the flat there was this big commotion going on, lots of splashing. It looked like a big old cuda had gotten stuck in the mud and I just figured it had been chasing a bonefish and had gotten in too shallow water and was struggling to get out. The bottom was soft enough that it could probably crawl out of that mud. We weren’t worried about it. It was pretty far away. We just kept fishing and kept catching bonefish. We were fishing about another half hour and finally it started working its way towards us and it’s back was out of the water and we were both saying that it was a monster cuda and we should probably go over there and catch it and take some photos of it. We started poling over to it and it turns out it was about a 70 pound tarpon. It was literally taking a mud bath. We got up close to it and we didn’t even cast to it, at first, and it was utilizing that soft, silky west-side mud to get sea lice off of it, or just literally have a spa day. It just looked like it was having so much fun noodling through the mud like a salmon making a redd and that was really neat. I’d never seen anything like that and when we threw at it, it ate immediately. It was really fun.
Other fun stuff out on the flats. Always have a rod rigged for whatever species you want to target. Invitably, whatever you are not prepared for will roll down the pipe. I’ve seen tuna and dorado up in the Joulters in the Bahamas in four feet of water. If you didn’t have a tarpon rod, you aren’t going to have a shot at that. A close friend of mine saw a sail fish on the West Side of Andros in three feet of water. You just never expect those sorts of things, but when you have shallow water adjacent to deep water, like a lot of the Bahamas, you are going to have a wide range of species that might be coming at the boat.
That was probably a lot of fun.
What’s your current favorite rod and reel.
Nine foot 8 wt., Biiix Winston and Hatch Reels.
I know you guys love the Hatch Reels.
Yup. I’ve also always been a big fan of the Winstons. When I had my fly shop in Colorado, I sold them and I’ve continued to use them. I love the fact that they are made in Montana and they are super a good company and good people. I love the action. I think it is one of the best fish fighting tools out there. So many people focus on casting the rod and they forget that that is only half of it. You have to fight the fish. With today’s stronger tippet in flourocarbon, you can give the fish more work that folks typically do. Stu Apte is the master at that. Stu’s a good buddy of mine and we talk a lot about the proper pressure on fish. I really think that boron butt section really enables anglers to lean on their fish a little bit more and we all know that the importance of that, not only is it fun, but it is conservation based. We want to protect the species so our kids can catch them. The way to do that is to land them quickly. Flouro has aided to that, but often people are buying these wicked fast rods all the way to the tip and they are super quick and brittle and it is hard to put a good fight with that fast action rod because one head shake and it can break. The fast action rods these days are also often difficult to cast within 50′, they are just too fast. That’s what’s always brought me back to Winston. The castability and the fish fighting ability of those rods.
Spending a little bit extra on your reel is important because of the way salt eats away at our gear. I stand firmly behind the Hatch. I love that it is an encased drag system, it is sealed. I like that the foot is machined on. Battling the screws is always a bummer if they loosen up. I love that you can take the spool off and nothing falls out. Everything is attached and it doesn’t fall out. I’ve had horrendous times trying to take a reel apart, something jams or trying to change from right hand to left hand retrieve and some little spring goes flying out and lands in the water. Trip over. I love the fact that the Hatch reels are idiot proof.
There are usually a couple of people in our angling lives that really help us grow as anglers. Do you have anyone like that in your saltwater fishing career?
I would say when I had my fly shop my partner was a big steelhead fisherman and I really loved the flats. I’d go down to the Bahamas and bum around and stay at friends houses and I got really lucky and I started fishing with Charlie Neymour and Andy Smith and I couldn’t have picked two better people. They were about my age and their dad’s were the fathers of bonefishing in the Bahamas. Crazy Charlie and Ivan Neymour were really the first two guides in the Bahamas and the pioneered bonefishing in the Bahamas. So, their sons, I grew up with them. They had the same passion for it that we had for it. They weren’t conch or lobster fisherman that guided bonefish in the off season in their cousin’s boat. These guys were serious. On their days off they were fishing. That’s something that Yellow Dog always asks… “What do you do on your days off?” We want to know that they are after it and fishing just like we do. Andy and Charlie had a strong passion for big bonefish. We always want to get our numbers up that first morning, but the rest of the time we’d spend looking for big bonefish and permit and tarpon. They really set the stage for me and enabled me to understand the sport of flats fishing at a grassroots level. I wasn’t reading about it, I was sleeping on the beach and saving all my guide tips to be able to come and fish with these guys. We could only afford a couple of days with them, but we really valued that time and asked a lot of questions. Being guides ourselves we knew not to guide the guides. We let them do their thing. Some years later when I came to Yellow Dog I got to spend a lot of time with Charlie himself, Charlie Smith. That was probably where I gained the most insight on a fishes behavior. It can be so fine tuned that now I feel like if I see a fish I know if I’m going to catch it based on it’s behavior and what the previous fish did. That’s a neat thing, to have that relationship with your guide where the guide starts to turn the boat a little bit or you feel it speed up or slow down and and you look 60′ at 11:00 and there’s a fish and not a word was spoken. That’s how I’ve managed to get with the Smith family and the Neymour family. There’s not a lot of talking in the boat anymore beyond our kids and our families and maybe a little business. We aren’t pointing out fish anymore.
