The definition of sweetness… a photo essay on the Pine Island Angler blog. Nice, nice, nice. Check out the blog for all the goodness.
Here’s a quick photo essay from my third trip back to the Keys this year. I fished with two of my buddies Capt. Mike Bartlett of Key West and Capt. Rob Kramarz from Cudjoe Key. Both are great guides and will show you an excellent time on the water.
via The Pine Island Angler: More Key West Bonefishing, August 2010.
A sample... go to the blog and check it out.
I enjoyed my recent interview with Lori-Ann Murphy of El Pescador. After talking with her I did some more poking around on-line to see what I could find out about development or over-development in Ambergris.
The first thing I found was nice little video by Wil Flack, good friend of Lori-Ann and seemingly all around good guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSrWsFRPuQM?fs=1&hl=en_US
South Beach Belize… it sounds pleasant, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be nice to retire down in Belize… grab your rod in the morning after you’ve had your coffee and go and catch a bonefish in out your front door? It does sound nice. The downside is that they have to dredge the bejesus out of the flats and bulldoze the hell out of the mangroves to get that front door there. All those mangroves are where the fish live/grow/hunt. You nuke the mangroves and you nuke the fishing.
I don’t even know that much about saltwater fishing, but I can understand that pretty well.
This is what greed looks like.
Sounds like these guys have been botching the job since day -1 (and more).
You can seen the construction, right up against a protected area.
It is a little difficult to figure out what exactly is happening on the ground. I found the website for Ambergris Caye Citizens for Sustainable Development and their listing of the status of current projects. They seem to think that the project has not been green-lit, although it is easy enough to find folks selling South Beach Belize property.
It sounds like the project is on hold for now. Before you go and drop some coin on a little bit of raped and pillaged Belize, just think that these guys sold plots for a project that isn’t even in the bag. That can’t be good.
I have no idea, but I can’t get this video to embed in this post… here’s a link to a video called “How South Beach Belize Will Impact Ambergris.”
(First, just a note, you can be entered to win some Skinny Water Culture gear by emailing me the account of your first bonefish. bonefishonthebrain@gmail.com)
As you may have guessed, I dig Skinny Water Culture gear. So, I was really excited to read on their blog about a bonefishing trip and a re-capture of a bonefish tag.
Nice fish and nice tag.
They got word back about the fish and it’s 658 days between tagging and recapture. Awesome.
Bonefish tagging… it’s important stuff. The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust does tagging as does the Bonefish & Tarpon Research Center at the University of Miami. Keep up the good work guys!
Lori-Ann Murphy has a job that I would consider killing for. Not really… well… maybe… depends who is asking I guess. She is the Director of Fishing at El Pescador Lodge in Belize. She didn’t luck into it though (which is the only way I’d get that kind of job). She was the first female Orvis endorsed guide. She’s been a guide for 21 years. She splits time in Montana and Belize… basically places with fish. She founded Reel Women, which I’ll try to tell my wife about in the vain hope she’ll desire to cast a fly some day.
Lori-Ann with Wil Flack and a couple little permit (although one may be a pamoleta). Double Date.
Lori-Ann called all the way from Belize for this interview, which my three year old daughter crashed at least twice. Thanks Lori-Ann.
Your title is “Director of Fishing.” What does that entail there at El Pescador Lodge?
I’m a liaison between the guests and the guides. Today I’m going to do a fishing orientation… I bring a big map and show everyone where we are and I tell everyone about the lagoon in the back and all the fishing they can do around here on their own and what the guided experience is all about and get them ready for that. I look over their flies. We have a full quiver of fly rods here, 8-12 wt, so if they need to be outfitted with one of our fly rods I’ll take care of that. In the morning I introduce everyone to their guides and explain the day. I work with the guides. I have a great team of 11 that I love to pieces. The day before yesterday I had a guide meeting. I’m also a nurse, so when I first came here in November they were asking why we were having all these meetings, and I said “I’m a nurse, we have meetings.” We have monthly meetings with the guides to discuss all the things that come up, guest relations to environment to whatever the current thing we might be doing is.
For the people that come out to El Pescador, where to you think their expectations are compared to the reality of the experience?
