Locations

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12
Jun 10

Brian O’Keefe goes to Guadeloupe

In Issue #11 of Catch Magazine, photographer Brian O’Keefe put together a slide show of his trip to Guadeloupe.

The photos, as you might expect, are wonderful and it makes you want to go there… like… now.

I thought I might try to put a little bit more out there about Guadeloupe, just in case you, ya know… wanted to go.

First off, if you call your thin, fried potatoes “Freedom Fries,” this place isn’t for you. It may be in the eastern Caribbean, but it is a part of France. Yes, that France. That would work well for me, as I spent a year in Paris drinking wine and chasing les femme studying and learning a lot.

As crazy as it sounds to me, you can fly there DIRECT FROM ATLANTA. That’s what I read… and if I read it, it has to be true… right? Funny thing though… I can’t find that flight at Delta.com… can’t even find the airport in their Global Places We Fly Huge PDF. That Leaves American, via San Juan, PR. The flight ain’t budget friendly (about $900 from what I can see), again straining the often uneasy relationship between Cheap and Bonefish.

It seems a bit daunting… there are several islands, the language is French, the travel seems less than straightforward.

It wont’ be on my list for the time being… although I’d be able to rock my French, which I usually reserve for cursing at people these days.

Of course, if you aren’t up for navigating the whole shebang on your own, you could always get help… like from Alexis Decros. A day on the water is about $400… which is damn reasonable.

Alexis could guide you to some Frenchie bones.

So many places to fish… so little time (and money).

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10
Jun 10

Angling on the Fly does South Caicos

Saw a trip report posted on the blog of Angling on the Fly of a trip to South Caicos with Beyond the Blue Bonefish Charters.

It looks alright… ya know… if you like endless white sand flats, bonefish up to 8 pounds, air boats… I think I’d be down with that.

A South Caicos bonefish with Anglers on the Fly

South Caicos is a great place if you are money-phobic. A week for a single angler is $4,760, double is $4,100. Cheap and Bonefish are standing on opposite sides of the middle school dance… clearly this isn’t going to be the tune that gets them to dance. If you have the scratch, though… sounds great.

Interview with Chris Goldmark

Puerto Rico is not one of the first places you probably think of when words like “bonefish” or “tarpon” are bandied about. However, there are bonefish there and there is a history of bonefishing that many are not aware of. One guy who knows a bit about the fishery there is local guide/gringo Chris Goldmark. He’s been guiding the waters of Culebra (one of the islands of Puerto Rico) sine 1991… meaning I was still in High School when he started.

Chris, doing what he does in Culebra.

Chris, Puerto Rico and bonefish… can you give a lay of the land in terms of where they are and what the fishery is like?

Bone fish populations in PR are largely limited to the two eastern islands of Culebra and Vieques with a few scattered pockets of fish around the “Big“ island. This was not always the case. The flats of La Parguera on the south west coast of PR once hosted one of the largest and healthiest populations of Bone fish found anywhere in the entire Caribbean basin. These flats were for the most part gill netted to extinction in the 80’s and early 90’s when the demand for Bone fish for bait was at an all time high.

Today both Culebra and Vieques have healthy populations of Bones although not in the great numbers of years past. Culebra still boasts of having some of the largest fish in the Caribbean.

How did you end up in PR as a bonefishing guide? Seems an unlikely landing spot.

Back in the late 80’s, I was visiting Mike Vergis the founding father of the famous tarpon fishery in San Juan . We ended up, after a few drinks and a ferry ride, in a bar in Culebra. I fell in love with the island and brought my wife with me for a weeks visit the following year. Half way through our stay she informed me that she had taken a job and that I could stay or leave but she was definitely not going home. Apparently in the early stages of a marriage common sense seems to hover on the fringes of that pink zone….I stayed, No regrets.

Nice PR Bonefish

What’s the oddest or most interesting thing you’ve seen out on the flats of PR?

The Puerto Ricans are a serious party culture. I say this totally respectfully. I was guiding a gentleman back in the early nineties during a major Puerto Rican holiday in Culebra, something I rarely do today because of excessive boat traffic etc. We were wading one of the major flats and came upon a family who had set up beach chairs in a semi circle on the sand and marl complete with coolers ,umbrellas and a boom box. My client and I skirted the party but upon looking back I noticed a Bone fish pop a tail 10 feet from a drunk passed out in a beach chair. Suddenly six more tails popped up and I instructed my man to cast appropriately. Hooked up!! The fish, about an 8 lb Bone goes completely insane . The drunks start chasing the fish, the fly line becomes snagged on a cooler, three party goers fall face down on the flat and of course the fish breaks off. So much for stealth. Salude!

Gillnets are still present in PR waters. Can you give an idea of the impact those nets are having and what needs to happen to get the nets out of the water?

Bone fish are not normally targeted specifically by gill netters but they often become a significant by catch when fishermen set on schools of Bar Jacks and Chapin (box fish) which inhabit a lot of the same areas as the Bones. PR needs to recognize the value of Bone fish, Permit and Tarpon to the tourist economy. They haven’t come to grips with that yet. Myself and one of PR,s most famous Tarpon guides, Francisco Rosario from Boqueron on the west coast, as well as Fernando Monllor one of the top fly fishers in Puerto Rico have done the usual lobbying, petitioning ,the whole thing. We keep pointing to Belize and saying when are you guys going to get it!! Things move very slowly in Puerto Rico. There are a lot of holidays.

Not being one of the better known fisheries, do you get people coming to PR specifically for the bonefishing or do you more have people who are doing it as part of a family vacation?

Both. I have many clients who come to specifically to target the big Bones Culebra is famous for. I also have a lot of first time clients who are just down on vacation and want to learn how to fly fish and experience what the flats are all about.

Are there any fly shops in PR or are you forced to rely on internet shopping?

There are no fly shops in PR. I tie all my own and buy off the internet or from the “compleat Angler” in Darien ,CT.

You have a favorite place to eat? A place to recommend to traveling anglers for cheap and decent lodging?

“Mamacitas” my wife has been the dinner chef there for 19 years also for lunch “El Batay” owned and operated by one of my best friends and soon to be Mayor, Tomas Ayala. Lodging..Villa Boheme and Jim

Galasso for rentals 787 742 6752

What’s your favorite rod/reel at the moment?

My favorite rod is a 7 wt Gatti or any Gatti or Sage blank finished by master rod builder George Costa. www.fathammy.com …..Reels. I am the connoisseur of cheep reels. My favorites the Okuma SLV and the Pflueger Trion. Both are around $100 and will handle double digit Bone Fish as well as any reel built by a Hungarian, That’s a tough one too. I’m half Hungarian.

Think PR will, at some point, be the 51st State?

Not likely any time soon. The first thing you learn living in Puerto Rico especially as a Norte Americano is to be very careful discussing politicas. I believe I have answered the question.

Could that be a bone from our 51st State??? Chris isn't saying!

Thanks Chris!

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06
Jun 10

WTF?!! Bow hunting bones in Bimini?

I saw this video, which shows a total fuqueing douchebag with a bow trying to kill a bonefish in Bimini. He missed. The douchebagocity of this just leaves me speechless. This guy is mayor of Douchebagville, a town in the country of Douchebagistan.

(looks like the Mayor took his video down… good call)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNvMsqTvm1I&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Seriously… WTF?!

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04
Jun 10

More on Exmouth – Yak it.

The idea of fishing Exmouth, Australia is a new one for me. I’ve been wondering if there was a way to get to the fish without paying an arm and a leg (especially if you just paid an arm and a leg for the flight there).

There is… you can rent a kayak for a tiny bit of scratch and I’ve been told that one can, indeed, paddle your way to the fish.

Worth a consideration.

Exmouth Boat and Kayak Hire seems a solid option.

