So long DIYbonefishing.com and thanks for all the fish

Some of you may have noticed that the old DIYbonefishing.com site, which had allllll sorts of information on where to find bonefish, is now this hot wreck:

When was the last time you were bonefishing in a fresh water lake with snow capped mountains in the background?

This is a snapshot of the old website:

Gee… I notice a considerable difference.

Why buy the site and then put up a totally generic and crappy face on it? I mean… who does that?

Rod Hamilton was the guy behind the original DIY website and a couple of DIY bonefishing books, like “Do It Yourself Bonefishing.”

Good Book Rod!

What happened here is not readily apparent. There was no broadcast farewell. There was no message to fans and friends. The site just went down, replaced by that dumpster fire of a website. Rod’s email doesn’t work anymore. I don’t have a way to contact him. He appears to have called it a day, although no one I’ve spoken to really knows what to make of this sudden departure from the scene. I hope he’s well, as I know many of us do.

One can argue if it was a good idea to “hotspot” in such a public and readily accessible manner. I fall into the camp of “if you tell everyone where all the spots are, you spread out the pressure.” It may be a crap opinion. I don’t know that there is a scientific study here to fall back on.

I liked having all the info out there. Knowing where to go doesn’t mean you are going to find fish, or that you’ll be able to catch them if you can find them. DIY fishing is, simply, harder than doing it with a guide who knows the ins and outs of their particular bit of water.

If you have additional information on what happened here, please share here. And Rod… if you are out there, I hope you are well.

 

Tags: , ,

8 comments

  1. Agree — saw that last week myself too bad. I have one of his books & it’s excellent.

    Hope he is well & yes it’s time to delete that bookmark.

  2. I’m glad it’s gone. Part of the DIY is discovering. Spoon fed “secrets’ are BS. Promotion of fishing is killing it.

  3. Not like you couldn’t discover if the site was up, right? I mean… not like every spot was listed there and if you can drive or walk to it, it has been fished by someone, right? I know some people didn’t like it, but, I’m a more the merrier kind of guy.

  4. While I agree that part of the intrigue of DIY is figuring things out on your own, I also will miss this website. I thoroughly enjoy Rod’s book and it’s a great resource. My bonefishing is limited to a half day with a guide and maybe a couple additional hours on my own over the course of an entire year. I simply don’t have time to explore and figure it out on my own, which made this website and book an invaluable resource. I hope Mr. Hamilton is well!

  5. Rod opened up the Bahamas and Bonefishing for me. I’ve done some guided trips but I really like to stalk them on foot. He gave up a lot a spots but most are still quite ‘underfished’ in the best of ways. Most important it gave me an idea of what good spots looked like, how they might work and how to find others… which I have.

    Right now I’m sitting on Cherokee Sound on Abaco. Not my favorite because as Rod described, the fish here ‘know Charlie well’. They are tough but the flat here is unbelievably nice and full of fish including some very nice fish.. Also as Rod said, by October the fish may have forgotten some things since last season.

    No secret here but haven’t seen another fisherman here yet.

  6. Well, actually he seems disappeared in “bonefishig” pages and in his DIY bonefishing facebook address as well. I also tried to get in touch with him as I did in the past for some advices. But searching in the web his city , Courtenay in BC, and local fishing club, Comox Valley Flyfishers club, together with his name…then you can see some recent posts by him.
    Luckily he seems in good shape and having great time.

  7. Not sure if anyone is interested or why but he seems to have a new book out called Fly Fishing the Yucatan perhaps he just forget to keep his domain up to date “I think microsoft did this once” and lost his website. I think he works with the guys from Catch Fly Fishing with regards to fly design…. hope this helps someone…. Nice site by the way!

  8. That book has been out for a few years. I fished with Nick Denbow, a co-author on that book. Good book.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *