Part of the general “looking forward to things” is a day of fishing out of Abaco Lodge. I remember seeing Abaco Lodge back on the early episodes of Pirates of the Flats, before they had to switch networks and names to Buccaneers and Bones.
Always has had my imagination. And soon, I’ll see for myself.
I’ll be in Treasure Cay April 3-11. I’ll be the tall, handsome guy with the adorable children and beautiful wife with a grin on my face and as little skin showing to the tropical sun as possible.
I just counted it up and realized I’ll be in Abaco in three weeks. This has gotten me a little riled up as I have much to do before we depart. Here are some of the various tasks which I will be hoping to check off over the next three weeks.
I’ve never been to Abaco and I’m looking forward to it. It is a family trip, not a fishing trip, although there will be fishing, of course. There will also be sand castles and snorkling and some cracked conch, reading and relaxing.
The countdown has begun.
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?
Gink and Gasoline ran a story recently that featured Andros South guide Freddy (or Freddie, not sure which is right).
This made me happy because it made me think of my own trip to Andros South and my day with Freddy on the water.
This guy is fun to fish with.
Freddy was the biggest man with the smallest boat and was by far the most enjoyable guide I had that whole week. Freddy was just plain fun. He sang from the poling platform and joked and laughed and did all this while managing to put us on fish.
We ran into a bit of engine trouble that day while out on the West Side. That’s a long trip back with an engine that can’t get up on a plain, but Freddy was calm and smooth about even this. He suggested it was a good opportunity to troll for cudas, which we did and I picked up my first decent sized cuda.
The day was awesome and it does reinforce the idea that attitude matters… your attitude and that of your guide.
Thanks Freddy.
I’ve shared before the research that shows you are actually happiest when planning a trip. So, I’m pretty happy right now. No, I’m not talking about my there-and-back trip to Dallas next week, or my trip to San Antonio in May… no, I’m talking about fishing trips.
I just booked tickets to Florida in June. I know what I’m doing exactly one day of the week I’ll be there. I’m fishing with my dad and Derek Rust on a Saturday to try and get my dad into a tarpon. Beyond that… I’m just going and I’ll see what I can line up in terms of fishing days.
Coming to see the #skinnywaterculture
I’m also in possession of some crazy expensive tickets for Abaco. That’s Spring Break with the whole fam. I’m hoping to grab a day or two to fish, but I’ll also have an 8 year old and 1 year old along. I plan to get the girl fishing too, maybe over at the Abaco Lodge off the dock.
In short, I have stuff to look forward to and I kind of love that. Now I need to open up the fly tying desk again and put some thread and sparkles on some sharp and pointy hooks.
Hope you have something to look forward to as well!
My one Florida Bonefish
There was a really interesting article recently in the Florida Sportsman about bonefish in the Keys. Bones have been in decline for years in the Keys. All the guides down there will tell you the same. The article talked to some of those guides but also had some signs of hope. Smaller bones are being seen and smaller bones turn into bigger bones and it is not totally inconceivable things might turn around.
When I was down in the Keys a couple years ago I remember hearing about the decline. One-time bonefish flats had become redfish flats and the bones just weren’t around.
The culprits for the decline are mostly the usual suspects. There are water quality issues and the devastating cold from a few years back. There has even been talk about netting in Cuba impacting Florida populations.
As always, I’d love to hear from the folks who live there and fish those waters. You see any hope or just a steady decline?
I was planning on going to the Bahamas. Inagua was the destination I was looking at. It’s remote, has bonefish and a few tarpon as well. It was a good plan.
And then… things had to go through the “child custody” filter. The flight back would be on Monday. Monday is the start of the next week. I have my girl signed up for a marine science camp that week and if the ex didn’t want to brave the rush hour traffic to get her to that camp, well, I wasn’t going to be able to get her there from one of the 4 or so planes I would have been on that day coming from Inagua, through Nassau, to Miami and then on to SFO.
Just like that, the trip blew up. Done.
On to Plan B.
Plan B isn’t a bad plan. Florida is the Plan B. The more I look at it, the more it sounds like a very solid plan. I may get to fish with friends and that’s a pretty good option. Maybe I’ll even get my dad down there to catch a tarpon.
I’ve been down to FL to fish a couple times now. I may still have some clothes that haven’t dried out from the trip in June of 2012. Man did it rain a lot… Sunshine State my ass. That trip was with fellow-bloggers Davin and Matt and Adrienne, fishing with Martin, Derek, Eric and Bill. I landed one baby tarpon, broke a rod on one adult (sorry Bill), caught the Key’s smallest bonefish and had a great time.
Shooting the shit… and learning.
The last trip was with my wife and our baby son. I got a day of fishing in with Dan Dow and Derek Rust, which I thought was generous. I landed my first redfish, thanks the Derek poling into the wind for a few hours.
My first redfish, photo from Derek Rust
Now, I’m likely coming back and that sounds pretty good. Rain or shine, it will be good to be back. I’m looking forward to it.
Somehow the new season of Buccaneers and Bones (which supports the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust) started without my noticing. But I’ve noticed now and watched the last episode, which was on South Andros at Bair’s Lodge.
Oh, South Andros. I love that place. Only spend one week there, but it is etched in my memory forever. It was an important trip and the line separating one period in my life from another.
My trip there was FIBFest II, a thing that has gone by the wayside, an experiment of sorts.
The Buccaneers and Bones crew this year is pretty interesting with Jimmy Kimmel among the cast. South Andros is a special place. Glad to see it again, even if it is on TV.
I have said, and maybe even believed, I would not go back to chase bonefish in Hawaii. This video has me rethinking that.
I know it is tough. I’ve known very good anglers who have gone smelled of skunk, but I also know others who have smacked the fish of a lifetime.
My own Hawaiian experience is maybe colored by life experiences which have have nothing at all to do with bonefishing. I saw my first bonefish, to this day maybe the biggest bone I’ve ever seen, on a flat, on THE flat on Kauai. I had been looking for them all week and suddenly they were in front of me. My heart was in my throat. My hands were shaking as if I’d had a quadruple shot espresso. I sucked. I knew almost nothing about bonefishing, but I was casting at them (and being ignored by them). And then… then I heard the (increasingly in my memory) shrill cry from the shore from my ex-wife telling me it was time to come in and watch the baby.
This was the bonefish I caught in Hawaii.
Defeat… in many senses of the word.
Kauai was where we had honeymooned and it was where my parents were celebrating their 40th anniversary, bringing the whole family along.
Post separation I went back to Kauai to seek out the fish I had been called away from. I camped, cheaply and legally, a cast from the beach. I went out every day, all day, for three days. I got 4 casts. All brief. All failures. In the rain and just after the rain and just before it rained again.
Oh, and there was rain… lots of rain.
I called it quits on Hawaii. I figured I had filled up the Island state with enough failures and I vowed not to return.
But, see… I never went to Oahu. I never fished where the fish are more consistently targeted. And videos like this one from Mike Hennessy of Hawaii On The Fly… well… maybe we could head to Hawaii. Maybe I should go out there, on those more well traveled flats to try my luck against one of the monsters.
I’d either fail or succeed and by now I’ve gotten more acquainted with failure and know it isn’t so much a life-long tag. I think I’ll put it back on the list.
