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

I was fishing with Ari out of Christmas Island Lodge. Ari is a female guide working in a very male-dominated industry/culture and I think she was maybe the best guide I fished with on the Island.

She communicated, had a plan, asked questions and she could spot fish.

She had been told I needed therapy after missing a good shot at a 60 pound GT and that wasn’t totally wrong. She had some spots for us to check out.

She brought us to a cut/channel that was about 80 feet wide with a good firm bottom on one side and a steeper bank on the far side. I put some prospecting casts in and got a follow from… who knows what, but that was promising. Soon thereafter there was an explosion of water and bait on the far side. I moved up and made the cast.

Now, my casting has come a long way from when I first started saltwater fly fishing and a backhanded cast with a 10 weight is something I can actually hit 80 feet with. One strip and a fish exploded on the fly as another fish exploded a few feet in front of it. That strike didn’t stick, but one more strip and another explosion resulted in a hard tug and I was connected.

I don’t set my drag lightly and I put the stick to the fish, holding him in the channel and reducing the chances he’d get me hung up on some coral or cut me on the edge of the channel.

I really love trevally fishing. The visual and violent nature of the take is just thrilling. The power of the fish is so impressive. This wasn’t a GT and it wasn’t huge, but it was a decent fish… beautiful in its colors, luminescent with its lit up spots. Love these fish.

And that’s how I ended up with this fish, caught in the backcountry of Christmas Island with Ari.

Me, telling my son that I’ll have a lot of stories to bring home from this Xmas Island trip… and my wife’s reaction to this news.

Christmas Island is allllmost here. One week from today I get on the plane to head to Hawaii. I’ve managed to pick up a work meeting there on the Monday, which means I get to take it as a work day, which is sweet. The flight to Xmas is Tuesday.

Packing today I finally got out all the gear and started putting it all together.

This is when I discovered…

• I have TWO 12 weight reels and three 12 wt. lines… which is good, I guess, but maybe a bit optimistic.
• My 10 wt. reel drag is… stuck. I can’t increase or decrease the drag. This was not the ideal time to discover this. Going through my available reels I do have another that is fit for a 10 wt., although I couldn’t get the full 300 yards of backing on it I’d want if I use that for GTs. I am getting a borrowed reel from a buddy, so I’ll be OK.
• My Umpqua Line Scale is still helpful. They don’t make it anymore and it was key in figuring out exactly what I had.

I’m still tying, although a reasonable person might have stopped some time ago.

I’ve been tying up some Cocaine Crustaceans, which are just super easy and look interesting.

Plenty of Xmas Island style flies already in the boxes… but, maybe I should tie some more.

We’ve been here before and, I guess… we are here again. I’m talking about DIY fishing in the Bahamas being under threat.

I saw this from On The Fly South today,

We went through that years ago and it was stupid then and stupid now.

Go to the On the Fly South page and read their post.

Man… I may never return to the Bahamas if it goes this way.

I’m going back to Christmas Island in February. I’m so looking forward to getting another crack at that big GT and seeing some triggers and seeing what all might bite out at the Korean Wreck.

Such a cool place.

That brings me to y’all. One of the group just dropped out, meaning we have a spot open. Feb. 11.

Reach out if you are interested.

I wanted to take the boy to one of my favorite places, the Lower McCloud. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth (ya know, to me).

I got him some Redington waders and boots just to be ready for him to stand in cold water.

Crucially, I didn’t call the Ted Fay Fly Shop for a stream report.

We started heading down to the river, leaving the paved road and hitting the kind of dirt/rock road that a city kid doesn’t see too often.

We passed Ah Di Nah (I wanted to name my daughter Ahdinah but her mom thought it sounded like a 70 year old waitress who smokes 2 packs a day in a truckstop town) and headed further toward the McCloud Preserve (run by TNC). We encountered a truck on the way who stopped and I stopped and rolled down the window.

“It’s unfishable” he said.

“Totally off color. Milk. No one is down there. Place is abandoned.”

Well, I could see the river and it looked very, very poor. Visibility looked to be about 4″-5″. I was there, we were there, so we were going to go see it anyway. I thanked the other angler and we headed on down to the end of the road.

There were no cars. We were the only ones foolish enough to be there.

We got out to start getting ready and were set upon by a cloud of mosquitos. Now, I knew this would happen, it almost always does here, but I had not warned the boy. He kind of freaked out about it. As we walked down to the river he really started to lose it. A bug went up his nose and he straight up lost his shiznit. I was not full of compassion and may have said something like “deal with it.” He did not deal with it. There were tears and screams and we very nearly stopped about 100 feet down the trail.

I tried to get him in a position to fish, but… it just wasn’t going to happen for him.

The McCloud was barely fishable and it wasn’t going to be fishable for your average 10 year old.

We made it to the care takers place and found all 10 tags waiting for us. We grabbed two tags and had lunch.

After a quick lunch we hit the water behind one of the cabins.

I manged to catch 4 despite the poor visibility. Fish have to eat, even if it is difficult. All 4 at big ugly bugs, probably the only things they could see.

After about an hour (for most of that time O just watched and played on the bank) we left. That was it. That was all of the McCloud we were going to see and I doubt the awesomeness of that place translated to my 10 year old. All he knows of the place is that there are a bazillion bugs (they pretty much go away when you get on the water) and the water is opaque. We did manage to see a black bear on the road on the way out, which was cool.

We pivoted. We went from the Mac directly to a high mountain lake. We didn’t even get the rods out. We just walked around the lake looking for critters and we found them.

Highlight of the trip will be this lake for him.

I had so wanted him to fall in love with one of my favorite places, but you just can’t really control what your kids will love. Just gotta go with the flow and find them where they are at.

The weekend was a success, mostly. First cast, first fish. You have to worry about the curse of the first cast there, but it ended up no mattering. He stuck a bunch more and was moving well in the little river I put him on. He was catching his own fish, which is a level of competence that you love to see.

I bring this little bucket, attached to my backpack, along with me on these trips. The point is simple… I put the fish in there so the boy can look at them in a safe way. Gives us a little quality time with these cool little creatures.

There were stumbles… the pants he had were a little too big and sagged and that seemed to cause endless irritation (and some frustration on my part) until I rolled the top down a couple times and that solved the problem. This trip ended up being a lot of me saying “when we face a challenge, we try to find a solution.” Probably said that 30 times, which means maybe it didn’t sink in too deep.

This is my home water. This is where I learned to fly fish. So it is always special to see one of my kids walking in these waters.

The second morning we went back to the Upper Sacramento to one of my favorite stretches but it turned out the boy just was not OK with standing in 59 degree water. I got this one wrong. He managed to catch one and I managed to get this photo, which may be one of my best.

I got that fixed this week when a pair of Redington waders and kid boots arrived. The waders are big on him, but that just means he’ll grow into them.

He asked to go again this weekend and so we are. I have two weekends this whole summer where I could get him fishing and we are going to take advantage of both of them.

I’m headed up to my old headwaters this weekend with the boy.

He’s excited to go.

I mean… does it get any better than that? My kid wants to go fishing.

Kirk Deeter wrote this personal tribute to Chris Santella, and from the looks of it, he knew Chris well and counted him among his people.

Chris was a fishing acquantance of mine and our paths really only intersected once, but that was a memorable experience as it involved fishing the waters of Cuba.

It was a long time ago now, right about 12 years from my count, and I got brought to Cuba by Yellow Dog to fish with a bunch of really interesting guys. Chris was one of those guys and I know I shared a skiff with him one of the days we were there, although the details of that day’s fishing have faded. The fishing was awesome, in general, but I don’t recall a specific fish caught by or with Chris. He caught many, as happens in a place like that.

I do remember him brining something like a guitar and playing at various points, including in the airport.

What I recall of Chris was he was humble and kind and interesting.

Godspeed Chris.

If I’m going to Kauai, I’m going to get some time at Anini.

This is not because the fishing is fantastic there. It isn’t. It is horrible fishing. It is one of the only places you can sometimes, maybe, almost see bonefish in Kauai. It is also the first place I ever saw a bonefish, back in 2008.

This place has kicked my butt more than any other place I’ve ever fished. It just doesn’t give up its fish easily… at least not to me. Maybe there’s an angler out there who just crushes here, but I don’t know that angler (and if real, I kind of jealous-hate them).

The flat is big… really big… and is a rubble flat of old coral. There are dips and holes and things to trip on and my body this morning is speaking loudly… mostly saying “slow your roll, old man.”

I might have seen 2 bonefish, from about 10 feet away in 3 feet of water. Whatever they were, they were out of there fast and I had eyes on them for about 3 seconds. Still… not sure.

Spooked a couple of schools of smaller blue fin trevalley.

Caught a cornet fish (not photographed) and one blue fin trevalley.

I wonder why they call them blue fin…

This is what Anini offers… humility, beauty and the faintest hope at a bonefish. I’ve fished it 10 or 11 days and have yet to even hook a bonefish here.

If I get back, I’ll fish it again.