Your Australian ride.

Still… even if you get a kayak for $40 a night, it is still $1,000 to fly from San Francisco to Perth (and you still have to get to Exmouth).

Locations — 7 Comments
03
Jun 10

An Acklins Option

Saw a new-to-me Acklins option, Salina Point Lodge. You’ll actually find them on VRBO and they have a very nice deal going right now.

This won’t be available forever, but they are offering $630 (double occupancy) for a week of self-guided fishing. They will feed you, house you, drive you out to a flat, leave you there and pick you up later… and they’ll do that for a week.

If there is a heaven and I go there, it will look something like that.

Basically, you don’t need anything else once you are there (well, except Kalik, which I don’t think is included, so, add another $100).

Go, bring a friend, fish hard, sleep easy and enjoy Acklins.

I wish I was here.

Cheap and Bonefish can get along… see?! I told you so.

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30
May 10

Aussie Bones – Exmouth and True Blue Bones

I saw something on a message board about True Blue Bonefish and the fishery in Western Australia. I went to the site and… well… holy bonefish batman, there are some PIGS out in Western Australia!

A Foster's Size Bonefish

OMG… that thing is huge… and Australian… I had no idea. The website is worth looking at… not only are there some epic bonefish, but GT’s, some biggish Permit, Golden Trevally, Queenfish, Milkfish, Gulf Tarpon and Giant Herring… which I think is just a big Ladyfish.

I don’t know if they put a picture up of every big fish they ever caught, of if there are a lot of fish that big out there (turns out there are a lot of big fish there).

There certainly aren’t a lot of outfitters working those waters (I found two in my quick search) and there isn’t a whole lot of information readily available about the fishery.

There are a few factors that really strain on the uneasy relationship between Cheap and Bonefish when it comes to Exmouth bonefish. The cost of living and the cost of fuel combine to make it a real budget buster.

A single angler is $810 and if you bring a buddy, it is $445 a piece… so, $890 ($810 AU is $690 US). This is one of the most expensive days of guiding you’ll run across anywhere. They have a deal where if you book 7 days, you only have to pay for five. That would be $4,050 for a single angler, just for the guiding, not including lodging.

Maybe you have a checklist of species you want to check off… this might be a place to do that. There are a LOT of different species worth a shot at there.

There are cheaper places… much cheaper places, but Exmouth seems to be a pretty unique place with a wider variety of top-notch game fish than a lot of the go-to locations.

I didn’t find much in my cursory search for DIY or self-guided opportunities along the Western Coast. I’ll be looking into more of that in the months to come, but the airfare alone means that if you live in the States, there will be no coming together of Cheap and Bonefish Down Under.

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30
May 10

North Andros via Chris Santella

Chris Santella put together that book “50 Places to Fly Fish Before You Kick the Bucket”

Every once in a while he puts out some bonefishy goodness and I spotted this post about North Andros.

The rich lore of bonefishing on North Andros pulls almost as powerfully as the present possibilities of the island’s endless flats. North Andros served as an incubator for nascent grey ghost fly fishing efforts half a century ago, and was home to the Bang Bang Club and the Lighthouse Club – two of the earliest bonefish lodges. Wall Street Brahmin sailed south on their yachts to hire Bahamians to help them hunt elusive bones, and the angling literati of the day – Lee Wulff, Joe Brooks and the like – followed closely on their heels. The fishery has stood the test of time.

Yeah, that is a pretty picture... Brian O'Keefe snapped it.

Wanna go?

Me too.

Fish Tails / Locations — 3 Comments
29
May 10

Tagged Bonefish Vid

For your viewing pleasure, a guy from TCO Fly Shop casting to and catching a bonefish in Abaco. You can see in the video that the bone is tagged, turns out they did the tagging. More people helping out the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust… I like it. Good job TCO Fly Shop!

