“Massively miraculous, a very powerful force, extraordinary;
so extraordinary as to create immediate unreality
in the process upon contact with the fish.”
~ Richard Brautigan, 1973.

The Keys Chronicles
June, 2009.

This season we’re staying at Nate “Dubya’s” Mullet Camp, like always. But this year the flavor is distinctly different, in a bare-bones, fish-camp kind of way. We won’t be sipping our Cuban coffees around his kitchen counter while we whip up new flies, nor lounging on his couch with cocktails after a home cooked dinner of lemon-pepper mahi-mahi. We won’t because (in a fit of hubris and with the best intentions) he gutted the place. This was a few months ago, when business was still booming and before the economy went into low gear and rich people’s portfolios dried up, taking his business with them. His place was a simple structure to begin with—basically a cube with a pitched roof—but when it was full of the accoutrements and paraphernalia of daily life—appliances, stove, counters, tables, and chairs, not to mention lights, walls, and a ceiling—it seemed a normal sort of place. Homely, even. But, with the interior stripped down to the studs and planking, and the ceiling nothing more than a tangle of wires among the rafters—in fact, the underbelly of the roof—well, you feel like you’re seeing a whole different space, like a flat laid bare by low tide.

Thankfully the exterior of the Mullet Camp is much the same, with its wrap-around balcony populated by the odd chair or side table, the warped, moldy floorboards, and the antique tarpon mount hanging at the head of the stairs. It’s cool up there, damp. In the morning—sipping my Cuban coffee and browsing though fly boxes wondering what the fish might like today—I hear doves cooing in the distance and smell the ocean, barely a hundred yards to the south. Even the foliage reminds me of home. There’s Caribbean birch, poinsiana, croton, and coconut palms. However, there are also oak trees and other species I can’t name but which belong firmly to the north American continent.

It feels early, but the rest of the tarpon-fishing world has already put in a good four hours by now. That’s the thing about tarpon fishing, you’re either up before the birds—you can still see stars as you hitch the trailer to the pickup, and you’re on the water when dawn is just a promise on the eastern horizon—or you’re on the veranda nursing your second cup of coffee and checking your leaders while you wait for the sun to rise high enough so you can actually see the fish through the water.

When you do the nocturnal thing you’re looking for rolling fish as dawn breaks, but that’s a hit or miss affair. If the wind is up the fish won’t roll, or you can’t see them if they do. Also, the rolling hour is over quickly and then you’re just sitting there, in a boat, waiting for daylight. If you happen to nail one early you’re glad you made the effort, but if don’t you begin to pine for bed (or wherever you happen to have slept) and wonder if tarpon are really worth all this. By eight o’clock you realize you’ve been blind casting for an hour just to stay awake… and also because the fish are out there, right, one might just grab it.

There’s something magical about that pre-dawn time when tarpon are rolling in channels, canals, and the lee of keys or islands. And if I ever had a perfectly calm morning down here I might be convinced to make the effort and grab a little of that early morning magic for myself, but when’s the last time it was even remotely calm in the Keys in June? Maybe it’s just me—most of my itinerant fishing experience has been in something approaching a young hurricane—but it could simply be the season. I mean, early summer isn’t exactly the calmest period, meteorologically speaking, but that is when the tarpon are here. If I refused to fly fish in the wind I’d never get a cast off. (Never mind that all the trips I’ve taken in the summer, fall, winter or otherwise have been plagued by the same seasonable/unseasonable windy conditions, so maybe it is me after all.) I wonder what would happen if I did encounter a windless day on the flats…

*

Acid Test: The Science of Ocean Acidification from EARTHNATIVE on Vimeo.

Ok, I confess I was horrified (and believed, still believe) An Inconvenient Truth. Imagine, all my beautiful flats drowned by rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans scouring the coral reefs, and rising ocean temps wreaking havoc on the ecosystem I’ve come to rely on.

Now comes a deeply disturbing documentary about unrepentant overfishing and the death of the oceans, but this time there’s something a little more interesting to watch than Al Gore pointing at a chart… even though I did laugh when he rode that little lift thingy.

Learn more, spread the word, take action and buy a copy at endoftheline.com
Help turn the tide: check out the new widget on the sidebar to learn about sustainable seafood.

The 'Old' New Skiff... before the overhaul

And We Don’t Have A Freakin’ Skiff!

Yup, tarpon season is just around the corner and our brains are heating up along with the weather. Just got this little piece of mental clusterflop from good old Nate “Dubya” down in Tavernier Key. I can’t figure whether to call the Bureau of Mental Health, just feel sorry for him, or start stressing out myself that this tarpon season may find us skiff-less. Read and enjoy.

So I have figured out some things down here.  I don’t think the carbon guy has his shit together to spend that sort of loot on his product.  “Some” is the operative word here [as in, let’s do “some” of what we should to have a nice skiff].  Damn it!  Is skiff construction a winter Olympic sport?

