When I was on that Florida tarpon hunt I had the distinct pleasure of riding around part of the week in the best looking boat on the water. If you’ve been out in the Glades or around Miami, you might have seen it. I’m talking about Eric Estrada’sAnkona.
Check it out.
That is a good looking boat.
Each boat is built for a purpose and this is built for the backwaters, the skinny stuff. We tried to make this into an ocean-side tarpon boat, but a little water over the gunnels and we thought better of it. It is a thing of beauty. The art, Eric’s original art, is a wrap around the hull, so it can be changed, but I just love the look of it.
I went camping with my daughter and brother this last weekend. It was beautiful up there, really beautiful. Huge bonus… there are trout. Lots and lots of trout.
Photo by Anna
This trip I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I harvested a couple trout. They were hatchery trout, made to be taken out of the stream they were dumped into. Still, these were good looking trout. They were bigger than a fish in that water should really be and they were clumped up together in the way hatchery trout do. I took both trout out of the same pocket about 2 feet from one another.
The girl and a couple of hatchery trout, soon to be smoked.
My daughter was there. She’d never seen me kill anything other than spiders. She was a little cavalier about it and I had to try to get across the seriousness of what I was doing. I talked to her about having respect for the fish, for the life I/we were taking. I don’t know if she got it or not, but it was an important conversation.
I remember, as a kid, maybe her age, opening up the stomach of a young steelhead, a half-pounder (we don’t harvest steelhead anymore), and having my dad tell me what the different organs were and showing me what the fish had been eating. I remember that well.
I don’t know if the same messages were passed down or if I did it as well (um… is that the liver?), but it was something important to do.
A couple weekends ago I went camping with my daughter up around Mount Shasta (my old stomping grounds). I was glad to see the whole place wasn’t totally dry and on fire. So, victory right off the bat.
The girl, breaking in her new rod.
We headed up to a little creek near the campground we were staying at and managed to catch some trout. There was a time I tended to catch my first trout of the year in January, but not this year. This year my first fish came at the end of July.
Not a trout, but cool anyway.
July… like, the end of July.
Part of me was just happy I still knew how (not really, I kind of pillage up there).
It has just been that kind of year. I’ve spent more days fishing in the salt than on my home waters. Two kids, a busy job, a busy wife… the fishing suffers a bit, but that doesn’t mean I’m suffering. I like my life… I love my life, and I have to think there might be some heavier fishing years down the road. Maybe I won’t hit 200 like that one season I guided, but, ya know, more.
I love camping with my kid. My first marriage did not involve camping and when that ended one of the first things I did was grab the girl and go camping. Now we make a point of doing it a couple of times every year and we both look forward to it all year.
My girl got a fly rod for her Birthday back in January and this was her first chance to use it. She got a starter kit from Redington, an 8′ 4 wt and it was just about perfect. She also got a pair of Redington kid sticky rubber wading boots. I think they’ll only get wet a couple more times before she grows out of them, but they worked really well.
Because bacon.
This year I did screw up a bit and, in a fit of laziness (can you have a fit of laziness? That feels too active for laziness.) I left our little cooler out. I was awaken at midnight by the loud sniffing and snuffling sounds of an above average sized black bear. Said black bear made short work of the cooler and hung out a little longer than I would have ideally preferred.
Since the black bear at our breakfast, we went to the (original) Black Bear Diner and ate their breakfast.
It worked out.
This weekend I head camping for our second weekend. Looking forward to it, and I plan on hanging the bacon from a tree.
Well, this is just cool. I don’t know if a 40 year old sales guy gets a vote on what is cool or not, but I’m calling this cool. It is a short video featuring some Glades fishing and it is why I’d head back to Florida… for that.
Things got a little crazy on here after I got back from Florida and some of the stuff I wanted to write I didn’t get to, so I’m going to get back to all of that.
I went to go find the big ladies on their migratory journey. I found a few (very few) and they were uninterested in me (felt like high school). Since I was after the 100 pound plus fish I had a correspondingly heavy rod. In this case, I had a loaner Redington Predator 12weight.
The Predator 12 is a big rod for big fish. It has the additional cork grip so you can really put the stick to the fish with out snapping the thing in more pieces than intended. I’ve never actually cast a rod with the second grip before and I thought might make things a bit heavy. That proved to not be a concern as I found the rod cast remarkably well. Davin put some casts out with the Predator and he liked it as well.
I can’t tell you how if felt on a fish because I didn’t hook a fish on the 12. I really, really, really wish I could tell you how it felt on a big, mature female tarpon, maybe 110 pounds… ya know, the stuff of dreams. Dreams they remain and not born from them on this trip.
So, what I can tell you about the Predator 12 is that it felt good to cast. It wasn’t too heavy and I’m considering adding that rod to the arsenal. At $249, it is a steal by half.
I like gear that is a value and this clearly is. You can spend anywhere from $150 to $900 on a rod these days and for me, every dollar spent on gear is one fewer dollar for the trip kitty. I like to find value for money and this is clearly that.
They make the Predator all the way up to a 14 (I assume for fishing for submarines).
I’m favorably inclined and I bet, if you were in the market, you might enjoy the Predator 12 too, especially if you don’t want to damage your bank account too much in the process.
Where would you think the most expensive bonefishing trip in the world is? If I were going to guess, I’d say St. Brandon’s Atoll (which is my dream location) just because of the travel required to get there and back and the cost of making that all happen in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe the Seychelles? That’s pretty far away and hard to get to.
Well, if you guess like I guess… well… there would be no prizes. St. Brandon’s is about $7,500 and the Seychelles are about $7,500-$8,500.
To be clear, that is not Bonefish on the Brain kind of money. Still, those trips come in about 1/2 as expensive as the TOP (at least as far as I could find) most expensive week of bonefishing in the world.
That honor falls courtesy of the good people at The Nature Conservancy. For the record, I like TNC. They are a savvy group of Earth-savers and I like their rather capitalistic approach to saving the planet. They operate a research station on a far-flung American possession called Palmyra Atoll in the South Pacific.
They offer six trips a year to fish (mostly to dive) Palmyra where there are bonefish populations which know almost no pressure and even less commercial threat, as well as GTs in a similar state. The cost of a trip out to Palmyra is… get ready for it… $16,000 to $18,000 PER PERSON and these spots are offered to individuals who are considering major gifts to support the research work on Palmyra.
So… Bonefish on the Brain will NOT be heading to Palmyra anytime soon (ever… I won’t be heading there ever and neither will you).
There is something profoundly un-American about that whole thing (while at the same time being profoundly American… we are a people of great contradictions… and of no contradictions) and it is bothering me a bit. It might be possible to go without TNC’s blessing, but it seems doubtful. How they got to control a whole atoll that is an American possession is something I need to look into, although this story says they bought Palmyra to stop it from being turned into a Casino, something that sounds totally implausible to begin with.
From BTT. If you fish Florida, please take the survey!
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED: Project Bay Bones Survey
Do you fish for bonefish in south Florida? If you do, then we need your help. Bonefish and Tarpon Trust has partnered with researchers at Florida International University to create PROJECT BAY BONES to investigate changes in South Florida waters and how these changes may affect the quality of bonefishing. We need your help to fill in critical knowledge gaps on how bonefishing has changed in south Florida over the years. In the absence of scientific data on the health of bonefish populations, angler knowledge is an invaluable source of information. Thus, public participation is vital to the conservation of bonefish and to ensuring high quality fishing in the future!
You can help us by filling in a 10-15 minute survey and telling us about your fishing experiences. This survey is different than previous surveys on the bonefish fishery because it is tied into a larger study that is examining environmental changes in South Florida over time. Bringing all of these data sets together should help us better understand bonefish.
We are looking for bonefish anglers of all levels and years of experience, including fishing guides. Your participation in this study is greatly appreciated and we thank you in advance!
For further information or if you have any questions, please contact fishscience@fiu.edu
I get it now. Prescott and Minister Gray are from the Underpant Gnome School of Economics.
Phase 1. Get rid of the anglers.
Phase 2. ?
Phase 3. Profit
Get it?
It is sooooo clear to me now.
A tool that I used to use back in my Foundation/Awarding-Grants days was the Logic Model.
A logic model basically starts with an assumption and then maps it out to see if your assumption is likely to be borne out by the actions and resources applied. I’ll walk you through what this might look like for the proposed regulations push.
Assumptions
These regulations will result in an expanded, more sustainable and more profitable flats fishing industry.
Why these assumptions are misguided.
Expanded Flats Fishing Industry: There will be fewer anglers, not more. Assuming you will convert Unguided Anglers into Guided Anglers by passing regulations doesn’t hold water. Instead, you end up losing the Unguided Anglers who would grab a day or two with a guide. You lose anglers who feel the tone and tenor of the regulations are anti-foreigner. You end up losing family vacationers with an angling dad who wants to be able to walk out on a flat by himself. The pool of days and dollars lost is fairly easy to see, but the pool of net-new angler days is harder to identify. The idea that the industry is expanded by turning away anglers has to rely on an assumption other anglers are waiting to go to the Bahamas but just haven’t yet. I don’t see that as true and neither does anyone else outside of the BFFIA and the Fishy Ministry, I mean Ministry of Fisheries. You make the pie smaller the industry doesn’t magically grow, not unless you are some sort of Underpant Gnome.
More Sustainable Fly Fishing Industry: There have been protected areas proposed and worked on by other organizations (The Nature Conservancy and BTT, to name two) and to come now and make those proposals, as if they are totally new ideas and others haven’t been working on them for years is just dishonest. There are many projects and programs working on conservation now (see this list from BTT), so the recommendations from Prescott merely seeks to take control of those efforts, taking control away from others. The big threats are largely not touched upon. Nothing about over-development or bonefish aggregation points being protected. They want to take over training of guides (and that is something totally needed), but even the guys promoting that effort have shown lapses of judgement that call into doubt the ability of the BFFIA to really do something meaningful here.
More Profitable: Fewer anglers = less profit. There won’t be a wholesale conversion of Unguided Anglers to Guided Anglers. It just won’t happen. Independent guides will lose days, maybe a lot of days, from those family trip or DIY/Guided anglers. If prices are raised higher to compensate, even more people will choose other locations. There will still be anglers coming to the Bahamas to fish with lodges, but the total number of days will drop. Which guides are going to lose out? How is the increased profit going to come from fewer angler days?
The Bahamas has been a great DIY location due to the vastness of the flats. No other Caribbean nation has the flats that the Bahamas does. However, if you restrict DIY to the point it is not viable you make those resources indistinguishably from other locations. Add on top of that the bad blood being stirred up and you end up losing a ton of business.
You can’t turn your clients and customers away and expect that to lead, magically, to all sorts of positive outcomes… unless you are one of these guys…
Our favorite Bahamian megalomaniac likes to imply (or outright state) that the proposed flats fishing regulations are NEEDED in part because the unguided anglers just kill so many fish (50% is a number he threw out in one conversation) due to poor handling.
So… how does the charge stand up that unguided anglers are killing the fish with their horrible handling and a solution is to restrict DIY fishing and force access through guides only?
Yeah… I’m going to say that this might not be the solution.
Of course, there are Bahamian guides with an excellent handle on handling. There are also Unguided Anglers with a pretty good track record on this front as well.
So… let’s just call that whole line of argument what it is… utter bull crap.
While we are at it… anyone know who this guide is showing off his remarkable fish handling skillz with a client?
Um… isn’t that they guy saying we are all doing it wrong?
