Another massive bone caught with Coach Duff in Hawaii. This time, the lucky angler was Richard from Seattle. Not only did Richard escape the gray and dreary North West in January, he stuck a 10.8 pound bonefish while in beautiful Hawaii.
Nice…
Richard from Seattle with a 10.8 pound bonefish
Credit worries about Dubia have driven the British Pound to it’s lowest level in recent times… or, that’s the headline I just saw. That’s probably important in some way to lots and lots of people. I am not one of those people.
What does interest me about Dubia is the rumor of a 20 pound bonefish being caught there a few years back. See… now THAT I find real interesting.
Here is an account of the big, bad bonefish.
Of course, rumors of 20 pounders surface here and there… read a back-and-forth from Hawaii about a rumored 20 pounder made into fish cakes. Heard rumors of massive bonefish spotted but not caught in New Caledonia. Florida posts a LOT of the line class bonefish records. The current record fish comes from South Africa and it probably was not a total aberration. So, there are plenty of places out there that could post that elusive 20 pounder.
But Dubia? Land of the artificial islands and monster/silly towers of metal and glass? Really?
I wonder if you can spot bonefish from that.
I guess the answer is… maybe.
Ocean Active offers some fly fishing charters. I have no idea who they are.
Deneki Outdoors… see, they are just wired… in with the whole “internet revolution” or whatever. I saw their latest report from Andros South pop up and wanted to send it on to all you non-Twitterati.
The other item that caught my eye from Twitter today was from Black Fly, a lodge in Abaco. The sweet tweet reported a THIRTY INCH bonefish caught by some lucky SOB named David.
The Bonefish Adventure website has a length to weight estimation table that puts a 30 inch fish at fifteen pounds. Nice.
I just had this pop up on my bonefish google alert… a post from Gibby’s Fishing Blog about his favorite flyfishing species.
This was 20 years ago, in a tournament…
I caught my first bonefish on fly about 20 years ago. I was fishing in a tournament. The two days prior to the tournament were calm and clear. On tournament day, the sky was overcast and the wind howled at 25 miles per hour.But I had a great guide. He not only put me on a ton of bonefish, but also kept the wind at my back and off my casting shoulder. In early afternoon, I hooked a monster bone near Shell Key. The fish departed that flat like it was shot from a cannon.“If that fish goes deep, you’ll lose it on the coral,” said my guide.Luckily, the fish didn’t dive and I was able to get it out of the channel and back onto the flat.If I had known how big that fish was, I’m certain I would have choked. But I didn’t. My guide netted the fish and said, “You might as well quit now because you’ll never catch a bigger bonefish.”The bone was slightly more than 33 inches long and weighed an estimated 14 pounds.I won the tournament.
My first bonefish... not 14 pounds.
There is a place that is slowly becoming synonymous with really big bonefish. The rumors are of an average size of 7 pounds with double digit fish a regular sight. It seems to be similar to Hawaii in that what the fish have in size, they lack in numbers. Despite being in the middle of nowhere (unless you live there, in which case you are just in the middle of whatever you are doing), the place doesn’t have Christmas Island numbers… but it has size… big ole bones… the tackle busting kind. This place is called New Caledonia.
Closer to Australia than to Hawaii (by a long, long way), New Caledonia sits in the South Pacific and looks to be a pretty interesting place. The lux lodges are not around just yet… as one report said, this is not a place for folks that need hand holding. The action isn’t hot and hectic, it is measured and tense… eyes looking for those truly large fish.
Seems in 2007 a group of anglers that included Charles Rangeley-Wilson (one of our bonefish addict faves) and Peter Morse hit the island in search of some of the giants. They both have write ups about this trip.
The price on offer… big bones.
Peter Morse describes the trip…
As always the weather in New Cal makes it a challenge, this is not the place for anyone who needs to have their hand held, you require a level of experience that at the least means choosing flies, tying knots, and making decisions. The fish aren’t particularly spooky most of the time, but seeing them, and dealing with the wind and cloud becomes a test of patience and skill. This is not a place for Christmas island cricket score numbers, it’s a place for quality, a few very, very, good fish that will really last in your memory.
Certainly sounds like an interesting place, not a place I’m ready for, but something to aspire to. Charles uses a bit more style in his article from Gray’s Sporting Journal…
What little I’d discovered about bonefish in New Caledonia told me only two things: that they are very hard to find, and that if you find one, it will be very, very large. It’s the latter more than the former that dragged me here. There are many species of bonefish worldwide—Morsie gave us an expert tutorial in this—but while the physical differences may be subtle, all bonefish are paranoid, skittish, morphing ghosts that mess with your mind, your eyesight, and your sanity. And in New Caledonia, so the international fish-whispering goes, these fish become truly massive. The biggest rush, the biggest wave.
I found a report at Fishing International that said this of the fish and fish size…
We weighed all our fish using a “Bocagrip”* and we released fish from 6 up to 10 pounds. Both of us saw larger fish that were out of reach. I estimate the largest fish I saw at about 15+ pounds, but it is difficult to be certain. The average size of the fish we released was 6.5 to 7 pounds. It was obvious that there are some very large fish around. How large? Our guide Antoine landed a 9 kgs. (19.80 pounds) fish using bait, the week before we got there. Can you take them with a fly rod? Claude Nickrass’s party from France hooked and lost some of these large fish in December 2000 using a fly rod. The next world record bonefish could certainly be caught in New Caledonia.
OK… that sounds pretty interesting, no? Even if I could catch a 19 pound bonefish in New Caledonia, I won’t be going any time soon. See, a quick look at Kayak.com for flights puts a price tag for a flight from SFO to New Caledonia at about $2,750. The trip there is about 24 hours, the journey back is about 30… 30 hours… like, over a day. Now, I’m not accustomed to travel to Australia or Singapore, so that sort of travel is enough to make me think “Andros has some big bones too… Hawaii has big bones and air conditioning!”
Still… New Caledonia sounds like a fascinating place… a place where “Elk outnumber inhabitants” and 19 pound bonefish have been caught (even if on bait). The next world record just might come from this little chain of islands in the South Pacific. Watch this space!
*Bocagrips are generally discouraged for handling bonefish. Don’t do it.