I’m amazed that beginner saltwater angles come here and say “I want to get a Permit” and they do. El Pescador is a great place for beginners because we have a bagillion bonefish and while they might not be as big as the Bahamas, but they are all hot fish, 2-6 pounds… a 6-8 fish is huge. I was just reading an evaluation from a beginner and he was fully expecting, as a beginner, to land a grand slam. I think people probably have been reading too many magazines and watching too many TV shows and some people are quickly humbled in the salt. I usually do daily casting lessons at 4:30 on how to have an efficient cast and how to pick it up and shoot it and how to change the speed of your haul and all that stuff. Expectations are all over the map. Generally, people come here with really high expectations and it works, somehow.
It seems Ambergris has become very popular. I’ve seen the Currents of Belize and my overall impression is that there is a lot of development and that over-development is either happening or about to happen. What’s your impression being down there?
Wil Flack and all the guys who did Currents of Belize, those guys are all my friends. Twenty years ago it was a small fishing village. Ten years ago it really changed. The government was able to sell land and when you sell land people were also able to dredge up the flats. So that’s been going on a lot. A lot of my time in Belize was in the 90’s and that wasn’t happening. Allie, the owner here dedicates 20% of her time trying to preserve the land around here so we can keep the mangroves intact, keep the flats intact so we have a sustainable fishery for future generations. That’s a really big discussion down here. There’s Green Reef and other organizations that are trying to do good things. Allie had investors buying land. Leonardo DiCaprio bought a Cay, Black Door Cay, and Allie bought four small keys to preserve and put it in a land trust. We hope to see more of that. The San Pedranos here have seen SO much change in the last 20 years. At first it was wonderful since people went from a small fishing village to actually having some money. The guides here make a lot of money, between $60K and $100K. We’ve all seen a lot of change. There is a huge push to keep Ambergris from just getting sold right off.
BTT’s Aaron Adams scouting out El Pescador
I was a big fan of Pirates of the Flats and have been watching the news coming out about Buccaneers and Bones. What was it like to be part of that project?
I was really flattered. It was a lot of fun. I had that week off my regular responsibilities because I was involved in the fishing and filming end of it. It was great to get to know the whole crew. Of course, Tom Brokaw, Michael Keaton, Tom McGuane, they all have a place up on the Bolder River in Montana and I live close to there (I live here for 9 months and in Montana the other 3). That Montana connection was wonderful and being able to see the passion and commitment from Yvon Chouinard. Tom Brokaw would say something, we were talking about the oil spill and he said “We have to stop calling it an oil spill because it is a catastrophe and it will affect our lives for our future.” All off a sudden you realize that is Tom Brokaw speaking there and he’s had his foot on every place on the planet. Michael Keaton was really passionate and really fun… pumped up and excited to be part of things. We had that tropical depression Alex come in and that was interesting. Everyone bolted out of here a day early.
Lori-Ann with Wil Flack and, on the right, Zach Gilford
Going to Florida, Stu Apte has been a friend of mine but I’ve never been able to fish with him before, so that was quite an honor to be tarpon fishing and hanging out with Stu Apte. I hadn’t met Jerry Alt. Being able to hear those guys talk and be right there at the ground level talking about tarpon migration and data and being a part of tagging fish, both bonefish and tarpon. It was fantastic.
I had a nervous breakdown in Florida over a tarpon, so I can’t wait for that episode.
El Pescador, Ally and the crew really work as a team around here and it was such a big production. We had guests here too… it was a big deal.
What’s your go-to rod and reel right now?
Jerry Siem is one of my very dear friends and I’m very fortunate to fish Sage Rods and Reels. I also fish Hatch Reels, I have a few Tibors and I like those as well.
My favorite rod right now is the Xi3 7 wt.
You throw a 7 because the bones are a little smaller there?
I just love this rod. I just love the action of it. The bonefish are smaller here so you don’t need to throw a whole lot of line. Today I went down to 16 pound because I saw some Permit, didn’t get them, but it sure was fun.
I have Xi3’s in 7, 8, 9 and 11.
When you are out on the water a lot you see things that others just don’t see. Do you have any stories of things you’ve seen by virtue of being out there on the water as much as you are?
