A little clip of how to tie Larry Dahlberg’s Bonecrusher, a very effective bonefish fly. Read more about it the fly here: bonefishonthebrain.com.

Sunday, December 24, 2000

I scared some fish pretty badly today. None died of heart attacks, so I didn’t catch any.

For the first time in days it was a decent weather. Not good, but decent. It wasn’t blowing a full gale and there were the odd moments of sunlight between the driven clouds. I hadn’t been on that flat since summer and I wanted to see if there would be any real difference in the fishing… apparently not. Just windier. In three hours I saw maybe eight fish. The first were in a group of maybe a half dozen and were past me so fast I had only one shot at them. The other two were singles and I spooked them both.

I still don’t get this bonefishing thing. I mean, other fish make sense: they eat baitfish so you throw a streamer at them, pull it away, and if they like what they see they’ll come over and eat it. It’s simple. The only worry is maybe matching the size of the bait, though if the fish are biting this hardly matters.

Bonefish seem totally different, even though one hears they can be caught using the same logic. The trick, they say (usually in magazines that come out of places like Illinois or New Hampshire), is to figure out what the bonefish are eating, learn how those bait act, and present a fly accordingly. Apparently this works, since in the same publications they have pictures of anglers cradling five-pounders with the flies still stuck in their mouths. Smug bastards.

Every time I try their advice the whole thing goes to pieces (threatening to take my sanity with it). I have tossed all sorts of flies at many bonefish and the results are fairly predictable. About the only thing that varies is how the fish leave. Some hustle around nervously and then cruise off while others bolt outright, pushing what I invariably think of as “bow-wakes” across the flat. Most, however, either ignore my offerings or never see them. To borrow from Tom Stoppard’s Guildenstern, I feel like a blind man looting a bazaar for his own portrait.

Clearly more research is needed, but how? Do I take a year’s hiatus from my job and try to discover some of their secrets on my own, or do I simply hire one of the Bahamian gurus – “Crazy” Charlie Smith, perhaps – to teach me what they know? I suppose I could pray for enlightenment, but I’m reasonably confident catching a bonefish doesn’t rate very highly on The Almighty’s list of goals for my life. At the rate I’m going I might catch one before the year is out, but the odds seem against it. I’m either so hopeless that I should be banned from all bonefish flats for life, or these fish are just impossible. If I ever do nail this thing it’ll undoubtedly turn out that there was some really simple thing I was doing wrong the whole time. I hope so. I’m tired of throwing flies at fish and either scaring them, or (worse) having them not see my fly at all. There has got to be a middle ground somewhere – a zone where the fly lands perfectly, the bonefish sees the fly, likes it, swims over and eats it. I would love to be there just once.

“Obsession brought us to this place… in search of a ghost, a phantom, a shadow that is all but invisible… unless you know how to find it… Flatswalker’s Journal, March, 2009.”

Windknot and Dad, guided by none other than Big Charlie Neymour, find themselves facing 20 knots of breeze… and some truly BIG bonefish.

To learn more check out www.bigcharlieandros.net and go hunt the Grey Ghost yourself.

“Flatswalker’s Journal, March 2010. We descend into paradise to look for the Grey Fox, but we also find a wolf…”

Do it yourself (DIY) fly fishing leads to an unusual discovery for this small group of anglers at an undisclosed location in the Caribbean. Barracudas (the Wolf) are on the attack and bonefish (the Grey Fox) scatter everywhere. Nevermind, they leave that flat well alone and continue their search for bonefish on the flats… and they find some.

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.
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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.

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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]