Four days of icing and rest have rejuvenated my sore forearm, so it’s time to write up the fishing trip responsible for its unhappy condition.
In short, I wore out my arm fighting a mess of high energy fish on a fly rod. If you don’t want to read about fly fishing, you can enjoy the pretty photos and get back to swatting mosquitoes.
* * *
Last year I learned that a former FIU student of mine from 1994 had become a fishing charter captain. I looked him up and gave him a call. Capt. Mike Haines had relocated his business from Flamingo, where I fish regularly, to Jupiter Florida, two hours north of me, where I never fish. Mike mentioned that he sometimes takes fly fishers out for albies in the summer.
A small member of the tuna tribe, Euthynnus alletteratus resides in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. In New England their common name is the undignified Little Tunny. Down here in South Florida, these fish are larger, stronger, and are called False Albacore, or “albies” for short (fortunately the name “falsies” was already taken). Some fishers call them “bonito”, which they are not. Whatever you call them, albies are spectacular fish, silver with black and blue vermiculated striping on the back.
Albies swim 40 mph in pursuit of their sardine prey or when escaping fast predators such as marlin or mako sharks. They’re famous for wearing out fishermen with their long, powerful runs and their extraordinary stamina.
Summer mosquitoes have arrived in force in South Everglades, so I welcomed the news when Mike let me know the albies were on the ocean off Jupiter. We settled on a charter for July 1st and I invited my neighbor Rex to join us.
In the meantime, I read up on albies and consulted knowledgeable friends. In New England, albies feed on tiny baitfish, so small fishy flies are the ticket. Down here in Florida, albies feed on larger prey, Spanish Sardines 3-5” long.
Spanish Sardine (from the web)
I tied up some mimics: 3-5” versions of Lefty’s Deceiver in colors that match the Spanish Sardine.
Sometimes, albies feed on the surface, so I made some sparkly poppers as well.
Local fly fishing friends mentioned getting albies on Clouser Deep Minnows, which I had already tied in gray over white.
For rods, I packed a conventional 9wt rigged with a floating line as well as my 7wt two-hander (13’ Spey rod) rigged with an intermediate line that sinks slowly. All my advisors recommended a sinking line when fish are feeding below the surface or when floating sargassum seaweed is present. My grumpy right elbow prefers casting the two-handed rod.
Neighbor Rex knows better than to mess with fly gear – he brought a substantial spinning rod.
We caught up with Mike at the dock where he had some small baitfish, pilchards, in the live well of his boat. A Little Blue Heron showed up, hoping Mike had neglected to close the lid.
Mike cruised us out the inlet to the ocean and selected his spot about half a mile off the shore and spot-locked us in place with the trolling motor. Big fish broke the surface. Maybe albies are everywhere, or perhaps one Captain Mike Haines knows exactly where to look for them.
Mike suggested I use a smallish white fly that that would match the baitfish in his livewell. Best listen to the pro. I selected the Clouser to fish sub-surface on the two-handed setup.
While I was doodling with flies and leaders Mike tossed out half a dozen little pilchards and the water exploded. Rex cast his spinning lure over the fray and hooked up on his first albie of the day. Despite his beefy spinning rod, Rex was outgunned as that albie ran him ragged. Mike loaned him an even bigger rod for the next one.
My fly was ready, and Mike said to go ahead and cast, despite another albie on Rex’s line still racing around in the ocean. I cast my fly a short distance, let it sink five seconds, and started the retrieve. WHAM! An albie grabbed the fly and roared off, snapping the 16lb tippet. I was not even using the lightest tippet recommended. Mike informed me that, contrary to online tutorials from the New England albie fishers, the big albies in South Florida are not leader-shy, Rather than lightening the drag and risking being spooled, he suggested I scale up to 25 or 30 pound tippet instead. I went to 25 pound and sure enough, another albie roared off with the fly, pulling the remaining fly line off the reel plus a hundred yards of backing with the drag set high.
Rex and I were “doubled up”, in the lingo of boat-fishing. The two albies wove back and forth helter-skelter while Mike danced about the boat, threading Rex’s spinning rod over or under my 13’ two-handed fly rod as the fish weaves warranted. Rex has a bad knee and sensibly did not engage me in the two albie tango on a small boat.
Like some sharks, albies can’t flap their opercula to pump water over their gills, so they respire by opening their mouths as they swim, a process known as ram ventilation. Accordingly, when you release an albie, you hold it by the tail (caudal peduncle) and thrust it head first into the water to give it some speed and push water through the gills.
Albie caught on gray/white #2 Clouser & 9wt full intermediate line using the 7wt Spey rod.
After catching and releasing couple of albies on the subsurface setup, I switched to the surface popper on the floating line for the fun of watching fish blow up a fly in plain sight.
A couple of albies and dozens of blue runners exploded on the popper in rapid succession. We watched them streak through the water and hit the fly in a blast of spray. I could shake most of the blue runners free of the popper, but the albies stuck and roared off.
After one popper eat by an albie, the fly line looped around my left hand and jammed as the fish made its run and before the loose line had fully cleared the rod guides. Fortunately the tippet broke. Without a breakable tippet in that situation, a fly fisher can lose a finger. Some people fish a straight 60 pound fluorocarbon leader for tarpon and other strong fish, but I have considered it too dangerous. This experience only solidified my decision to stick with breakable tippets. I press the barbs down on my flies so a fish can more easily rid itself of the fly after a break-off.
I tried one of my beautiful sardine flies, but the fish had no interest in it. Too big for today, I guess. I tied on a heavily chewed Clouser and the fish were back on it in an instant. Oh well, they know what they want to eat… some big fish somewhere will want those sardine flies.
I’d caught five albies and couldn’t resist tossing the fly another time. A chunky blue runner grabbed it, pulled line off the real, and shot straight down 40 feet. I bent the rod double but it refused to budge.
The absurdly strong Blue Runner that parked under the boat. Notice how rounded and chunky this little jack species is.
Getting that runner up to the boat to release it overworked my already tired right forearm. I wound up my line, reluctantly – sigh. It’s hard to leave when great fish are still biting. Rex was smarter and quit after his 4th albie.
We came back to the inlet and fished a dock for snook while admiring the storm clouds building.
Rex caught one snook on a pilchard, but they wouldn’t take my fly. Instead, it caught a Jack Crevalle…
Jack Crevalle with the yellow fins and black spots.
… plus a small Ladyfish that squirted poop all over me before I could release it. I’ve learned to aim Ladyfish away from me and the boat before they let loose, but this one was too fast. Another reason I carry a change of clothes in the car.
* * *
In contrast to bonefish, our #1 piscine speed demon, taking albies on fly requires more brawn than brain. They are truly gorgeous fish though, and especially thrilling when they hit on the surface. Albies are better kept in the ocean than served at the table, but blue runners are superb eating. I kept a few medium-sized runners, Mike filleted them (thanks Mike!), and I prepared a little sashimi for a snack and a big bowl of ceviche that was our dinner for the next two nights.
Gray finds Blue Runner sashimi the perfect complement to late afternoon paperwork.
We’ve all had the odd day in which few things go right but it works out and still counts as a good day. Here’s mine.
I rise at 3:10 am to fish the Ten Thousand Islands, where Everglades National Park meets the Gulf of Mexico. The weather forecast includes low hourly odds of light rain throughout the day, with 45% cumulative odds overall.
Predawn boat check at the marina in Chokoloskee reveals the waterproof controller for the trolling motor isn’t working. I carry tools in the boat and the fix proves simple: disassemble, remove and reinsert batteries, reassemble.
My first destination is Pavilion Key, a 12-mile run to the south through the maze of islands. About halfway there the wind comes up, raising waves that break on the deck of my little skiff. I turn on the bilge pump and head for the closest of approximately 10,000 mangrove keys in the vicinity. Then the sky opens. The rain is warm but I throw on my rain suit so at least my underwear stays dry.
The mangrove key occupies less than an acre, so I entertain myself fishing back and forth along the lee mangrove edge while I wait out the squall. I know a rainbow is coming. In this wind the fly rod is outgunned, so I slum it and take out the spinning rod (oh, the shame). A small ladyfish pecks at my lure but I find no “serious” fish.
And so goes fishing throughout the morning, substituting small saltwater catfish on the open flats for the small ladyfish near the mangroves. Whenever I feel the catfish’s telltale quiver as it nibbles the lure’s tail, I yank the lure away. In all, I catch only two of these swimming mucus bombs. In time, the storm moves north, and my clothes dry out in the sun and wind. A faint rainbow appears. I have no complaints.
Fast forward through the morning to a nameless mangrove creek I’ve been wanting to explore, situated 15 miles south of the launch. Tight creeks like this one are buggy this time of year. Somehow the storm added a cup of saltwater to the ziplock bag holding my mosquito head net. It’s fine – wind is keeping the mosquitoes at bay, mostly.
I get out the push pole and head in at the start of the incoming tide, the wind at my back. I drift up the creek, pausing with the stick anchor to cast in front of the boat. A handsome 22 inch redfish (aka Red Drum) inhales the lure and roars down the creek for open water. A redfish counts as a “serious” fish.
Proof of concept. I stow the spinning rod and take out a fly rod. Fly casting in a mangrove creek is like doing cartwheels through a yarn store while wearing a Velcro suit. The wind adds a stochastic element to the fly’s trajectory that wipes from the game my last vestige of skill. I pole out against the wind and current and get a proper workout.
It’s sunny now but wind still riles the open water of the Gulf. I take the long way back, winding through the sheltered bays and rivers of the back country.
The day has been a tour of the places in Peter Matheissen’s books Killing Mr. Watson and Shadow Country.
At 3:30 pm, the Miccosukee Police stop all eastbound traffic on the Tamiami Trail. I am car #11 in a line that will, in time, extend back for miles as wildfires in the east Everglades force closure of road after road.
A storm forms to the north, but the wind is still pushing from the south and will not direct it over the fire.
We are parked near the Valuejet Memorial, about 40 minutes from home. I know this area – it’s a good spot for bass. I’m tempted to pull out the fly rod again, but two large alligators get the same idea, so maybe not.
We are told our wait will be at least six hours. I invite some friendly Everglades mosquitoes into the car to keep me company.
A mere four hours later the wind changes direction and the police let us through. The fire is impressive.
I roll in at 8 pm. Expecting a 6+ hour wait, I had consumed an emergency granola bar for dinner, but Gray has a better menu ready for my second dinner. Bless her.
The Blue Catfish (Ictalurus furcatus), is native to the Mississippi Valley, Gulf Coast, and east coast rivers of Central America:
In 1974, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources introduced Blue Catfish to rivers on the western side of Chesapeake Bay. The DWR biologists assumed these catfish would remain confined to the freshwater systems. Their distribution along most of the Gulf coast should have been a hint that Blue Catfish tolerate salt water – duh.
Blue Catfish took no time moving into the saltwater and spreading throughout the Chesapeake. In the Bay they grow to over 50 pounds and devour every blue crab, clam, and menhaden in their path. The only good news is that Blue Catfish are delicious.
With fuel prices up, Gray and I took the EV north to visit family and friends, 4577 miles in all.
I squeezed in a bit of fishing, of course. Visiting Gray’s family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland gives me a chance to fish with Jon Shaw, the husband of Gray’s second cousin. We fished off the family farm dock that extends into the Chester River, a brackish tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.
Jon and I bait-fished for a family dinner, finding 6-12 pound catfish off the end of the dock. Our first afternoon together Jon caught four catfish and I caught zero. Hmm.
To catch catfish as well Jon, I realized I’d have to ignore what he says (tie on a heavy leader and a 7/0 or 9/0 circle hook), and do what he does (tie on a light leader and a 3/0 or 5/0 circle hook). The discrepancy between his instructions and his practice should have come as no surprise to me insofar as all fishermen are liars, myself excepted. The second day I rigged my rod like his and did a lot better.
Catfish overflowed Jon’s dinky cooler, so we filleted some on the spot to make them fit.
With enough catfish to feed Gray’ cousins and plenty to freeze, I switched to fly fishing. Sitting on the dock near shore, I tied on a favorite snook fly, the gray over white Clouser Deep Minnow. The water swirled under my feet, so I flipped the fly beyond the swirl- nothing – try again – boom. A perfect dinner-sized Striped Bass, known locally as rockfish.
The river was closed for rockfish for six more days of spawning season, so my catch went back in the river to make more of them.
I caught a few little White Perch on fly. They also went back in the river – too small.
Another fish took the fly and fought above its weight, attempting the old run-under-the-dock-and-break-your-fly-rod-or-cut-your-line maneuver. When it flashed bronze instead of silver, I realized it was not another rockfish, but rather a Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus). I’d never taken one on fly. It’s a spirited gamefish.
Back at the barn, Jon and I filleted Blue Catfish. The females were full of eggs and the stomach of one spilled a load of Atlantic Ribbed Mussels (Geukensia demissa). The Blue Catfish is mostly head and stomach, yielding one pound of meat for each four pounds of catch. Jon put the ample carcasses out for his resident Bald Eagles and we all had a fine dinner.
May 15, 2026. Low winds are predicted through noon with no rain forecast for the day. Ideal weather to fly fish for snook on the beaches in the SW corner of the Florida peninsula.
When the tide starts to come in, small bait fish congregate along the shoreline. In May and June, snook move in to hunt these baitfish along the beaches of SW Florida before heading offshore to breed. In turn, Lemon Sharks ply the water a few feet out from beaches to hunt the snook.
Sea level rise is a real thing here, and snook make the most of it, seeking out the beach stretches with “ghost forests”, woody remnants of drowned mangroves. I presume snook find some protection from hungry sharks and ospreys among the submerged stumps.
* * *
Mosquito season has returned to south Everglades. I don a second shirt and my head net in the car before heading outside to ready the skiff for launch. As I step out, a swarm of mosquitoes rushes inside the car to amuse me on the drive home. No kayak today; my destination is 17 miles from the put-in.
A Chuck-Will’s-Widow sings nearby as I launch in the dark. Something splashes, but my flashlight detects no crocodile eyes. The sun peeks over the horizon turning the sky and water pink as I take the shortcut through Lake Ingraham. I stop to watch pink birds.
Roseate Spoonbills on Lake Ingraham at low tide. They’re pink at all times of day.
The tide is still going out when I arrive, so I check out the shoreline of a nearby tidal river, a spot just outside the strong current where I have found snook stacked up as they wait for the tide to change. Someone else has arrived before me to hunt for snook, with no intention of releasing them:
Feeding caught or released fish to Lemon Sharks is against my religion, so I move on to the beach. The wind is low, as NOAA predicted it would be, and the tide chart says the tide will turn in an hour. I bide my time watching a Swallow-tailed Kite hunts lizards and dragonflies as it courses back and forth over the low coastal scrub. I never get tired of watching kites.
I assemble my long, two-handed “Spey” rod, tie on a proven fly, and begin casting to the water’s edge, trying not to hook remnants of the mangrove ghost forest. At 8:30 am a snook grabs the fly and leaps into the air. It lands with a splash and leaps again. A great fish, but commotion like this broadcasts a loud “EAT ME” signal to any nearby sharks. A couple of years ago at this same spot, I broke a fly rod playing “keep away” with a Lemon Shark. I buy used fly rods, but they’re still inordinately expensive, and that particular rod was a treasured gift from my former student Manny. I have devised a plan to avoid a repeat:
As soon as the snook hits the fly, I open the drag on the fly reel and let the fish run while I maneuver the skiff away from the beach into deeper water. When I spot-lock the trolling motor, Mr. Snook is still on the line. The ruse works – I play in the snook and net it up with no shark interference.
With sharks on the prowl, it’s unwise to reach your hand into the water to unhook a fish.
According to a paper I read, giving caught fish a few minutes to recover before release greatly reduces the likelihood of a shark chasing them down. I unhook the snook and put him into a homemade floating recovery pen where he rests calmly for a few minutes until I release him 75m from shore.
The snook is the gray fish-shaped thing with fins and a yellow tail on the left side of the floating pen. The long black thing is a strip of shade cloth to keep a shark from seeing the resting fish’s silhouette from below.
The wind is picking up three hours earlier than predicted and surf is now pounding the shoreline. I fish another hour, bobbing around in the waves, but no more snook are to be found. I disassemble the rod, fold up the floating pen, and make the return run. Retracing my path through Lake Ingraham and Florida Bay I’m happy to find the water is much flatter on the lea of the peninsula than the on the windward Gulf side.
* * *
So where are rest of the snook today?
With the strong offshore wind and crashing surf, perhaps the bait fish left the shoreline so the snook went elsewhere.
Rains bring snook down from the rivers to the beaches where they congregate before heading offshore to breed. Perhaps the spring has been so dry the snook are still up-river.
Maybe the recovering Lemon Shark population has reduced the snook numbers – I hope that’s not it.
Here’s the car’s front bumper when I get home. Even as the beach snook are missing today, Black Salt Marsh Mosquitoes have faithfully resumed their time-honored role as defenders of the south Everglades.
My kayak fisherman buddy Cesar flipped over in a shallow rill along the edge of Florida Bay. Poor guy had no choice but to thrash around waist deep in shallow water and sticky mud groping for his lost fishing gear. He paddled back to the marina soaked, muddy, and completely humiliated.
It’s genuinely hard to flip a rotomolded fishing kayak in flat water. These craft have high primary stability and stick tight to the water’s surface. Nor is Cesar a beginner so I don’t think the flip was his fault. Two related stories suggest possible explanations.
In September 2015, I took my wife Gray out for a birthday paddle in Biscayne Bay. I was a couple of boat lengths ahead as we passed over a bed of lush turtle grass in two feet of water. Out of nowhere, a wave rose up another two feet above the bay’s glassy surface, racing for the shore-side of my kayak. Some large and unseen creature was coming at me, and fast. For whatever protection it could afford, I lifted my paddle blade and held it firmly between me and whatever was coming at me beneath the wave. The wave jumped out of the bay and exploded over me. In the next instant the kayak and I flew up into the air. As we fell back into the bay, I executed a low-brace to stabilize the kayak. I had reflexively turned my face away from the shower, affording me the view of a bull manatee rocketing out the other side, bound for deeper water. I was completely soaked and gallons of seawater had joined me in the cockpit, but I was upright.
From her ringside seat, Gray enjoyed the whole show.
An unseen bull manatee had been grazing underwater near the mangrove shore and panicked when he saw my kayak cutting off his escape route. The exploding water resulted from the hard tail flip he made to shove his body under my kayak in water the same depth as his rotund body.
Unlike my unfortunate friend, Cesar, I had two advantages that kept me from flipping over. First, I was paddling a touring kayak designed for rough water. Such a kayak has low primary stability and high secondary stability, meaning the hull rocks a bit on flat water but exerts a significant righting force that keeps it upright when tipped between 30 and 60 degrees. Second, I had a well-practiced low brace, the paddle maneuver that prevents a flip by controlling the hull’s rotational angle on the water. The low brace couldn’t prevent a soaking, but did keep me from going over.
Since then I have watched out for the telltale wave of a kayak-panicked bull manatee in shallow water. Several times I have had to back-paddle hard to let a bull manatee barrel through to safety. Cow manatees are more relaxed around passing kayaks. Being smaller, perhaps they don’t feel so vulnerable in the shallows.
But I can think of another manatee-related, possibility for how Cesar flipped in flat water.
In 2022, I purchased a Hobie iTrek 11 for inshore fishing. It’s essentially an inflatable paddleboard with a lawn chair and pedal-operated flippers. An additional inflated tube along each side provides extra primary stability. This thing is not going to flip in anything short of breaking surf. The iTrek is oval in shape and gray underneath, like a manatee.
Manatees love the iTrek. Many times I have had to reel in my fishing line when cow manatees come up to snuggle. A few times the bow of the iTrek has risen mysteriously out of the water, elevated on the nose of an amorous bull. It’s disconcerting for sure, but unlike a kayak, the iTrek stays upright while balanced at one end on a manatee’s nose, with no athletic intervention by the paddler. One morning I gave up trying to fish because a bull manatee followed me everywhere I went, nudging the boat from underneath then backing away with a silly grin.
Hardly the worst reason to miss out on the morning’s fishing, don’t you think? And definitely better than being flipped over like my buddy Cesar.
I previously reported on the Publix supermarket chain’s policy to allow open carry of firearms in their stores.
This week Publix slammed on the brakes and made a hard U-turn. On the sign posting store rules (wear cloths, no skateboards, roast your dog in the car, etc.) is a new one:
“Publix kindly asks that only law enforcement openly carry firearms in our stores.”
Why the change?
My pal Glenn Terry credits the Gainesville Flying Pig Parade:
I like to think he’s right, though the Miami Herald reports an alternative:
“Last week, a person accidentally discharged a weapon at a Miramar Publix, and police said they had to conduct a safety sweep of the store.”
Whatever the reason(s), I’m glad to see their capitulation as a small move back towards civil society.
I still hate Publix for their effective lobbying to block single-use plastics regulation in Florida and their exploitation of farm workers. Until the company supports the environment and worker’s rights, we won’t do our weekly shopping at Publix. But maybe we’ll experience less risk of being shot if we run in to buy the occasional hard-to-find bag of raw peanuts for the backyard Blue Jays.
When I moved to Miami in 1992, I assumed I’d take frequent trips to The Bahamas – they are so close. Thirty-four years later, I finally made my first trip. We spent an enchanted week on Long Island, 335 miles ESE of Miami. “We” includes my wife Gray and our retired zoologist friends Chris and Marcia from the Keys.
* * *
Flights being what they are, we stay over in Nassau before flying to Long Island. We spend the afternoon poking around the downtown, the best part of which is the walk up and down the Queen’s Steps at the end of a former limestone quarry turned tropical garden.
The Queen’s Steps, Nassau
As I sit on a stone wall to take in the view, a black rat (Rattus rattus) pops out from behind a rock, runs across the space in broad daylight, and scrambles onto my left foot. I shake my left foot reflexively and Miss Rat deftly leaps onto my right foot. I snap my right leg straight and propel her back across the narrow quarry, where she scoots back into her hole in the rock face. Rats rule the Queen’s Steps, or fancy they do.
The next day we take a turboprop to Long Island, passing over infinite turquoise flats visible through the scratched window.
As per its name, Long Island is long, about 80 miles end-to-end, and narrow, a mile wide in most places. It’s heavily vegetated in dense hurricane-pruned coastal hammock and scrub.
One road, The Queen’s Highway, runs the length of the island (are you sensing the Bahamian “Queen” theme yet?) Some sections had been paved at one time or another and everybody drives on the left side of the pitted road. We lodge at the north end, in Stella Maris where our digs are a Home Exchange house on a hilltop overlooking the Atlantic.
Chris is a far more experienced fly fisherman than I, and equally enthusiastic. For two months, Chris and I have been planning to fish for bonefish on fly. We even caught them in our dreams.
Slipping into bed on our first evening in Long Island, Gray asks me in a warning tone:
“You’re NOT going to spend the WHOLE time fishing, are you?”
“Oh no”, I reassure her.
Fishermen never lie; it’s hard to see bonefish at night. For her part, Gray spends every possible moment painting lovely watercolors of everything around her. I don’t complain. Why would I? I am delighted by her painting and seeing her enjoy it so.
Having forgotten to pack her tube of turquoise, Gray struggles to capture the exact color of the water.
Marcia borrows my binoculars and watches birds. While tricky to spot in the dense, low thicket that covers the windswept island, you can often hear their songs.
The Bahamas Mockingbird does not imitate other birds, but it sings its own lovely songs with the same enthusiasm.
A Bananaquit and a Bahama Mockingbird take baths in the gutter under the eave. Mangrove Cuckoos growl from the vegetation “kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk…”, but are largely invisible – only Marcia manages to spot one.
I discover thin vines with tiny thorns running along the ground through the scrub. Ouch.
If you venture off the path, nix the sandals – boots advised.
The property manager tells us that the recent hurricane last November took a heavy toll on the birds and butterflies. Hopefully they recover soon.