Sure, I have two stories right off the bat. One, I was fishing with my friend Wil Flack and we were bonefishing out in the lagoon out back, which is stellar. We canoed out and then got out to wade this little bay. It’s a muddy bay and we were both up to our knees in mud. We were on opposite sides of the bay. We were probably 200 yards apart. I saw a 7 foot long dark thing come right in between us from the mangroves. I’m thinking “Tarpon!” I can’t wait to see the big tarpon back. I’ve seen lots of baby tarpon, but I’m thinking I’m seeing big tarpon. I cast to this thing (I had a bonefish fly on, but my nature instinct is just to cast) I give this thing a cranial and it stops. I’m yelling to Wil and he’s just so focused because he has a ton of bonefish in front of him. He looks up and the thing gets sideways and the tail goes “wahwahwah.” He yells “That’s a Croc!” We didn’t move. At the end of the day we were talking about it and said “I’ve never waded with a Croc before.” At the time we were just in such bonefish fever we didn’t want to give it up. We had waves of bonefish coming at us. This Croc just swam right between us and just left. We continued fishing all day and didn’t really think about it until the end of the day.
Another time we were out there fishing with Wil and Paulie, these guys are steelhead guides up on the Sustut, and Paulie is out there catching his first bonefish. We turn around and this Frigatebird (Frigatebirds can’t land in the water, they can’t take off and die if they land in the water) nearly turns itself inside out and nails about a 3 pound bonefish and flies off with it. I’ve been fishing since ’92 and I’ve never seen that.
Thanks Lori-Ann!
As happens to most of us, I recently had a birthday. In general, I have one of these things a year and I try to find myself on a river when it comes about.
This year I went with a couple of friends (John and Phil) up to do some exploring around Tahoe. Most of my trout fishing has taken place a couple hundred miles North of here and I really have not poked around Tahoe too much. I do so little exploring in my trout fishing these days, this was a welcome change of pace.
Beautiful Blue Lakes Creek
We stuck to little creeks in part to help get my friend Phil into fish since he is a relative new-comer to fly fishing. It worked. Phil caught a few fish, including fish unassisted. If you like Drum n Bass, you might dig Phil’s work in Bachelors of Science.
Phil landing a trout, solo
John doesn’t do anything interesting. In fact, he kind of smells. He’s old and maybe even a little bit “special.” I’d add that somehow I think he out-pegged me in the catching department by about 2. Out-catching a guy on his birthday… I’d call him a bastard except I’ve met his parents. So, I’ll call him “bastard-ish.”
Look at him, all smug...
A bonefish is a special species that has captured my imagination. Rainbow trout are my “home” fish, if there is such a thing. However, I think that there be no more beautiful creature than a small brook trout.
Brookie
Good times were had. More than a couple beers were drunk. Another one in the books.
I should add that we got absolutely soaked… the skies opened and let loose with buckets and buckets of rain and a little hail. I think this is the first time that I’ve experienced rain on my birthday. We tried not to let the rain get in the way, but the lack of rain jackets (or waders… I mean, it’s AUGUST) really did not end up in the “Plus” column. Still… good times… good times.
Waiting in traffic to get to the toll plaza at the entrance of the Bay Bridge we saw a very, very odd thing.
That's a dog... with a helmet... on a motorcycle.
Some goodness from Field and Stream… a place I’m learning to find some really good content.
Today’s fish were spooky, snobby, finicky, and loved to tease. They tracked my flies all day, turning away at the last second. But all that changed when guide Rick Sawyer broke out the sexiest bonefish fly I’ve ever seen.
via Cermele: The Sexiest Fly in the Bahamas | Field & Stream.
Any guesses?
OK, it is the very definition of marketing, but I still want to go.
If you want to catch one of those silvery fish called bonefish (also called phantom or gray ghost), and most everyone does when they come to Exuma, there are more wadeable flats here than anywhere else in the Out Islands. Bonefish average about 4 or 5 pounds but it is not uncommon to land a big 10 pounder. They are, pound for pound, probably the strongest and fastest running salt-water fish and highly sought-after by anglers.
via Bonefishing in Exuma : Great Exuma, Bahamas | Vacation Rentals.
(First, just a note, you can be entered to win some Skinny Water Culture gear by emailing me the account of your first bonefish. bonefishonthebrain@gmail.com)
The Fiberglass Manifesto put up a great little story about fishing glass for bonefish. It is worth a read.
You can catch bones with this rig.
The first fly rod I ever cast was a Fenwick 9 weight. I had no idea what I was doing. I bounced a Silver Hilton off the back of my head several times. How I didn’t hook myself, I have no idea. No steelhead were harmed in that first foray into fly fishing, despite a good effort.
Now, I fish the fast stuff. However, I really appreciate a guy reminding us all that you can catch a fish on a rod as old as I am and a reel whose design hasn’t changed since WW II (WW I?).