People doing these trips get so focused on how many fish they’ve caught. Please don’t do the math on how much each fish is costing, after flights and package and beer. That reduces your fish count. I really like to promote the cultural aspects of these destinations and first and foremost the relationships with the guides. Those can be some of the strongest relationships you’ll carry though the rest of your life and they are all wonderful people and I really consider the Neymours and the Smiths some of my closest friends. We get to see each other at the shows and throughout the winters and then when I go down there. I’m still trying to get them to come up to Montana, but haven’t had luck on that yet.
What percentage of the flies in your fly box do you tie?
For trout flies, I had a fly shop and when I sold that I pilfered about 30 years of flies. I’ll tie the basic trout flies, but I love to tie saltwater flies. I have a vice at my desk and when I’m making pre-trip or post-trip calls, which is about 30% of my time, I’m tying flies. I love the big saltwater flies. The first half of my fishing career I tied trout flies. Now, as I get a bit older I like the bigger hooks and the bigger flies. I love tying tarpon flies like variations of the toads, cockroaches and black deaths. Love bonefish flies like clouser gotchas, toad head, I still spin a lot of elk hair… I think that flies pushing water really gets their lateral lines going. I use a lot of traditional materials. Enrico Puglisi is always blowing me away with his materials. I am using a lot more EP materials in my flies and I love his his flies. He’s a big time innovator. Not only are his flies sexy, but they catch fish and are durable.
Ian showing how to take a good C&R photo here.
One of the things I love about bonefishing is all the other stuff that is associated with it. The cracked conch and the cold Kalik. Are there associations you make with bonefishing beyond the fishing?
I would say watching friends fish. I really get a kick out of watching fish describe their experience and seeing it first hand. I’m really lucky. I’ve caught a lot of bonefish and I’ve been in a lot of places where bonefish live. I never thought I’d say this, but I don’t have to catch a lot of fish to be happy. On the Henry’s Fork I fished about 20 minutes and I just really watched my buddy fish and took pictures. Photography has really taken over for me in terms of my enjoyment on the fringe. I also really enjoy watching the families associate with these destinations grow. I like watching their kids grow up. I have three young kids and like I was saying, I kind of grew up with Charlie Neymour and Andy Smith. Now we all have kids and families and it is always fun to go back to those places and see people growing up. There isn’t a lot of change in those places beyond that.
Thanks Ian.
22
Oct 11
Fishing Jones and good words.
Nothing brings insecurities to fore like standing on the bow of a flats skiff, especially with a head made weak from dehydration. Bonefish T found a school and turned his skiff and called out instruction. I lay down a cast and missed and awaited castigation.
A piece over at Fishing Jones, which is always a good read, even when he’s going after fish that I don’t target in places I’ll probably never fish.
Go… read it. Enjoy.
17
Oct 11
Connect
Well… what did I find in the mail today? Connect. Yeah… THAT Connect.
http://youtu.be/4UyrRMtGFps
Here’s what I think…
It is all kinds of awesome.
Now, that said, Mr. Bonefish got a little pushed to the side in favor of Tarpon and Permit and Tiger Fish and Trout and Stripers… but, ya know… it was still kind of awesome.
I’d love to see this treatment for the Bonefish meccas. Xmas, Keys, Hawaii, Seychelles, Bahamas, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Venezuela. There is a lot of meat there.
06
Oct 11
Norman – Andros South
Another photo and story from Louis Cahill.
I fished with Norman at FIBFest, earlier this year. I was a bit intimidated by him before getting on the boat. I had heard he was tough.
He wasn’t. Really, he was solid.
Here’s a picture that photog extraordinaire Louis Cahill took. Go to his blog to read the details.
03
Oct 11
Congrats – a first bonefish
A special day for Matt, who I don’t know at all. A first bonefish.
[vimeo clip_id=”29643097″]
Glad to see him sporting the Skinny Water Culture, as well!
The guide is Captain Jeffrey Pinder.
15
Sep 11
Kids and Fishing via FFISW
Thanks to reader Mark for finding this one. Nice little story.
I’ve been a reader for many years and I just came back from a family vacation in Nassau, in the Bahamas. I’ve been fly-fishing for bones there for years but this time I got to take my son, Jacob, for his first bonefish charter, and luckily for us, he was able to land his first, despite heavy winds. I’m very proud of my 7-year-old, and we can’t wait to do it again.
12
Sep 11
Hooked on fishing, and family. Nice story
Nice piece from the Daytona Beach News Journal.
In May I took a trip to the Bahamas to do a little bonefishing with my father and brother.
While throwing a fly at these “ghosts of the flats” as they swam nervously through the gin-clear water, I thought how similar and different that environment was to fishing my local waters of the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon.
