Regular Features
Regular Features
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by Mike Vineyard Clouds. Those white, fluffy puffs of cotton drifting slowly across the blue tropical sky. Artists and dreamers love them. Flats fishermen hate them. Along with strong winds, clouds are the bane of a bonefishermen’s existence. We had just spent 40 minutes running across the waters from Sandy Point on Bahamas’ Abaco to the flats of Moore’s Island. As we entered the bay, we saw the long scimitar tail of a permit breaking the water 200 yards ahead. The guide quickly cut the motor and grabbed his pole while I scrambled to switch from a bonefish fly to a permit-preferred Del Brown Crab pattern. Though intermittent, the permit continued to tail and we continued to try and close the gap to within casting distance. As we drew closer, we could see that there were actually 3 permit, one of 25 to 30 pounds and two others slightly smaller. Finally, after 30 long minutes, we were 60 to 70 feet out and ready for the cast. Heart pounding, and against long odds, I delivered the fly just to the outside eye of the largest permit. As the fly hit the water, a small cloud darkened the sun. We were “in the dark” and never saw what happened. Did it spook? Ignore the fly? Pick it up and spit it out? Turn in another direction? The permit simply disappeared. The next day, Kevin Kurz of K&K Flyfishers Supply in Kansas City, and I were dropped off by our guide at one end of a long flat. We were at low tide, but intended to walk the flat looking for bonefish moving in on the incoming tide. We saw a small school of swiftly moving bonefish soon after entering the flat, but couldn’t get a cast in front of them. For the next two hours, on a bright, sunny day with just enough wind to riffle the surface, we sought in vain for the elusive “ghosts of the flats.” Finally, as we neared the far end, we saw “nervous” water indicating moving fish. Fortunately they were between us, and our quick casts resulted in a double hook-up. Two speeding fish and two screaming reels! Our guide, Nicholas, rod in hand joined us as we released the pair. Another school moved across the flats near Kevin and he quickly hooked one. As he released it, Nicholas and I each managed to attach ourselves to rocketing bonefish. While releasing these two, we could see numerous schools and cruising pairs almost within casting range. And then? And then? You guessed it. A big ol’ cloud covered the sun and just seemed to hang there. We tried a few blind casts but in vain. It was after 3 in the afternoon, and we were through for the day. There is an urgency in flats fishing that you don’t often encounter
when fishing for trout. For the most part on the flats, you’re dependent
on the sun’s shining in order to see the fish you’re casting to.
You might catch them tailing in calmer water, but usually you have to see
the fish itself. The primary quarries, bonefish and permit, have
reflective scales and little color. It’s usually their shadows that
give away their presence. This means that your prime fishing day
really goes from about 9 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon, the high
sun time. Just six short hours to catch your fish! While this
creates a leisurely early morning and a long cocktail time in the evening,
it puts a time element on your day quite unlike most trout fishing situations.
You also generally fish two
Flats Fishing, Page 2 to a boat with one guide. And if you’re fishing from the boat instead of wading, with only one of you casting at a time, that cuts your fishing time to just 3 hours. Are you going to break for lunch? You’ll lose even more time if you do. Only by adapting to the laid-back, “island time” mentality can you keep from going insane. Sure, your trout stream hatch may only last a few minutes or hours, and it can find you scrambling frantically to find the one fly they will take. But when it ends, you can still fish nymphs, attractor dries, streamers, terrestrials, or switch to another hatching pattern. When you lose the sun on the flats you’re pretty much through until it reappears. When you finally get that cloudless weather, and you eagerly anticipate a “big numbers” day on those bones, what happens? The wind decides to really blow and test your casting ability. Have you really ever tried to make that 45 to 50 foot cast with a heavy fly and the wind coming from right to left at 40 miles per hour? And knowing that you have just a few seconds to place the fly accurately a few feet in front of that cruising bone? You know you’re in trouble when the guide hands you a hard hat and moves 40 feet to your left. And don’t you know, those fish are sure to appear in whichever is the most difficult casting angle. You better aim your forward cast low or it might all blow back on you. And then you finally get it all together - sun out, light wind, perfect cast - and hook a big, hard-running bonefish. What happens then? Well, first you’ve got to get all that loose line you’ve been stripping in back out through the guides and get the fish on the reel. And you’ve got about a second and a half to do it! I’ve had the line hang up on my feet, my fingers, my reel handle, my rod butt, my shirt buttons, my watch, a seat cushion, a camera, and other things I’ve tried hard to forget. It’s a really sick feeling when the line goes limp right at the start of the run because you’ve broken the fish off. But then you get the loose line out and the reel is screaming. You’ve got him, right? Well, maybe. If the knot holds, if the tippet doesn’t have a nick in it, if the fish doesn’t get into the mangroves, if the hook doesn’t pull out, if that coral head sticking up doesn’t cut your line, then you might get him in close to the boat for the release. But wait! Don’t let the sharks (or barracuda) get him! Quite often, your catch becomes their easy prey. If you can release all the drag on your reel quickly, and if you’ve played him well and he’s not too tired, he might just outrun them. They often do. Yes, flats fishing can break your heart. But it is also one of the most exciting and rewarding flyfishing experiences one can have. It couples the searching and stalking of big game hunting with the elegance and grace of flyfishing. Its “moment of truth,” when the fish follows and tips down for your fly, is an adrenaline rush of the first magnitude. Few fish run farther or fight harder than the bonefish. Catching one is a prize indeed. And the permit, if you’re lucky enough to hook it, equals the bonefish only it’s bigger and stronger. Couple this reward with the pleasant ambiance of the tropics and you’ve got a fishing experience to remember. Oh, yes. On this trip we also lost the sun for a couple of hours one midday, lost a half day of fishing when our motor conked out, fought rough seas on one of our trips back to Sandy Point, broke a rod, and seemed to have an usual number of challenges. But you know what? It was a great trip. And in five days of flats fishing, I also had a minimum of three heart-pounding hook-ups per day, with a high of seven hooked and five landed, and enough excitement and enjoyment to keep me coming back. In about three weeks, actually. Mike Vineyard
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