Locations — 5 Comments
27
May 10

Anatomy of Cheap Bonefishing

OK… since I’m not currently bonefishing, don’t see any on the calendar and the flats are fading from my memory like a homecoming banner left out in the sun for a month, I figured I’d rev up my fantasy life by putting together the details of trips that I simply won’t be taking.

I like cheap… cheap and I are friends… cheap would be like the brother I never had if I didn’t have a brother. I could never be mad at you, cheap.

Cheap and bonefish are not so chummy… but I think it is all misunderstandings, maybe a cross-cultural communications issue.

It is possible to have a bonefish experience that is not too hard on the wallet. Here is what that might look like.

Our fictional trip will happen September 9 to September 15. The departure city is San Francisco and the destination will be Deadman’s Cay airport on Long Island, Bahamas.

Flight to Nassau = $401 (About $100 less if you fly from NYC)

Flight to Long Island = $200

Cheap, as it turns out, likes company. If you like company and have a crew to go with, you can rent this SWEET pad at Salt Pond on Long Island for $400 a night. If the company splits the cost, that’s $50 a night for the 8 people that could bunk there. That’s a pretty sweet deal… about as much as I spent for my one star motel in Grand Bahama last January.

Yes... I would like to stay here.

Sure, you’ll need a rental car, but you can get one. From what I hear, it is about $65-75 a day for a small car. Maybe you’ll need two for your group of 8 and might need to ferry back and forth from the airport, but it is doable… put that at about $20 a day divided between everyone.

The vacation rental above puts you about 15 minutes from the nearest fishable flat and it comes with a couple of kayaks for angling, which opens up even more water. (See below for a trip report from the owner of the rental, and yes, he said I could run this).

Sure, you have to buy food, but it is a widely known fact that a man can live on Kalik, crackers and gummi bears for at LEAST a week.

The best way to get bonefish and cheap to really cozy up, maybe even have a love-child, is to get the flight cost down. That’s why you should take a page out of Ryan Bingham’s playbook and use any opportunity to get those frequent flier miles.

You play the miles right and your $1,000 budget, self-guided trip just became you $600 budget, self-guided trip.

The trip report from the vacation rental owner:

I just return from a week of fishing on Long Island. As many of you know I have a severe bonefishing addiction and after visiting most of the island in the Bahamas (including Acklins/Crooked) I fell in love with Long Island. I have recently completed a home in Salt Pond, which is about halfway between Deadman’s Cay and the North end, the primary flats areas. I traveled with 3 close friends with similar addictive personalities. We fished 3 days up north with Docky Smith and his brother “Big Dog”, and 2 days in Deadman’s with Colin Cartwright. The weather was clear, but the wind blew 20-25 mph out of the northeast for the entire visit, keeping the flats exceptional dry, and challenging our casting technique. Despite less than ideal conditions we caught alot of fish ranging from 3 to 10 lbs. On a day in Deadman’s, Carlos caught 18 bones.

While fishing the outer flat up north the “Big Dog” pointed out a 30 lb permit tailing in 2 feet of water about 200 feet from the area we we wading for bones tailing in 6-8 inches of water. Having never landed a permit on the flats I began my stalk of the permit. The outer portion of the flat had channels running into the turtle grass covered area, and the permit was working the edges of the channels, periodically present its huge forked tail, causing burst of tachycardia and hyperventilation. As I approached to a distance of 70-80 feet, it would slip back into the channel, but consistently worked into the tide which flowed across the shallows. Taking a course further up tide, I set up on the edge of the channel. As I watched the permit, it return to the channel and then vanished. I was crest fallen, and after 5 minutes was about to move on when a large green shadow appeared in the depth of the creek. “Must be a ‘cuda”, I thought, but as I watched the ‘cuda went to the opposite bank and tailed in a foot and a half of water. I quick cast of a large Mantis Shrimp, to short strips, game on. 25 minutes later the biggest personal bonefish for me was at hand. Sweeet!

Bonefish on the Brain Bonefish and all that relates (maybe a bit about tarpon too).