Food and supplies, such as they are, cost about twice what you’d pay on the mainland. Provisions arrive once a week at the town of Salt Pond, 20 miles south of our place, via the mail boat. The Regatta was held at a different island last week. Sailing being the national sport, lots of locals attend the Regatta, so the mail boat went there instead of Salt Pond. As a result, we find the produce shelves sparser than usual at the local food stores and the ATM empty of cash. The only fish we find for sale are canned tuna, tins of sardines, and frozen salmon. I’ll be darned if I’m going to The Bahamas and eating canned fish or frozen salmon. We innovated with the menu and didn’t starve. I’d brought good coffee and granola from home and a spinning rod that might prove handy for grocery fishing.
The four of us drive an hour south to Dean’s Blue Hole. At 663 feet deep, it’s the second deepest blue hole on the planet.
Dean’s Blue Hole. The white thing in the middle is a platform for divers, secured by four long steel cables.
The hole’s shallow perimeter is lined with live coral, hosting oodles of tropical fish and the odd sea turtle. Gray and I snorkel around the cool water to soak in the splendor.
* * *
FISHING REPORT
Chris and I wade fish on our own for two days, after which we conclude that the author of the do-it-yourself bonefishing book maybe hadn’t actually fished all the places he recommended. A mangrove creek where, he wrote, one could spend a full day fishing for bonefish would have taken us a full day to free ourselves from the deep, sucking mud. It looks promising on Google Earth, right?
The most interesting wade-fishing spot we find is the lagoon by the Columbus Monument / Lucayan Memorial at the north tip of the island. This lagoon is ringed by the prettiest flats I’ve seen anywhere.
Columbus Monument / Lucayan Memorial. Good old Christopher Columbus enslaved the Lucayans but they died. All of them.
Chris wears his new Simms flats boots, cumbersome affairs that do an excellent job traversing the frighteningly sharp eroded limestone that lines the shore. These boots would be good footwear for birding off-trail, as well. I tippy-toe over the crags in my rubber-soled dive booties. They’re better-suited for sand.
One slip here and you’d be raw hamburger.
We see lots of young Green Turtles and Lemon Sharks, a few schools of small mullet, and the odd passing bonefish.
The next morning we walk the edge of Aderley Bay, also pretty, and filled with critters.
These sand-colored portunid crabs are everywhere in the shallows of Aderley Bay.
We catch little snappers and Chris catches a baby Nassau Grouper that grabs his fly before diving into its hiding hole, but we don’t see a bonefish.
Returning to the lagoon at the Monument/Memorial late morning, a 10 pound bonefish swims up to Chris before he has prepared his line for casting. Oops. I see another bonefish approach. It sees me too and veers back into deep water. That’s it for bonefish today. Wading mile after hopeful mile, Chris and I rub our toes raw inside our neoprene wading socks. [Note to self: acquire snug synthetic liner socks].
This week the moon is waxing full, allowing the bonefish to stay up all night feeding on sand worms and other invertebrate party snacks. Having a full tummy come morning presumably lets them hang out in deep water and reduce daytime exposure to aerial Osprey attacks. Tide swings are steeper on the new and full moons which move bonefish faster through their circuit between the mangrove creeks and deep water. These faster movements, in turn, shorten our accessible fishing time on the flats. Neither nocturnal feeding nor fast transit over the flats is ideal for finding hungry bonefish by daylight.
Fortunately, Chris has booked us a day with James “Docky” Smith, owner of Bonafide Bonefishing. The locals tell us that Docky can put us on bonefish under any conditions.
The following morning, as we wait at the marina for Docky to show up, Chris chats with Docky’s brother “Big Dog”, who is fiddling with something on a large fishing boat. I watch a school of baby tarpon evading a hopeful barracuda and scout the water for snappers as a possible future dinner alternative to dining out.
A gazillion Baby tarpon. So cute!
Docky motors up in his flats skiff, a Kevlar Hell’s Bay Professional that poles in 5″ of water.
In 20 minutes we are on a beautiful flat, completely inaccessible to fishers lacking a shallow-draft flats boat. Docky cuts the motor and asks us to make a few practice casts so he can gauge our skill levels. My humble casting skills have room for improvement. Docky says to slow down my rod and speed up my left hand line haul. I try and it makes the casts longer and easier (thanks, Docky!). I can tell Chris is very excited – I’ve seen him make a hundred casts better than these.
Docky selects a fly from my collection, Chicone’s Crusher Legs Gotcha, tied with fur from our friend Laura’s Australian Shepherd. Docky directs me to the bow, and begins poling his skiff slowly across the flat in less than a foot of water.
“They are here, we just have to find them.”
Docky’s scheme is to intercept bonefish as the falling tide pushes them to deeper water. Wind riffles the water, better for fishing but harder for seeing fish. At least that’s the case for me. Docky has 30 years experience spotting these flats ghosts, and like all good flats guides, easily spots fish twice as far away as a normal human can.
Docky: “There … 11 o’clock, 80 feet. See them?” Me: “No.” Docky: “Sixty feet. See them?” Me: “No.” Docky: “Forty feet. See them?” Me: “Yep!” Docky: “Start casting!”
Twenty bonefish are swimming side-by-side straight toward us. I cast where Docky says. The fish don’t like my cast and leave. I need to angle my cast more downward so the fish cannot see the fly line. Try again.
Docky finds more fish and says “Start casting.” I cast and the fish turn away. When Docky says to start casting, he doesn’t mean for me to cast. He wants me to false cast until he likes the angle of my fly line and the distance of my fly, and then only to let it go when he says to. Ohh-kay. Not what I’m used to, but I’ll follow the master today.
The next school holds 25 bonefish, including a few large ones. Docky tells me to cast right in front of the middle of the school… wait, now! With a clearer understanding of his directions, I make a satisfactory cast, wait for the fish to get close enough to see the fly, then start the long, slow strips that mimic the behavior of a small shrimp fleeing encroaching bonefish. A dozen fish advance curiously to check out the escaping fly. Each bonefish, in turn, takes a quick look and swims away. Then the biggest one, a nine pounder, breaks out of the school and swims up to the fly. This big bonefish keeps following, following, following, then nope! It turns away too. They all think something is wrong with the fly. I suspect the fur is too long and offer to trim it shorter, but Docky says to pick a different fly entirely. I ask which one? “Doesn’t matter, choose one.”
I let Chris have the bow and go back into my fly box for something different. I pick the #6 Bone Appétit, with a shorter “wing” of tan rabbit fur. It’s a Crazy Charlie variant that Drew Chicone designed for the white sands of Andros Island. The sand here is white as well. I also switch from my 8 weight setup to my 9 weight, which will handle the wind a little better.
My tie of the Bone Appétit, a bonefish pattern by Drew Chicone.
Chris explores the numerous ways to scare bonefish. He shifts his body weight during the cast, rocking the boat maybe an inch, just enough to push out a subtle wave that makes the bonefish anxious. He repositions his sock-clad foot after the cast; somehow the bonefish sense it and depart. He casts his fly to land upwind of a bonefish school but the wind curves the belly of the fly line in front of the fish, scaring them away. Having corrected all his errors, Chris finally hooks up with a nice-sized bonefish that gives him several good runs before randomly tossing the fly. Hard-mouthed fish are good at that. Here’s a photo of the bonefish before it got away.
It’s not you; this hooked bonefish is invisible to normal humans. Even if you zoom in, all you can see is the nylon leader and disturbed water. Bonefish match and reflect the background color, but they are opaque, so one can track them by their moving shadows if clouds don’t block the sun.
At the next spot, Docky directs us to hop out and wade. As I walk beside him, Docky instructs me in bonefish behavior. I had a career studying animal behavior, but have only fly fished saltwater gamefish for four years. This lesson alone would be worth the price of the guide day, but it gets better. Docky spots a school of several dozen bonefish. As we get closer we can see them moving slowly away from us, transparent dorsal fins and tails glinting in the sunlight. I am beside myself. Wade fishing is my favorite pursuit. We follow the fish quietly, out of disturbance range. In time, they pause, turn, and come back towards us. I drop the new fly in their path, wait for the fish to get close, and begin the fleeing shrimp retrieve. A four pound bonefish pounces on the fly. I set the hook, and the bonefish takes off, zipping line off the reel.
I have caught many bonefish on spinning gear, but had just two “eats” on fly, neither of which I landed. This one is my first bonefish on fly brought to hand. I lift it briefly from the water for a quick pic and it’s off to rejoin its friends.
Close inspection of the photo shows recent injuries from Osprey attacks. No way an Osprey can lift a fish this big from the water, but it tried. Ospreys are the reason bonefish are so skittish, fleeing when anything disturbs the water or casts a shadow.
This bonefish has multiple injuries from Osprey attacks, a big V-shaped gash on its back and a nick on its tail. Adding insult to injury, it had the bad luck to eat my fly and get dragged in. This fish lives a rough life but thus far has always gotten away.
Chris hooks up again, more good runs, and the fish breaks off.
I catch a second bonefish, a little smaller than the first, about 3 pounds. I’d keep this fish in the water to unhook and release it, but oblige Docky who wants a quick photo.
I’m not happy, or anything, am I? Now quick, back in the water. Bye fish, and thank you.
Chris gets a third eat and manages to land this one.
You’d think this was Chris’ first bonefish. It’s not. They’re that cool to catch.
On the way back to the marina, Docky stops to have us compare the feel of different fly rods as he gives us some final coaching in flats casting. Chris asks what rod is HIS favorite and Docky pulls out a titanium-wrapped ADG fly rod, cautioning “be careful with my girl.” It casts like a dream, farther and with less effort than Chris’ Orvis Recon or my Sage X.
Despite the worst possible moon and tides, Docky has put us in front of nine bonefish schools today, ranging from 20 to 200 fish each. I’ve seen more bonefish today than altogether over the past five years in South Florida and I’ve learned as much again about bonefish behavior. We’ve hooked up five times and brought three bonefish to hand. I’ve had a such a fine day that when I back out of the lot at Docky’s fly shop and knock over his shop sign, the humiliation cannot put a dent in my elation. I happily pay a neighborhood carpenter to remount the sign – gotta support the local tradesmen.
After five days on Long Island we still have not seen fresh fish for sale. With a notion to catch something fresh for dinner, I drive back to a spot where I saw some respectable Mangrove Snappers. I cast some shrimp flies and get no reaction. Nuts to that. I pull out my cheap Okuma travel spinning rod and tie on the irresistible snapper lure, a sparkly 2.5” rubber shrimp made by MonsterUSA. I rigged it with a fly hook, lightly weighted. Tossed where the flies were ignored, a bunch of snappers zoom over to check it out. Some of them are big enough for dinner but none will eat this proven lure. Throwing caution to the wind, I cut off the protective barracuda-proof wire bite tippet and re-tie the shrimp lure directly to the 20 pound monofilament leader. I try again in a slightly different spot but get the same refusals as before. Snappers are notoriously leader shy, so I add to the leader two feet of Rio high strength 1X fluorocarbon tippet. This precious stuff is just one quarter of a millimeter in diameter and tests close to 15 pounds. I move a bit further and try a third time. I see a quick flash of silver and wham! My rod bends double and the drag screams as line peels off the reel. The barely-seen fish, whatever it is, has dashed back through the dock pilings whence it came.
I assume it’s a big barracuda, but the thin tippet holds. Definitely not a barracuda. Maybe a grouper(?). The 15 pound braided line is stretched taught against the pilings, humming audibly, yet amazingly, does not fray and break. We go back and forth, each of us gaining and losing line until the balance tips in my favor and the fish comes into view. I spy the characteristic black spot and red tail of a Mutton Snapper. With no one to help me land the fish, I grasp the leader in my right hand, lie on my stomach, and nab the fish with my left hand. Sometimes it’s good to be built like a gibbon.
Mutton Snapper by Gray Read, 8″x12″. If you want this painting, make her an offer.
The snapper measures 22″. I’d cook it whole, but it won’t fit on the grill. Filleted, it makes a fine dinner for the four of us with two pieces saved out for the property manager and his wife.
* * *
Long Island has been a lovely place to visit for a week, enjoyed in the best of company. We’ll happily go back.
* * *
Postscript: the bonefish mug
Four years ago, retired Miami attorney and fly fisherman Joel Rosenthal spotted me returning to the Black Point marina in my kayak. Joel recognized me as the former mayor of South Miami and asked “How did you do today?” Two bonefish and an overslot snook. “Fly or spin?” Spin.
Joel asked if I’d like to learn how to fly cast and I jumped at the offer. Since I was 12 years old, I have imagined I would learn fly fishing as a retirement project. With just two years to go before retiring, why not get a head start? Naive question. Like watercolor painting, fly-fishing requires true obsession to develop competence, except the gear costs much, much more. If you are cash-strapped, take up watercolors instead.
When I could throw a fly line 70 feet, Joel gave me a mug adorned with a drawing of a bonefish, but with the proviso that I could not use the mug until I’d caught a bonefish on fly. Oh, and the bonefish had to be brought to hand – “no photo and it didn’t happen.” I found a big gulf between casting a fly line on the grass and (1) convincing a moving, skittish, and largely invisible bonefish on the flats to eat a fly, (2) seeing it eat so I can quickly set the hook before the fish crushes the fly and spits it out, and (3) getting the hooked bonefish to hand without losing it. This morning the mug finally joins me for breakfast.
It’s the spring of 1995 and I’m onboard the R/V Bellows, anchored off the Dry Tortugas. Beside me is my host and senior colleague, Professor L. Scott Quackenbush. Quack is an expert on the endocrinology of marine invertebrates as well as a crack aquaculturist.
Dr. L. Scott Quackenbush
Our elbows propped on the rail, as we admire the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. Quack is downwind of me enjoying a smoke, a vice that will take him out three years from now.
“Did I ever tell you about the time we tried shrimp-farming at Turkey Point?”
I am all ears. Turkey Point is the site of two nuclear power generators on the shore of Biscayne Bay operated by Florida Power and Light (FPL). When first opened in the early 1970s, the reactors dumped thermally hot water into the bay, scalding everything and causing a massive sea grass kill.
Look ma, no cooling towers!
Instead of building cooling towers like those handling hot water in every other nuclear power plant on Planet Earth, FPL cheaped-out and constructed an expansive trapezoidal array of leaky cooling canals. The cooling canals cover 10 square miles of the Southeast Coastal Everglades.
The canals released giant plumes of hyper-saline water into the porous limestone rock beneath them, which expanded outward underground in all directions, including towards the well field that supplies fresh water to the Florida Keys. Most of the local biologists who are not on FPL’s payroll consider these canals an environmental disaster, which I’ll explain more about some other time. This story is about shrimp.
FPL contracted Dr. Quackenbush to determine if they could raise shrimp in the warm water of Turkey Point’s cooling canals.
Quack told me that they blocked off the ends of a couple of canal branches and he stocked them with shrimp.
The shrimp grew and thrived. But, when he harvested the shrimp, they were radioactive.
Nuclear reactors produce radioiodines, though these radioisotopes are supposed to be contained in the reactor vessels. Shrimp concentrate iodine.
“We filled in those canals and buried the whole project, and if you ever repeat this story to anyone, I will deny it.”
(FPL contracts are famous for their airtight non-disclosure agreements.)
* * *
Quack passed in 2008, so I figure it’s OK to retell his story today. Make of it what you will – I do have another witness to the telling.
A trip by paddle craft to the coastal marshes and flats can be a breeze or a slog depending on wind and tides. It took me one arduous kayak trip to Rabbit Key and another escaping the Snake Bight flat to become a tide chart addict.
The wind. Paddling home against a stiff headwind is somewhere between exhausting and impossible. Returning from Sandfly Pass in the Ten Thousand Islands I was stopped in my tracks by a squall that forced me to get out of the boat in the rocky shallows and wade back to the launch, pulling the kayak behind me. My favorite hat blew off and disappeared in the distance.
Tides are the same, but more predictable. Get the tides right and you get a free ride. Get them wrong, and you fight a river, ferry-crossing back and forth to seek eddies and weaker currents.
My purchase of a motorized skiff made it possible to move against the elements, to cover long distances, and sometimes to dodge a localized thunderstorm. Very efficient, but I missed the quiet and stealth of the pedal kayak. And the exercise. It’s the difference between a car and a bike: the motor craft is useful, the pedal craft enjoyable.
When I itch to be on the water, I open the marine weather forecast and the tide chart phone apps, looking for happy windows of winds and tides. Living on a peninsula provides choices. My choice of location and craft is based on the forecasts. If conditions are unfavorable on the east coast, nearby Biscayne Bay or the Keys, how about Flamingo on the southern tip of the peninsula? No? Then check the west coast out of Chokoloskee / Everglades City. If all three look threatening, I may opt for the interior mangrove creeks or central Everglades marshes. If it looks horrible everywhere, I stay home and tie flies while imagining the next outing.
A TAXI TIDE
I normally I take the skiff into Snake Bight in Everglades National Park to escape against the incoming tide, but the tide chart for Tuesday showed the rare, magical tide cycle that’s perfect for kayak exploration. One can ride the incoming tide into Snake Bight before sunrise, fish and bird well into the morning, then ride the outgoing tide back out again.
Snake Bight’s tides are one hour delayed from the Flamingo tide chart shown here.
I wake at 3:30 am and check the weather report. The wind looks to remain low through the morning. Rain looks iffy – it’s supposed to rain solid until 6 am, then let up until afternoon. Hopefully the algorithm running on the National Weather Service computer gets it right today.
Scary-hard rain pounds my drive south to the bottom of the peninsula, then stops to let me set up and launch the kayak in the dark. I can see the odd lightning flash to the south. Gradually the clouds break up and I have a lovely morning waiting for me on the water with 50 minutes to sunrise.
The half moon is still blocked by clouds and it is DARK. I turn on the pole-mounted kayak light. Its #1 job is to keep me from being run over by powered craft, but as a bonus, it casts a bit of soft light in all directions. Sitting above and behind me, the light doesn’t shine in my eyes. It does, however, shine in the eyes of the crocodiles.
American Crocodile perched on the marina wall. Amazing what the iPhone’s camera can do with the faintest of light sources.Here’s the same croc in motion.
Several more crocs take umbrage at my passage and splash off in a huff.
In time, the clouds melt away, allowing the half moon to illuminate the mangrove shoreline.
A Spotted Sandpiper perches on a fallen log, bobbing up and down. The end of the log has eyes and large teeth. Eek!
