Yesterday some goodness happened in Florida.
The Boca Grande Jig was declared illegal in Florida.
The BG Jig
The jig fueled the Professional Tarpon Tournament Series. This is what that looked like:
Here’s the thing… the jig is really designed to do one thing… snag tarpon. Snagging fish shouldn’t be the aim of any angler and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission agreed.
This victory is largely due to the work of Save the Tarpon. Damn fine job, guys.
Did you miss it? On September 1st bonefish and tarpon were officially designated as Catch & Release species in Florida.
For bones…
The bonefish tournament exemption permit is eliminated. This exemption allows tournament anglers with the proper permit to temporarily possess bonefish for transport to a tournament scale.
Ruling.
Well done Florida.
For Tarpon, it is a little more involved. A person can keep on tarpon when pursuing a world record, but they need a permit and the permit is only valid for a short period of time.
All harvest of tarpon will be eliminated, with the exception of the harvest or possession of a single tarpon when in pursuit of an International Game Fish Association record and in conjunction with a tarpon tag.
Hook and line only, and the rules extend to Federal waters. Ruling indeed.
Derek’s bone from his Grand SLam. A protected bonefish. Good job FL.
My in-laws live up in the Yaak River Valley. You’ve likely never heard of it. It is in Montana, but doesn’t make too many fishing magazine covers. It isn’t one of the sexy MT rivers you’ve read all about. This is where the family and I spent Labor Day weekend.
It’s a beautiful freestone river and fluctuates with the seasons and the annual precip totals. It’s not supposed to be “on” right now, but, it totally was.
The Yaak River, Montana
Let’s just say I crushed up there. Hopper/Dropper was the key and if the sun was on the water, it was fast and furious.
The fish weren’t big, but they were plentiful. I even had the odd surprise, like this 17″ feisty rainbow caught right in front of my in-laws place with everyone watching.
Nice Yaak bow
I’d say most of my fish on the trip were under 9″, but there were just so many of them! It is the kind of river I love at these late summer flows. You get in, walk around, cast at pocket after pocket after pocket. You are constantly on the move and if something isn’t working, you can adjust quickly because the feedback is so immediate.
A nice little Yaak bow, returning to the river.
My girl LOVED Montana. She especially loved riding on the ATV with Grandma and Grandpa, but she also loved the snake we briefly detained,all the fish, the big grass field, the woods and pretty much all the good stuff Montana has to offer. It was simply a fantastic Labor Day weekend. We hope this is the start of a Montana Labor Day tradition.
Looking forward to the return trip.
Awesome.
(Originally posted September 20, 2012)
She’s a sport. This was our honeymoon, after all. It was also her second day of fly fishing ever. That’s jumping into the deep end, pretty much. Still, I figured if it was going to happen, it stood a good chance of happening here, out of El Pescador in Belize.
I would routinely say that what I wanted, out of the day on the water, was to share with her what it was that I loved, out there on the flats. It is an obscure concept if you’ve never been out there and maybe the selling of it is a bit challenging. “Hey, let’s stand on a boat for a few hours, looking for fish that are really hard to see, in the sun without shade. Oh, and you can’t have a beer until you land a fish (OK, that’s really more my rule).”
She was kitted out for success. She came walking up for breakfast like she belonged.
Ready for action
We got out on the water and headed up to the park. It is a nice ride up there and the day wasn’t too hot while we were running. Soon after we paid our fee at the park we went in search for baby tarpon. This wasn’t maybe the best first stop. First, it wasn’t going to be something that would put her up on the deck and secondly, back in the mangroves it was stiflingly hot.
I was also having a case of the sucks. I couldn’t seal the deal on the baby poons. I swept the rod on the first fish. I cast on the head of the second. I cast behind the third. The fourth wasn’t interested. All the time it was really, really hot. She suffered through it all though without a complaint, which just goes to show what a trooper she is.
We went out into a slightly bigger lagoon, a place with a bit of a breeze, and I managed to blow one last fish. On this fish I made a good cast, got the take, set the beejeezus out of things and managed to just break the fish off. That was surprising because this same set-up had landed my 85 pounder in Cuba. Same knots, same spools of material. Go figure.
Me, casting.