Soon after I had my religious bonefish experience in Hawaii I started looking for shirts with bonefish. I didn’t find much off the bat. My t-shirts fall into roughly two categories… short sleeved fish-themed shirts and longed sleeved fish-themed t-shirts.
Then… I found Skinny Water Culture.
That's beautiful
This is some good looking art… that’s right… I said it… “art.” That bonefish is beautiful and primal and, well, everything I wanted in a fish-themed shirt.
Now, I just managed to give away a pair of Costa Del Mar sunglasses and that was pretty cool… so, I asked the guys at Skinny Water Culture and they said “sure, we’d love to give away some SWC gear.”
So, there… I’m going to give away something (actually, anything they have in stock in whatever size you might be).
So… here’s what I’m thinking. I’d love to hear about your about your first bonefish. You can put comments here or you can put a comment on the page created for this purpose.
For the record, I own two Skinny Water Culture shirts. Both I paid full retail for. See, I’m giving you a free shirt and I’m paying for them. I try to do well by all you folks that honor me by actually reading what I write.
Vaughn Cochran is owner of Black Fly Outfitter, connected to the Black Fly Bonefish Club and an artist specializing in saltwater scenes. His art is fantastic and his place out in Abaco looks nice… so very nice.
Vaugn's art is awesome.
Is there something in your art, when you are doing a bonefish, that you are trying to capture?
I work in so many different styles that is usually the medium I’m working in that determines the fish is going to look like, which is kind of the reverse of how most people would approach it. If I’m using pencil, to me, drawing a bonefish is like drawing an ear of corn because you have all those damn little scales and it’s all the same little thing… it’s very monotonous to do it, but those scales and those lines, that’s what makes it work. If I do it in acrylic, which I did in the “Bright” series, bonefish were part of that series, I used colored lines. One of my most successful bonefish paintings was a paining I call “Lean Green Fighting Machine,” it was an underwater painting. I rarely do stuff like that because everyone else does it, and that usually means I don’t do it. I painted it to show everyone that I could do it and it was the last one of those I ever did. If there is anything I try to capture, I’d say I look more at the formal aspects like lines, shape, color and form, all those kinds of things. They are more important to me than trying to capture the mood of the fish.
With the Black Fly Bonefishing Club in Abaco, it seems you are really tied to Abaco. What’s your history with Abaco? How long have you been fishing it?
I got started with my friend Clint Kemp, who was a guide and now my business partner, and I didn’t fish Abaco until maybe 3-4 years ago. Clint introduced me to Abaco when we did a fly fishing assessment for the project of Schooner Bay, which we are now a part of. That was my first experience, and what an experience it was. I had never seen bonefishing like that before. It was outrageous. At the end of that trip we were sitting on the balcony of one of the little hotels there, drinking rum and smoking Cuban cigars and just remarking about what an incredible trip it had been and how the fishing had been so good it was almost impossible not to sign on to the Bonefish Club… we were wondering how we could not do it at that point. It was the perfect situation for us.
Vaughn hunting some fish in Abaco.
Have you seen a lot of increased interest in Abaco since The Pirates of the Flats was filmed there?
I think the Pirates was a result of the increased interest in Abaco in general. The Abaco Lodge coming in there was a big deal. There are very few lodges in Abaco, it is unlike Andros… someone told me that there were 40 lodges in Andros, I believe it, but in Abaco they are trying to restrict the number of lodges that can be there. Really, there are only so many lodges that can physically be there because of the geography and the water. I don’t think it will ever be as populated as Andros and I think it will remain a very viable fishery for many, many years.
Abaco...
I’ve seen that Schooner Bay is being held up as a model of sustainable development. What are some of the things that are happening there that give it that label?
I think that just the selection of the site alone was key. They took an area that had been repeatedly damaged by hurricanes over the years and they took out the damaged stuff and they kept the good stuff and they didn’t tear down trees to build houses, they put in a harbor, a good 30% of the land is going to be devoted organic farming, the idea of smaller houses and using reverse geo-thermal air conditioning. They are going to capture water. They just dug two huge pits because they needed some dirt and those pits are going to used to create a one million gallon venetian well type of thing, they’ll line those pits, put sand on them and then put plants on top of it and then they’ll take the water that is naturally filtered and put that to a central processing facility where it will be pressurized and sent to the houses. They have all sorts of things they’ve done like that. The community is a bicycle or golf cart community with no cars. It will be a walking community that is a sustainable and simple, small fishing village along the lines of other small fishing villages around the Bahamas.
When is that slated to open?
They should finish the harbor around the first of the year or early Spring. The are looking at 2012 to have businesses running and small houses. It’s interesting because they are building a town, not a condo project where everything has to be built before you open. They want to get a few businesses in and a few homes in and let it grow. The economic engine of any project like that, or any Bahamian town, is the harbor. Once the harbor is done then the boat traffic will come in, the sports fishing boats will come in. It will really change the village and the harbor will be the heart of the village.
Is there something you’ve seen out there that stands out as being unique?
I had an encounter with a water spout that was pretty interesting, but, ya know, as an artist every day is an experience. I see colors and shapes and events and sharks eating things and, ya know, life… big fish eating little fish, I carried my camera with me all the time in Abaco… seeing a tarpon daisy chain, seeing a bonefish daisy chain, seeing 500 bonefish going around in a circle is a pretty interesting thing to see. For an artist, a photographer, a blue sky is the last thing you want to see. You want to see clouds and atmosphere, those are the things that give a scene its dimension. A thunderstorm coming across the water… nothing better than that for a painter. Those are the things I look at every day. I did a paining called Turtle Grass and it was as if you were standing on the front of the boat and looking down in the water. The water is clear and so you are just seeing the pattern of the grass in the water. I took several pictures of that image and worked off the photos to paint the photo, but it took me 8 months to paint the painting. It was pretty complicated, but it was a great piece.
Vaughn is pretty good at this.
What reel and rod to you prefer for your fishing at the moment?
Being someone that sells fishing equipment for a living, I love to fish all sorts of different equipment, different rods, different reels. I like to try new equipment. My current favorite is a Loomis GLX 9 wt. I prefer that rod because you can really lift a lot of line off the water with it. If you do happen to get lucky and get a 10 or 12 pound bonefish you have the tackle to do it. I use the 9 wt. because it’s windy, a lot, and that is a rod you can throw in the wind.
I got a chance to cast the new Hardy, the one that Andy Mill designed. It’s a 9 wt. That’s an equal rod, easily. I tried that again on my last trip and I thought it was a good rod. I’m looking forward to seeing the new Loomis (NRX) to see what that’s like. It’s a great time to be testing rods because there are so many good choices out there.
I have quite a collection of reels and I use different reels all the time. I bought my wife an Abel that’s anti-reverse. She’s a great angler but she doesn’t fish that much and sometimes she forget to take her hand off the reel handle. I started to use her reel and found out I really liked that anti-reverse, even for bonefish, so I guess right now my favorite reel would be that or my equal choice would be the Nautilus, either the NV or the CCF. That’s a great, great reel. They are equal as far as I’m concerned.
Vaughn, a bonefish and a Nautilus
Do you have a particularly memorable bonefish?
We were doing a show this past year called Hooked on the Fly. We had been fishing for a couple of days and I hadn’t been fishing much because the host was fishing and we had some other people there. Finally on the last day the camera man said “OK Vaughn, we need you to catch a fish for the show.” I said “OK, I’ll do my best.” I was with Paul Pinder and George Clark, the camera man. We were working along the edges of one of the flats at Moore’s Island, which is one of the places we go to out of lodge, about an 18 mile trip. I had made a couple of shots at some awfully big fish and Moore’s Island is one of those places that is known for big fish and it is really a special place. Every fish I threw at had run, immediately. Here came this fish, I could tell it was a big fish. I didn’t know how big, but it was big. I threw a fly at the fish, he spooked, made a big circle and came back and ate the fly. It was a huge surprise, I’d never seen that. Once they spook they are gone. This fish took off and I turned to the guide and I said “This is the biggest bonefish I’ve ever caught, I’m sure.” Actually, I thought I hadn’t adjusted my drag properly so when the fish finally stopped running and my backing was almost gone, I checked it and it was set where it should have been and I knew it was a fish of a lifetime. We got the fish in, the camera man was there with an underwater camera. It was amazing because, not only was it the biggest bonefish I’ve ever caught, but it was recorded on film. That show is out in January, I think, but that was my most memorable fish. People estimated it was 12 pounds. A 12 pound fish and the whole thing captured on film. That was amazing.
Thanks Vaughn.