The sun glows as I round the corner into the Snake Bight flat. The north edge of the flat has a thin line of shocking pink. Though I’m looking for fish, Roseate Spoonbills always steal the show.
Some spoonbills fly over my kayak enroute to their favorite roost of snags by a mangrove creek.
I spot another kayaker approaching the cove where the spoonbills are roosting. He pulls out a camera with a giant lens, then paddles in too close, spooking some of the spoonbills. If that’s not bad enough, he starts paddling in even closer – too much.
If I can use an iPhone to get this photo without spooking the spoonbills, a kayaker with a giant lens doesn’t need to crawl down their throats.
First rule of not spooking birds is to act like you are interested in something else. Definitely do not aim your kayak directly at them. I call out: “That’s close enough!” He stops, turns around, and leaves. Good thing too. In half an hour, a carefully guided kayak tour comes by specifically to see the spoonbills.
* * *
FISHING REPORT (stop here if fishing bores you)
Last weekend I tied a mangrove crab fly using whatever I had lying around, with a notion to try for redfish feeding in the mangrove roots along the edge of Snake Bight. It came out pretty well.
Never mind the fish – I think it’s adorable.
I try it out. Crabby casts fine and stays upright while it sinks, but the legs entangle too much sea grass detritus. I’ll try it again in the Ten Thousand Islands where there’s less sea grass.
Instead, the winning fly today is my weedless tie of the classic chartreuse-over-white Clouser Deep Minnow.
It catches seven snook 18-22”.
20″ male snook with Clouser fly.
Snook in this size range are all males, turning into females when they get bigger, around 26-28”. I wonder if our Florida State legislators know that many of our prize game fish are transexual, “protandrous”, to be exact.
Somewhere else out there lurk the female snook. Research by FIU professor Jenn Rehage indicates that most of the females are still up-river, fattening up on sunfish and cichlids for the breeding season. This rainy spell should get them moving downriver again.
I have caught countless redfish on spinning gear but exactly zero on fly. I tied this sparkly fly in the hopes of temping a bite. Don Quixote jousts at yet another windmill.
Snook are great but I am still hoping to catch at least one redfish today. I swap out the Clouser for a sparkly redfish attractor pattern. Instead of a redfish, it catches my biggest snook of the morning (23″) plus a pretty little sea trout.
Lunch is leftover tamales from Moreno’s Tortilla Shop, re-heated in the sun. Gentle rain resumes on the drive home, kindly washing the saltwater drips from kayak and car. Fine morning all around.
I have lived in Miami for 34 years and have never been to the Bahamas. We are going to spend a week on Long Island, Bahamas with friends in the end of April. Yay for retirement!
Of course I have been thinking of bonefish. “Ghosts of the flats” are so ubiquitous and celebrated in the Bahamas that they are depicted on Bahamian currency.
I have caught a few bonefish around here, but most on spinning gear rather than fly. I’d rather catch one fish on the fly rod than five on a spinning rod. That’s about my rate for bonefish thus far.
To fly fish for bonefish in the Bahamas, the standard advice includes the same three components: 1) a rod and fly line that can cast into a stiff wind. 2) the ability to cast accurately into a stiff wind. 3) assorted flies that appeal to local bonefish.
A rod for the wind. 9-weight fly rods are basic wind-casting fare, ideally 4-piece for air travel. After a few weeks of looking, I found a suitable used 9wt advertised online, a 4-piece Sage X. Add money and stir. I already had the right line and reel for it. My light skeleton fares best casting rods 7wt and lighter, and definitely doesn’t appreciate the higher forces required by the fastest-action fly rods currently in vogue. Sage X is a previous model with more moderate action than Sage’s latest models. I have used the 8wt Sage X for bonefish, snook, juvenile tarpon, and jacks: it loads a titch slower than newer models and takes a little less force to accelerate. I broke my first one, a lovely two-piece given to me by former student Manny Molina, while successfully horsing a Snook away from an incoming Lemon Shark.
Ability. No substitute for practice. My friend Omar hired a Bahamian fishing guide to pursue bonefish on fly. After Omar missed a few shots, the guide exclaimed “You need more TOW, man!” “What?” “TOW, TOW!” The word “TOW” turned out to be Bahamian guidespeak for “Time On Water”. Having taken up fly fishing only four years ago, I definitely need more TOW, especially on windy days when I am inclined to forgo fly casting in favor of the more forgiving spinning gear. Gray and I will give a talk in Key West next week and plan to stay over in the Lower Keys for a few days with friends Chris & Marcia, who will join us in the Bahamas. It’s supposed to blow a steady 20 mph the whole time we’re there, so Chris and I can practice fly casting into the wind. “TOW, TOW!”
Flies. One can buy excellent bonefish flies for $3-10 a pop, but if I can’t be fishing, I like to tie my own flies. It’s fun in small doses and the resulting flies are high quality and adorable to boot. Here’s what I’ve been tying in the odd moments this month when I haven’t felt like doing something more useful to others…
The collection thus far, arrayed on a board of Dade County Pine given to me by the late Bob Welsh.
Here are a few of them close up:
McKee’s Cacos Critter, tied with white fur from the butt of a blond Australian Shepherd named Jasper and darker fur from the underside of a coyote tail. Jasper and coyote furs have turned out good flies for all kinds of fish. I like the action of natural fur versus the synthetics specified in Dave McKee’s original fly recipe.Crazy Charlie variant tied with coyote fur and orange-tipped silicone legs.Spawning Squimp. Haven’t tried it but it looks tasty.Variant on Eric Estrada’s Biscayne Bay bonefish fly, a shrimpy affair I’ve found effective on bonefish locally. In fact, every fish in the Bay eats this fly. Several times I’ve had a Laughing Gull or Royal Tern pick it from the water and make off with it – very odd to see the fly line peeling off the water into the sky. Fortunately, the birds grab the fly in the middle and don’t get hooked.Little hackle crab, maybe the cutest fly in my collection. This fly is a re-tie of one that enticed an eat from a bonefish in the Content Keys. The bonefish mashed the fly in its crushers, instantly snapping the hook at the bend before I got a hook set. Try again.
Eye of the Cormorant 