If I knew some of the right answers here I would find the motivation to work on it more at night.  Instead I dream I am sanding fiberglass in the nude.  I know it’s not smart but I keep on grinding.  I do however have a respirator on.  Horrific stress dream, man. I just don’t want to waste my energies or miss a tarpon season.  I think I have misplaced some of my energies lately, and I know I left it near my sanity somewhere? What do you think, Mr. WindKnot?

Dolphin marine has some goodies to be bought for cash:

• Old school poling platform: single pipe from the transom with a “Y” or split with two steps.  We will build an insert like the last boat, as opposed to a mount on top cap.  (Hope to score this for no more than $200.00.)  It also allows us to choose our desired platform height and gives the room to steer a tiller.  Not as stable as I would like it to be, but neither is my life at this point… so why not?
• Slam hatch for the transom replacing the circular access to the bilge.  Like the one on the old skiff. $20.00???
• 27-gallon fuel tank?  I can’t find one that works with her dimensions or my dementia.  It would take the whole space forward.  They are [freakin’] seven inches tall.  They put carpet on top of them.  They have a baffle but not a great one.  I am skeptical about this and wonder if they were not pulled for this reason.  Plus, that’s a lot of fuel. They have temp ones, but I would rather put a perm one in and glass in the step up to support the span of the cap above.
• Spray rails @ $44.00 apiece. (A steal.) They’re pre drilled and counter sunk and the Keys people quote $190.00 for the job.
• Rubrail, end cap and insert for $130.00… a fair deal and we know it is the right one.
• The tiller?  I have been looking on ebay, but no one can seem to tell me exactly what I need.  It cost around $600 new from Dolphin.

[And, after all that there’s still] the trailer.  It has no title. And is a royal pain in the scrotum to register it as “homemade”. [It’s gotta be] weighed, certified, serial numbered, and $200 bucks for taxable worth.  Is it worth it to refit it with new tires, hubs, and bearings? This shit is stressing me out. [I mean,] do I glass the rigging holes or put pie covers?

Tell me if this scheme is nuckin flagrently fucin crazy or smart and nifty/resourceful?

[Wait,] do I put the battery up front?… did you know all the fish froze to death?… L.E.D. lights on the trailer?… paint a tarpon on the entry?… shit, flush mount push pole holders?… composite electric trim tabs or bennett sports?

[Help.]

About the Author:

Nate "Dubya" Landing a Keys "Poon"

Mr. Nate “Dubya” runs a successful/struggling/booming/busting business building sweet-ass shit for rich people in the Florida Keys. In his spare time — which he has none of — he a fish-a-holic… recently inducted into the close-knit (yet suspicious) brotherhood of fly fishing tarpon fanatics. A self taught scholar of the flats, tropical architecture, and interior design, he hopes to one day finish rebuilding his own tropical home and have a functional skiff to wet a line on the fabled flats in his (freakin’) backyard (for goodness’ sake). (He has also promised to one day visit the author of this blog and cast flies at little bonefish in my backyard, but I’m not holding my breath.)

“Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked away to the creek when the tribe did not really need fish.”
~Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps, 1946.

“And anyone who thinks I brag is stating that I understand fish-thought is obviously ignorant of the way in which fish think. Believe me, it’s nothing to brag about.”
~David James Duncan, The River Why, 1983.

“Imagine the permit coming out of a deep-water wreck by the pull of moon and tide, riding the invisible crest of the incoming water, feeding and moving by force of blood, only to run afoul of an asshole from Connecticut.”
~Thomas McGuane, Ninety-two in the Shade, 1973.

For those of us without a trust fund (to bankroll frequent trips to the equatorial regions), winter is the time to catch up on the flytying, clean your tackle, tie leaders, and live vicariously through the printed word. In case you’ve forgotten, some of those words still come on this stuff called “paper”. So, unplug, mute the mobile phone, pour yourself a glass of your favorite treat and read a little.

Just ran across this link on a comment on a post on the Fly Fish Chick blog. (Wow, there’s something you wouldn’t have heard 10 years ago.) It’s a list of 158 fly fishing books — heavy on the literature and sparse with the how-to types. Good stuff.

I got this letter a few days ago from someone calling themselves “a committed guide” [1]. It’s so damn funny and insightful and delightfully frustrated (in a ranting, I’ve-just-gotta-vent kind of way) that I couldn’t help posting it. Maybe the humor is only apparent to other guides and those readers who’ve only ever been on the other side of that business arrangement might find it harsh or sarcastic or even insulting. I hope not. Instead, heed the simple, earthy wisdom and, go ahead, laugh a little. What follows is the letter in full with only a few minor editorial adjustments for clarity. Enjoy, and please leave a comment.

~ Davin Ebanks (a.k.a. Flatswalker)

How hard is it to get bonefish to bite?

Basically it’s only as hard as you make it. I watch people catch them all the time so know it isn’t that hard. First, the cast has to be in the right spot. Second, you have to move the fly in the right way. Third, you have to make a long sharp strip to set the hook. Fourth, let the fish run when it wants to and keep the line tight if it swims towards you. If you don’t do any of these things it will not work.

Sounds simple but, not really. The Bahamas or Central America or Florida all use different types of flies and different retrieves and different presentations. Now I haven’t fished for bass or trout or salmon, but if I was fishing with a guide elsewhere where the fish are feeding mainly on minnows I wouldn’t throw a fly imitating a minnow at the fish and move it like it was a crab or a shrimp, it [probably] won’t work.

If the fish wants the fly 8 inches from its face to notice it and I put it 5 ft. away I don’t [can't] expect it to bite. If the fish needs the fly to land a minimum of 3 ft away to avoid spooking it and I put it 8 inches away instead, I won’t expect the fish to bite.

Bottom line: the cast, retrieve, and hook-set determine if you’re going to be successful or not. You don’t even need to see the fish; just put it where the guide tells you and retrieve it like he says. If I were to fish elsewhere and didn’t listen to the guide and didn’t hook up, I would be wasting my time and money because I would be paying someone else to advise me on what he knows works and doing things my own way and wondering why it didn’t work.

We [as guides] can only take them where we know the fish have shown up before, advise them on what they need to do, and watch them do their own thing. Remember that it isn’t the guide that wants things a certain way, it is the fish that we are trying to fool with bits of fabric tied into various concoctions. He wants what he wants to eat. Simple.

Remember the strip set, because if the fish bites and never gets hooked the first 2 steps are wasted. Yes, reflex takes over and the rod gets raised and the fly just pops out of the fishes mouth: reflex, habit, it happens to everyone.

All fishermen make errors: bad casts, rod-sets,  the list goes on, (and I’m certainly including myself here), but to blatantly disregard what someone is telling me to do in order to catch a fish… well, not guilty.

I find that people that have never fly fished before listen better than those that have fished in all the exotic locations. Unfortunately it takes a lot of time to get over the rod-set but they end up getting way more bites than the more experienced clientele. [True.]

The only thing that the novice does better than a seasoned fly fisherman is to listen to advice. He can’t cast as far or as accurate but he tries and listens. That is why he is more successful, not beginners luck.

I think it was Lefty Kreh that said the three most important things in fly fishing is presentation, presentation, presentation.

Remember, if it doesn’t look right and doesn’t move right its not going to get bit, RIGHT?

There are some days where nothing works to get the bite or (even worse) there are some days that the fish don’t show up at all. The worse thing is to give up. The sport is called fishing, it is ultimately up to the fish whether it is going to show up and bite or not. Trust me I have yet to meet someone who can promise the fish are going to be at place X at time Y and they are going to bite on fly Z. All you can do is try. By giving up it is guaranteed that you are going to fail. If you don’t try or aren’t there you can’t win.

Do you think this sums up all the things that can go wrong? [Wait, I just thought of another:] add too much alcohol and chances are the fly will never get in front of a fish, and someone might end up with a new piercing. Not cool.

Listening is such a small thing but often without it the hookup will not happen.

IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE!!!!

__________

Yes, we’re here, my brother. Semper Fi.
____________________
1 I’m not quite sure if the author was aware of the dual meaning of the word “committed” when he chose that pseudonym — as in “poor bastard just couldn’t stand the strain; I hate to say it but he should be committed”. [back]

Eleuthera, Bahamas May 2004

POSTSCRIPT

Our final day: we bid farewell to Aaron (who had an early flight to catch) and went fishing. In keeping with the cosmic laws that govern such things, this day dawned with perfect weather — just as the angler who needed it most was flying out. Winds were light and variable and the sky was crystal clear. In celebration of the perfect visibility we headed north to explore the area call Lower Bogue on the northwestern coast. Again the beaches were stunning, as was the panorama from the fabled Glass Window Bridge. However, we saw no bones, just sharks and cudas. That’s the problem with only visiting a place once: I still can’t figure if we were there on the wrong tide or those bare sand flats just don’t hold fish [7]. I would love to talk with anyone who has actually fished that area successfully. I mean, we had be best conditions for spotting fish ever; they simply weren’t there.

So, we headed back southward to good old Boxfish Bay to catch the falling tide. It was awesome, exactly what you hope for after paying your dues with a week of schlepping it out on blown out flats where you can actually see the shadows of the wind-blown foam lines on the bottom. During the last hour of our last tide we saw fish everywhere. The water was oil-calm and you could spot tails a hundred yards away. All you had to do was wade into range, make an accurate cast, strip once and the fish was on. Dad and I both caught several fish and I had the pleasure of watching a particularly big bone wallow over a shallow bank with its back out of the water to chase my shrimp fly. That’s a sight I won’t forget in a hurry, and a perfect way to end our trip.

Aaron, my friend, you should have been there.

____________________
7 Which logically makes no sense, right? I mean, all those predators — the cuda and sharks — must be there for something. I still like to think that we just hit it wrong and if we’d had better luck in our timing we’d have found bonefish (which would have made those beaches more than just pretty stretches of sand and turquoise water, it would have made them perfect). [back]