We then left to find some bones and the Mrs. got up on deck. Cesar, our guide set about helping out with her cast. This was her second day fishing, period. It is a tough place to start. Cesar got her up and running and put in into position to catch fish. There is a lot to remember though, and it was tough for her to carry it all in her mind. There is so much we carry in muscle memory and when you have to pick it all up and have to keep it in the front of your mind, well, things are going to get dropped, and plenty of things got dropped. She was unfazed though, mostly because of her awesomeness.
Mrs. BOTB actually hooked two bonefish, which I thought was simply wonderful. She got to feel the fish a bit, but put too much slack into things and both bones managed to get off. She did, however, manage to get a little snapper, so was not blanked on the day and got to enjoy a Belikin.
Earning the beer.
The day ended with Cesar and I out on foot chasing down several schools of bones. That was a fun time.
Another one in the books.
She got to see what I love out there and she understands me a bit better because of it. That was the goal, so, mission accomplished. She may need a few more days of trout fishing before we head back to the flats, which I’m happy to provide for her.
She’s game, which is just simply wonderful.
Labor day is going to see me in the great state of Montana. My in-laws are up in MT, and we’re headed up there for a visit. I’m looking forward to seeing this particular part of the state without the winter coat of ice and snow I’ve witnessed the last two years for Christmas.
There will be a bit of fishing, but around the margins. My daughter will be with us and this is a family trip more than a fishing trip, but I do fully intend on wetting a line more than once and seeing if I can’t get a few trout to cooperate.
I’ve fished MT a few times, but not in the last several years and not this stretch of Montana (Yaak River). I always enjoy walking through a new piece of water and I can’t wait to see what is in store.
See you on the other side of Labor Day.
A couple weekends ago I was up on my home water with Ryan, a guy I met at a tech meetup in SF almost two years ago. Ryan is mostly a blue-water guy, born and raised in Florida and much more familiar with live bait and Mahi Mahi than the ways of the Long Rod or the waters of his adopted California.
Our first day was on the Lower McCloud, a beautiful river which is tough for those one the steep part of the learning curve. The next day we found ourselves on the Upper McCloud, connected to the Lower, but a really different (and more domesticated) animal.
Ryan’s goal for the day was 2 trout, a doubling of his haul from the previous day. This seemed eminently possible here. Once he had reached that mark he said he was ready to leave whenever I was. I told him we wouldn’t leave until he had five fish landed.
Five. In the books.
Five. Landed.
It isn’t just in Belize that we face these sorts of tough questions about dredging. There are plans to further dredge around Key West to accommodate Mega Cruise Ships. Here’s a fantastic video by Will Benson.
[vimeo clip_id=”59767477″]
The Lower Keys Guide Association has this to say:
Harbor dredging: The cruise ship industry, and segments of Key West business support a new dredging project to widen the shipping channel in Key West Harbor so that the city can accommodate the arrival of “mega cruise ships”.
We stand adamantly opposed to this idea. Such a dredging project would negatively impact the health of the area’s ecosystem in ways that cannot be anticipated. This project could devastate our fishery; one that has yet to fully recover from the last such event in 2004. The area to be dredged is located in one of Key West’s prime tarpon staging areas off Ft Zachary Taylor. As tarpon fishing communities in Texas and Homosassa have learned, you can negatively affect the fishery to such a degree that the tarpon no longer frequent the area.
We believe that dredging Key West Harbor could very well be just such an event and the repercussions could be permanent and devastating.
Norwegian Cruise Line is preparing to screw up Belize.
“Norwegian Cruise Line has bought two islands in southern Belize to develop as a port of call for its western Caribbean cruises.” Read more here
Every time someone boards a cruise ship bound for the Caribbean destination, God kills a puppy.
Not everyone in Belize is on board with the project.
The areas to be impacted largely are just south of Placencia. It can’t be good.
Bye bye Harvest Caye.
Some photos from Peter Viau taken while fishing out of Andros South.
Great pics Peter.
That is a picture to put a smile on your face, isn’t it?
I’m ready for my close-up
Looks like pretty good light
This is where I was this last weekend:
Some pretty water. We fished both the Upper and Lower Mac.
This is what I did:
A bow. One among many.
I brought a friend up there for their first time fishing these waters. He was appropriately smitten with the rivers.
Here’s what I learned this weekend:
