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.
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 tenth of a millimeter thick 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.
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.
As I went walking I saw a sign there, And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing. That side was made for you and me.
Contrary to my religious practice, I have been off the water for two long weeks. Bunch of pressing things going on, despite which, my psyche demands TOW (time on water). Rain is predicted for Saturday afternoon but the morning looks good in the western Everglades if I stay south of the fire. The plan unfolds to shirk the day’s assorted social obligations and start the morning fly fishing for juvenile tarpon from my kayak. I’ll play it by ear after that.
I packed the car the night before, bringing a single 7-weight fly rod, a clear-tip intermediate sink-tip line, and an assortment of proven flies that I tied to entice juvenile tarpon. Going “fly or die”.
* * *
FINDING JUVENILE TARPON AFTER A COLD SNAP
A few days back, a friend reported 100 dead juvenile tarpon in my favorite Everglades tarpon fishing area, casualties of the recent cold event. The spot I chose for today, ~60 miles northwest of there, is a brackish canal network dug 20’ deep to excavate fill to create adjacent dry land for buildings. Some people still think building in the Everglades is a good idea. On the plus side, deep water makes a good thermal refuge for manatees and juvenile tarpon during a winter cold snap. I always find tarpon holed up there in the winter and especially when it’s cold.
The general area sees significant fishing pressure, evidenced by snagged fishing lures I pluck from mangrove branches and by the landing net sitting next to a kayak on the shore at a nearby residence. Pressured tarpon are hard to catch, especially on fly, and these particular ones often refuse Mike Connor’s Glades Minnow and Jay Levine’s black micro-bunny, my two best-producing flies for tarpon along the Tamiami Trail.
Water access here is controversial. There’s a public boat launch a mile away, but a clear “NO TRESPASSING” sign is posted on a buoy you’d have to pass to get to the canal network. It’s all public water but I assume someone of authority doesn’t want motor boats shattering the peace in the canal area. Some fishermen told me they were issued a $125 fine plus administrative fees when they were caught on the wrong side of that sign by an officer from the Florida Wildlife Commission.
Florida Statutes Ch 810.011 states that No Trespassing signs must be “…placed conspicuously at all places where entry to the property is normally expected or known to occur.”
When I approach the canal system in a kayak from the tidal creek on other side, the only posted sign says not to feed the alligators. By my read of the statute and the signage, a person can lawfully enter by kayak or canoe from this creek (nix the paddleboard – see below). To honor the implied intent, I paddle solo and fish in silence.
While no sign prohibits entry from the creek, a militia of large alligators guards a shallow area in the creek outflow. It’s such a good spot to snap up a passing fish that only the biggest gators can command a seat at the table. They allowed me to pass hassle-free on prior trips, but I always treat them with respect and get past them quickly lest they think up some excuse to engage.
* * *
THE WEE HOURS
Dream after dream has me looking for a bathroom. At 1:35 am, my conscious brain integrates the repeated hints that I need to get up to pee. Sleep is over. The alarm is set for 3:30 am, but lying awake at 3:05 I give up and start my day. Dress, shave, sunscreen, pet the cat, coffee, granola, Heather Cox Richardson, pack the cooler, and hit the road to cross the Tamiami Trail in the dark.
A dense fog in the Everglades blocks the full moon and lowers my driving speed to 35 mph. Ninety minutes later, I am parked a short walk from the creek mouth. It’s pitch dark. Fifty minutes to sunrise, and twenty to the start of civil twilight.
* * *
GATOR GAUNTLET
Water levels are very low this winter. The gators’ usual ambush spot in the shallow portion of the creek bed is high and dry. Seeing no gator eyes glowing in the beam of my headlamp, I haul my kayak overland in the dark to the rocky exposed creek bed. The eastern sky shows the very first glow of dawn as I launch in the fog.
Dark water explodes into spray around my kayak. The gators hadn’t gone far. Huge bodies, black and cream, churn in front of me and to either side. So much for silence.
Waves subside and I can see the glassy water is dotted with dead cichlids killed by the cold, mostly tilapia. I’m sure the gators have been feasting on them. Just past the gators, foot-long mullet begin leaping into the air and crashing onto their sides. Nobody knows why mullet jump, but I’m pretty confident it’s a courtship display. Fifty yards further, a dorsal fin and tail nick the surface. Tarpon can breathe air and come up to the surface for a quick gulp in a behavior known as “rolling”.
Tarpon are alive and rolling. The morning holds promise.
* * *
FLIES
In very tannic or murky water, tarpon will bite dark-colored flies, but in clear water they prefer white flies. The water today is clear but somewhat tannic, so it’s anybody’s guess what shade of fly will do best. I start with a black baitfish fly that’s been super-effective for tarpon and snook in dark water.
I pull some fly line off the reel and make my first cast in front of three rolling tarpon. Nice to have my right arm working again after four months of physical therapy for a torn muscle in my rotator cuff.
The tarpon ignore this black fly over the next dozen casts. That means they won’t take Jay’s black micro-bunny either. I switch to a white micro-bunny fly. They like that one better, but not enough. They nip and pull its tail, “short-strikes” in fly fishing parlance. I begin counting short strikes.
Since they don’t want black or white, how about olive? I try an olive micro-bunny. Nothing. Black & white bunny? Nope. White baitfish with swishy peacock herl tail? Nope. Black & purple tie of Paul Nocifora’s BMF? It gets a bunch more short strikes, but no eats. I see them charge the fly, rolling onto their silver sides to rip off bits of the BMF’s purple tail, but they don’t want to eat it, even after I snip off the weed guard. How about a black & purple tie of Chico Fernandez’s Marabou Madness, weighted to get down deeper? Nope.
Seven proven tarpon flies that did not catch tarpon today.
I have been on the water for the best two hours of the day. I have pitched a hundred casts at rolling tarpon, swapped through seven flies, two of which received 13 short strikes between them but zero eats. Mangroves lining the canals have been more eager than the tarpon, grabbing my flies on the errant backcasts. My newly rehabilitated rotator cuff is starting to complain.
I suppose it’s possible the tarpon, though plentiful, just won’t bite today.The water feels coolish but not cold, maybe 68°.
Not catching fish is hardly the worst thing on a spring morning in the western Everglades. A bull manatee is swimming back and forth underneath me, probably curious about my kayak. Chortling songs of Purple Martins grace the air. Mullet sploosh nonstop under the watch of Great Blue Herons waiting in ambush on the odd bit of open shoreline. Anhingas and cormorants dry in the trees overhead as they digest their breakfasts. Alligators rise and sink as I pedal-paddle past.
* * *
THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER
Master fly designer Drew Chicone of Ft. Myers publishes an email newsletter with detailed instructions for tying his more successful fly designs.
Drew invented “The Devil’s Daughter”, a big black fly for targeting those overfished snook and juvenile tarpon that have wised to every fly in the box. It’s a complicated tie as saltwater flies go, combining shimmering peacock herl, swishy ostrich herl, and fluffy marabou feathers into a pulsating body, with a head of spun black deer hair and peacock herl that displaces water as the fly moves. The fly is light for its size, lands softly, wets quickly, swishes enticingly, and pushes water to announce its passage. I had tied one and used it only once, but it caught a 40 pound canal tarpon.
Devil’s Daughter, freshly tied and before being gnawed by a lot of tarpon.
This fly is in my collection today so I throw it in front of the rolling tarpon and move it through the water, mostly steady with tiny twitches to make it quiver. The fly stops and I give the line a tug…
Line rips out of my hand and screams off the reel. I take back line and a five pound tarpon goes airborne. They always do and it’s always a splendid show of athleticism.
The pink and lavender iridescence leaves me awestruck.
Over the next two hours I catch and release eight tarpon ranging from 3 to 10 pounds. Two manage to toss the fly and six have to be unhooked in the net.
After being unhooked, this ten pound tarpon chose not to stick around for the photo op.
Expert wisdom has it that the fly design matters much less than how you move the fly in the water. True enough, but this morning’s fishing success has hinged on one black fly designed by Drew Chicone. Both times I’ve fished it, a third of tarpon contacts resulted in hook-ups: two nips then an eat. Heck of a fly, Drew.
* * *
The sky opens up as I pull into our driveway. I could use a nap.
One last nod to the enduring spirit of Woody Guthrie. Roll on sweet tarpon, roll on.
Fish are often camouflaged, some by color and patterns that resemble their backgrounds, others by reflecting the light around them and thus matching any and every background. Tarpon do the latter with scales that work like mirrors.
Juvenile tarpon are about my favorite fish to chase on the fly rod. I say “juvenile” because the adults weigh 70 to 200 pounds. I normally avoid disturbing the adults and fly fish instead for smaller juveniles weighing 3 to 20 pounds, reasonably common in the canals and tidal creeks of South Florida.
Tarpon are smart and strong, and they are spirited jumpers. The mantra among tarpon fishers is “Bow to the King”, meaning when the tarpon jumps, you lower the rod to create slack and prevent it breaking off or throwing the fly.
Instead, I lightly tension the fly line during a jump to help the tarpon toss the fly without breaking the line. My goal is to fool the tarpon into eating my fly, have it give me a showy jump or two, but spare it the exhaustion of a complete fight and spare me the guilt of exhausting a beautiful fish.
Yesterday, while kayak-fishing a saltwater canal, three miles from home as the cormorant flies, I spotted a couple of big juvenile tarpon in the 40-60 pound range. I swapped up to a larger fly “the Devil’s Daughter”, a muted black pattern designed by Drew Chicone for catching tarpon that are wise to the fly fisher’s usual sparkly fare.
Tarpon can breath air, “rolling” on the surface to gulp a bubble before descending into the murky water. Following a roll, I’d cast the fly 6-10 feet in front, let it sink a bit, and retrieve it steadily. Twice I felt “short strikes”, in which an unseen tarpon grabbed only the feathery tail of the fly. A couple of casts later the fly stopped mid-retrieve, like I’d hooked a log. I set the hook and the line began to pull. The fish was in no hurry.
Smaller tarpon jump immediately. Instead this tarpon went deep and swam away slowly. I took up the slack and kept reeling until my 7wt rod bent double and the leader touched the tip guide of the rod. The tarpon turned and made a dash under the kayak. I flattened the propulsion flippers to keep the line free as I worked it around the bow and the tarpon took off. Once in a while, I’m glad for the smooth drag on my fly reel.
We had been pulling back and forth on the fly line (intermediate clear tip) for a couple of minutes and the tarpon had enough. It took to the air, arcing its body in a fast reciprocating shake that tossed the fly. I got my fly back and the tarpon continued on its hunt for hapless baitfish. I was ecstatic – that’s about as good as it gets in my book.
Sometimes the fly won’t shake loose and I must net the fish to release it. While I have it in the net, I usually take a photo to document the spectacular purples, pinks, blues, and greens reflected by the tarpon’s mirrored scales. Here are some photos from my collection.
I’ve been grappling with a multi-way conflict: (1) trying shake the “forever cold” while (2) healing a torn rotator cuff muscle (supraspinatus) in my fly casting arm, and (3) enjoying every nice day I can on the water with a fly rod and binoculars. At least I don’t have to grade papers.
A cold front reached South Florida, knocking down the mosquitoes and moving sharks away from the shallows. The Everglades mangrove flats beckoned me southwards.
Entrance to the flats.
One shallow flat in particular draws me to watch shorebirds and chase game fish.
Birds gather on the falling tide. Snook and Redfish forage near that edge.
To get the best experience, you have to get the tides right. Depending on the moon and tide phases, the area can be 16 square miles of water (birds wait in the trees and fish are everywhere), 15 square miles of exposed mud (birds dispersed everywhere and fish are concentrated in the channels with the sharks), or something in between (birds and fish both concentrated on the edge of the tide). If the wind comes up, water might blow onto or off the flat, superseding the tidal prediction.
Several two mile trails lead to the edge of the flat. When my late colleague George Dalrymple took his zoology class down the Snake Bight Trail, one student had to be carried out after she fainted from the sheer horror of the Black Salt Marsh Mosquitoes. I found that pedaling my bicycle down the trail lets me keep ahead of the swarm. Just don’t stop! But the best access is in a shallow-draft boat, a kayak, canoe, or technical poling skiff.
Coming by boat, you have access to more of the flat and can approach the edge of the tide where birds and fish are concentrated. However, it’s easy to get trapped by the falling tide, particularly when distracted by fish or shorebirds, both of which follow the rapidly moving tidal edge. If Poseidon empties the bathtub while you are far from a channel, there’s no walking out. The deep, sucking mud steals your sandals before eating you whole.
People who get stuck sometimes phone the Park dispatch office. The ranger explains:“Yes, we see you out there, but we can’t get to you. Unless it’s an emergency and you want to pay for a helicopter, you are going to sit there until the tide comes back in.” You might spend up to eight hours waiting for the next high tide to free your boat. Hope you brought extra water and a granola bar, and good luck with the lightning.
I have willingly allowed myself get stranded at the bottom of the outgoing tide while watching shorebirds, chasing fish, or watching shorebirds chase fish. I eat lunch then escape when the tide returns to float my boat. The show can be worth the wait.
Tricolored HeronBlack-necked StiltSpeckled Seatrout that took my fly.
The low tide can bring spectacular birding as it did last week when baitfish and birds filled the runouts along one of the main channels. The flats were covered with winter waterbirds: White Pelicans, Black Skimmers, all the long-legged waders, Marbled Godwits, Short-billed Dowitchers, Wilson’s Plovers, and assorted “peeps”.
White Pelicans fishing cooperatively for mullet.Black Skimmers leaving the flat as the tide rises.White Pelicans, Great White Herons, Great Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Snowy Egrets, all fishing the shallow run-out at dead low tide.
When the high tide pushes birds off the flats, some regroup on the highest shorelines, while others settle into the mangrove trees.
Reddish Egret takes refuge from the high tide on a mangrove island.Yellow-crowned Night heron practices the Angeli Mudra yoga pose.Roseate Spoonbill looks down to assess the water level while waiting for the tide to recede.A Mangrove Clapper Rail skulks through the matted seagrass caught in the mangrove roots.
A couple of days prior, my friend Jay Levine had caught and released 30 Snook on fly in a channel and had zero shark hassles. But when I arrived, the water had rewarmed, the sharks were returning, and the Snook were making themselves scarce. I caught and released a couple of Snook safely but an unseen shark took the third one and I called it quits.
Four days later, my fishing friend Jeremy Nawyn asked me to join him kayak fishing this same flat once again. At first I declined, but then I took a look at the tide chart:
Tide chart for Flamingo on 26 Nov 2025. The black band in the middle is daylight and the gray bar at the top is the moon. The tide on the flat we are fishing is delayed by an hour. It will fall for eight hours, from 7:45 am until 4 pm .
I normally fish this flat by motorized skiff because it’s so exhausting to exit by kayak. If you fish the rising tide (safest) you must paddle back against the fast incoming tidal current to escape, but a long falling tide like this one is a virtual water taxi service. As a lagniappe, the wind would be at our backs coming out. I texted Jeremy that the tide chart had changed my mind. I was in.
Jeremy’s proposal was to head out in the dark before dawn and ride the incoming tide up a narrow unmarked channel on the edge of the flat, then ride the outgoing tide back toward the marina with the wind at our backs. We faced little risk of getting stranded if we stayed in or near the narrow channel, and would not have to fight the tides or winds to escape.
I arrived early to enjoy the starry moonless sky.
Orion.
I rigged my kayak while the resident Barred Owl hooted:“Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?”
Jeremy arrived at 5:30 am with his kayak mostly rigged in the back of his pickup truck. We were on the water by 5:45 am, 70 minutes before sunrise.
Great Egrets and White Ibis leaving their roosts. White birds look black in the pre-dawn light.Jeremy in the lead. One of his teenage kids sometimes joins us, but not if we’re going out this early.
Our fishing strategy was to paddle the narrow channel and cast toward the mangrove roots on shore where the predatory fish typically forage for crabs and small fish when the tide is up.
I hooked a nice Snook near the mangroves then pedaled my kayak hellbent-for-leather onto the shallow flat, grounding the Hobie’s pedal flippers on the mud before stopping to work the fish to my landing net for a quick measurement and release.
Phil with Snook in shallow water. Photo by Jeremy Nawyn
Grounding the kayak on the flat might seem like an odd thing to do on purpose, but it prevents unseen sharks from popping up from below and grabbing the fish on my line. A Snook or Redfish hides handily in a foot of water, but a Lemon Shark or Bull Shark is conspicuous. If a shark comes for my fish in super-skinny water, I can see its approach, open the reel, and let the fish run. My trick worked this morning with a handsome Snook and a chunky Redfish.
Snook, 24″.Redfish, 24.5″
A Lemon Shark circled my kayak looking for my redfish as I hefted it in my landing net from one side of the kayak to the other.
Pesky Lemon Shark circling the kayak.
Enough already. I pedaled the kayak right at the shark to chase it away.
Typical of this flat, the water was opaque with sediment. One could only make out detail in the top 6”, which made it hard to spot fish. At the farthest extent of the tiny channel, a three-foot tarpon swam under my kayak, which I only saw because the water was just a foot deep… and dropping. Time to turn around.
I stopped in at a favorite cove on the way back, wherein I often find Snook and Tarpon. A four foot Lemon Shark had gotten in ahead of me and was working over the cove, chasing all the fish up the mangrove creek – definitely time to head back. As cool as they are to see up close, I don’t want sharks hanging around my boat jonesing for my fish. Lemon Sharks at Flamingo have bitten the hands of several fishermen in the past couple of years and even dragged one careless lad overboard and into the water (YouTube video).
I paused to watch eight Ospreys circle a mullet school, diving in succession, snatching hapless fish, and landing in the trees on shore to enjoy a sashimi breakfast.
This lucky Osprey caught a yummy seatrout.
Full of fresh fish, the Ospreys set about collecting soft material to line their stick nests. Some carried clumps of dead seagrass in their feet.
On our way back to the marina, I spotted a young couple in an inflatable kayak paddling the opposite direction, heading toward the heart of the flat. Unless they knew what they were doing, they stood to get stranded in about 20 minutes and stuck there for the next 5 hours. Seeing neither fishing gear nor binoculars, I took them for tourists. I paddled over and asked whether they came here often. “First time” responded the young man in a British accent.
I explained about the tides and the mud, and pointed them toward a channel marker. If they paddled directly to that marker they could spend all day watching birds, sea turtles, and marine mammals from the main channel without getting stranded.
As I packed my gear in the car, I watched another Osprey pair skimming the West Indian Mahogany trees to collect Spanish moss for their bulky nest on the water control lock that separates the Buttonwood Canal from Florida Bay.
Lock Moss Nesters
I ate my lunch while overlooking Florida Bay from the refurbished visitor center. In addition to the wildlife viewing it’s entertaining to watch international visitors enjoying this National Park in their own ways.
Keeping up with Instagram is priority anywhere you go.More my style.
Hey, that’s the same couple in the kayak I saw earlier, now returning from the flats. They pulled their boat ashore and stopped by to say “hi”.
Caroline from Strasbourg and Jason from London.
They had decided to head back in after a large American Crocodile surfaced in the channel next to their inflatable kayak.
My photo, not theirs, but you can see why they might have felt unsafe in an inflatable kayak.
Until recently, I’d have told them not to worry about the normally docile American Crocodile, but last summer an experienced fly fisherman told me of a large croc at Flamingo that went airborne in its best attempt to take him off the deck of his skiff.
I took Caroline and Jason over to the marina to admire the assembly of mother and baby manatees.
Too cute.
* * *
Pandora’s Flats
A couple of months back, I promised to write an essay about why you shouldn’t fish at Flamingo. The dense mosquito swarms are sufficient reason for normal people to stay away nine months of the year. Risk of stranding on the flats while exposed to sun and lightning should give pause to any sane person. We recently acquired the man-made problem of habituated sharks and crocodiles popping up at random from the opaque water below – recreational fishing boats have trained them well. If you just wanted to fish, you might find an equally productive area with fewer ancillary hazards.
American Crocodile. Note the skinny snoot, Roman nose, and 4th tooth on the bottom that sticks up.
All of these risks have proven insufficient to keep a certain zoologist away. The combination of birds, fish, and scenery will keep me coming back as long as my health and the rising seas allow.
This post is for the subset of serious knot nerds out there who fish using lures or streamer flies.If that doesn’t sound like you, I’ll see you next time with something less arcane.
Fishers connect their leaders to artificial lures and streamer flies using nonslip loop knots to allow these bait mimics to move more naturally in the water.
It really irks me when a nice fish, typically a bonefish, black bass, or peacock bass, breaks my line at the loop knot. The Kreh Nonslip Loop Knot that I’ve used for years retains about 80% of the leader strength, which is pretty good, but a sharp tug can lower that strength and break the knot.
Loop knot breakage is rarely an issue for the real inshore bruisers I fish, snook and tarpon, because we add a heavy bite tippet to resist their abrasive mouths, and the loop knot in that short segment is stronger than the thinner “class tippet” behind it. But the peacock bass in the lake where I fish them regularly have wised up to my leaders and won’t take my streamer fly unless it’s tied on a tippet thin enough for them to break.
In frustration, I devised a stronger loop knot, which subsequent testing showed was as strong as the line itself. This knot is only the second known loop knot to retain 100% of the line strength under static loading. The first such knot is the Bimini Twist, a great knot, but too big for direct fly connection in most cases. Phil’s 100% Loop Knot fills the void.
Phil’s 100% Loop Knot on a streamer fly. The loop allows a fly or lure to bounce around freely, better imitating the movements of an anxious or injured baitfish.
[Addition since original post: Andy Mill on his podcast states that the Improved Homer Rhode Loop Knot retains 100% of the line strength. I tied and tested 14 of them, and found the Improved Homer Rhode Loop broke, on average, at 64% of the line strength compared to 79% for the Kreh Loop, and 100% for the Phil Loop.]
Instructions to tie “Phil’s 100% Loop Knot”:
Summary: tie a Kreh Loop with doubled line and 1.5 wraps.
The working knot, like the one above, is tied in thin monofilament or fluorocarbon leader that is hard to visualize from a photograph. In the photos that follow, I tie the knot using parachute cord to make it easier for you to see.
Steps 1-4 below. (1) The line is doubled, (2) an overhand knot tied in it, (3) the loop end is slipped through the hook eye, and (4) the overhand knot is positioned close to the hook eye.
(1) Double the line. You can fold the line over on itself, or lay another segment of the same material along side if you don’t want to shorten your leader as much. In a thin line, make this doubled section 3” long (try 4″ the first time you tie it).
(2) Tie an overhand knot in the doubled section,~2” from the tag end. Don’t snug it tight yet, but keep it open 1/8 to 1/6”.
(3) Slip the doubled end through the hook eye. With hook sizes #6 and smaller, that loop won’t fit through the hook eye without a fight, so I cut the line to make two ends and slip them through one after the other.
(4) Slide the line through the hook eye until the overhand knot touches or comes close to the hook eye, and lay the loop beside the doubled reel-ends of the line.
Half wrap around – keep going…One and a half wraps around. That’s enough for full strength.
(5) Wrap the loop end (or 2 cut ends) 1.5 times around the double reel-ends of the line.
Loop pulled through the overhand knot.
(6) Slip the loop end (or 2 cut ends) back up through the overhand knot.
Knot pulled tight.
(7) Pull the knot tight, being sure to tug all involved strands.
Finished knot.
(8) Cut the 3 tags short.
The knot typically consumes 6 inches of my tippet or leader. To conserve the original leader, you can tie the same knot with a second piece of line instead of folding over the tippet on itself. Here’s an example where yellow parachute cord is the 2nd piece of line:
Here it is holding an 18” peacock bass on 1X tippet. Let me know how it works for you: pkstoddard@gmail.com
My new dad, Ted Stoddard, was a Naval Intelligence Reserve officer. At the age of 4, I knew the Navy had ships, that ships had lots of ropes, and ropes had to be secured with just the right knots. Since Ted’s work was classified, I determined that he had to know the US Navy’s trove of secret navy knots. Under questioning, he admitted this was true. I set out to learn as many of these knots as I could, but of course they were secret so he couldn’t reveal them.
My favorite bathtub toy was a 3 foot length of India rubber tubing. I’d sit in the tub at bath time and tie a complex knot in the rubber tube then ask: “Is THIS one of the Secret Navy Knots?”
Lt. Commander Stoddard would gravely inspect the knot and answer “No, not that one.” After inspecting half-dozen of my intricate tangles he’d bend down closer to the splash zone and whisper, “Yes, that’s one.”
That was in the 1961, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Most of the Secret Navy Knots have been declassified since then, but I suspect a few remain secret. I can’t know for sure.
Some knots are named for their inventors. My favorite named knot is the Crazy Alberto knot, invented by Alberto Knie, who is intense, high-spirited, and very funny, but not crazy. Alberto is an unusually astute observer of wild fish, a great fisherman, and a lovely guy. His knot is terrific.
I’m a fan of Alberto and I use his knot to attach the bite tippet in every leader I tie for snook or juvenile tarpon. As of my writing, Alberto is recovering from a massive heart attack – if you are also a fan, you can help him out at https://gofund.me/4b854b908
I’m not in Alberto’s league as a fisherman, but I’m good with knots and I’ve long aspired to have a knot named after me. Of course, I’d have to invent a knot so good that a lot of people would use it, and the knot would have to be so unique that a graphic name like “figure-8 knot” wouldn’t capture it.
I do have a candidate.
On days I want to fly fish but I don’t feel like messing with boats in heavy winds and/or heavy rain, I often grab my 5-weight fly rod and head over to a local lake to fish for Butterfly Peacock Bass (“peas” for short). There, if the sky opens up on me, it’s a short dash to the car and not too far home to change into dry clothes.
Peas aren’t the hardest-pulling fish I catch, but they’re gorgeous and they fight plenty hard, leaping into the air or diving and delivering a series of sharp body snaps. Here’s a big male in action:
If the line has enough tension, the pea’s body snap can break the monofilament tippet that joins the leader to the fly. The tippet breaks at the weakest point, usually the loop knot that connects the tippet to my streamer fly. The pea’s other trick is to head for the nearest submerged branch tangle where it will break off for sure. It takes a lot of line tension to keep a big pea out of the branch tangles, to which it responds with – yes – sharp body snaps, breaking the line at the loop knot.
The obvious solution is to use sufficiently heavy tippet to resist breaking, but the peas in this lake have become educated and won’t eat a fly if they can spot the tell-tale tippet. When I upsize to thicker, stronger tippets, the peas stop eating my flies. When I downsize to thinner, less visible tippets, I get bites once again but the peas break off at the loop knot. This trade-off has only arisen recently, a byproduct of the fish education that arises from my catch-and-release fly fishing. The peas have learned to watch for my tippets and I’m stuck.
Earlier this week I hooked a not-so-big pea on my special mosquitofish fly, and the pea broke off at the loop knot once again. Dang! I can’t go up in tippet diameter and I’m tying the strongest known loop knot, the Kreh Loop, invented by Lefty Kreh. The Kreh Loop is slightly stronger than another great loop knot, the Duncan Loop, invented by Norman Duncan. I need an even stronger knot.
I sat on the bank for a few minutes and pondered until I hatched an idea for a new loop knot, a cross between the Palomar knot and the Kreh Loop. If I was lucky, this new loop knot would combine the best traits of both, the enhanced strength of the Palomar and the non-slip property of the Kreh Loop.
I tied on my fly with a prototype of the new loop knot. Here’s it is, photographed against my shorts:
In a few minutes I’d hooked a scrappy, medium-sized peacock bass and the knot held despite the pea’s snapping tugs.
The next fish was a much larger pea that put up a long and vigorous fight, and again the knot held.
Lucky coincidence? As a scientist I can tell you that empirical testing can never rule out coincidence entirely, but with enough tests one can reduce the likelihood of coincidence to a very tiny number. One percent is the standard comfort level for most scientists.
METHODS
First thing when testing knots is to test the line to make sure it performs as expected. I tie one end of the line to a digital archery bow scale with peak hold function ($18 on Amazon). Obviously securing the line to the scale requires a knot, so I use a Bimini Twist, one of the rare “100% knots”, that retains 100% of the original line strength. The other end of the line I keep on the spool. I put on gloves to protect my hands from being cut when the line breaks (learned my lesson there), grip the spool and scale in my two hands and pull slowly and steadily until the line breaks. This is a static line test. Admittedly, the fish breaks the line with faster dynamic loading, conditions under which even the Bimini Twist is no longer a 100% knot, but for now a static load test will do.
My original tippet that was breaking at the knot, Rio Powerflex 1X, is rated at 13 pounds, but my spool was breaking around 10 pounds. Oops. That’s an issue right there and explains part of my break-off problem. Next I tried Rio’s 16 pound fluorocarbon tippet material but it also broke well below its rated strength. Hmm. Does Rio have production problems? If single strand line stays too hot during production it can lose strength.
Next I tried Yo-Zuri Hybrid 12# line, a nylon-fluorocarbon mix. I have discarded spools of Yo-Zuri Hybrid that tested far below their rated strength, but other spools have tested fine. My open 12 pound spool breaks at 14.0 pounds (standard deviation 2.8 pounds), so that’s what I used for my knot testing session.
I tied and broke a dozen Kreh Loop Knots, my standard knot for streamer flies. These I alternated with a dozen of my new loop knots. Why a dozen? With the variance in the strength of this line spool (mean=14, SD=2.8) a sample size of 12 per group gives me a decent chance of finding an effect if an effect exists (i.e., good statistical power). I could do the mathematical power analysis, but I’ve run similar statistical tests for 46 years, long enough to ballpark it.
After each break, I pulled a foot of line off the spool and discarded it to get all fresh line for the next test.
RESULTS
All 12 of the Kreh Loops broke at the knot, and all 12 of my new loop knots broke in the middle of the line.
The odds of getting a result this extreme by chance alone is the same as flipping a fair coin 24 times and calling it correctly in the air all 24 times: one in 16,777,216. A little better than one in 100? My best run of coin flips ever was 11 in a row, the odds of which are one-in-2048. I won’t waste my time trying for a run of 24 unless I achieve a life sentence in a prison with a coin but no library.
Since the new loop knot never broke, I can’t know how strong it actually is. However, the Kreh loop knots broke, on average, at 79% of the line strength with a standard deviation of 2.2 pounds. A two-sample T-test comparing the peak breaking tensions of the two knot types showed that the new loop knot is statistically stronger. The P-value of this statistical test is 0.005, meaning that a pattern this extreme or more extreme would occur by chance in only 5 of 1000 similar knot break-off contests using 12 knots of each type. That’s 1-in-200 odds, twice as good as my 1% criterion.
[31-Oct-2025, Addition since original post: Andy Mill on his recent Mill House podcast stated that the Improved Homer Rhode Loop Knot retains 100% of the line strength. Competitive tarpon fishers swear by this knot. I tied and tested 14 of them, and found the Improved Homer Rhode Loop broke, on average, at 64% of the line strength compared to 79% for the Kreh Loop, and 100% for the my new knot. The standard deviation was 2.1, similar to the Kreh Loop. The Improved Homer Rhode is significantly weaker than either the Kreh Loop or my new knot. Woof woof, it’s a dog.]
DISCUSSION
The two statistical tests are good enough for me to have faith that the difference is real. The fact that in tests of my new knot the line always broke in the middle and never at the knot, means this new loop knot is at least as strong as the line itself, making it the first 100% line-to-hook loop knot. That’s a knot worthy of a name.
Hey, this is exciting!
Oops. Can’t say that. Successful scientists might pop the cork on a bottle of good Champagne to celebrate a major discovery, but it’s considered unprofessional to fully convey our excitement in print. Even Watson & Crick, in their original publication about the structure of DNA forced themselves to remain understated when explaining how a double helix structure could facilitate DNA replication: “It has not escaped our notice….”
This study also helps explain my break-off problem. My original 13 pound-rated tippet was functioning at 10 pounds, and the Kreh Loop was reducing that strength by 21% to ~8 pounds. The standard deviation was 2.2 pounds which means that in over a third of my knots the functional strength is reduced to under 6 pounds static load, and maybe half that under dynamic loading. The peacock bass are having a much lighter task breaking that tippet than the nominal 13 pound strength I might have thought I had going for me. I will switch to the Yo-Zuri Hybrid 12 pound spool for now, and use my new loop knot to tie on the streamer flies.
This new loop knot might be a Secret Navy Knot. If it is, the US Navy’s PR office certainly won’t tell me. After illegally blowing up several boatloads of Venezuelans, some of whom now appear to be fishermen, the US Navy will be too anxious about media shit storms to field a loony call from an American fisherman inquiring about “secret knots”. I might do better calling the Office of Naval Research.
My father Ted will turn 99 next month, having retired long ago at the rank of Captain. I will ask him about this knot for sure.
I’d call the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to find out if my knot is in their collection of Standard Knots, but they’re closed during the government shutdown, stemming from a dispute as to whether Americans, such as my brother’s family, should be able to afford health insurance, versus rich people getting a big tax break. My wife and I are on Medicare now, but we think all families should have access to affordable health care. We support the goals of those in Congress holding out to restore affordable health care to middle and low income Americans, and to keep community hospitals from closing.
* * *
Returning to the prosaic, I have simplified the new loop knot slightly, to make it easier to tie while retaining its strength. I will explain how to tie this knot in another post, but first it needs a name.
My last few fishing trips onto the flats have been unproductive. The late summer water has been hot and low in oxygen. Maybe the fish are somewhere else, or maybe they’re just laying low. Tomorrow morning I’m venturing back into the mangrove lakes of Mosquito Hell, an area where I always find fish this time of year, assuming the Black Salt Marsh Mosquitoes (BSSMs) don’t drive me out first.
Trip planning
The moon is near full tonight, so the morning fishing activity is likely to be brief. I plan to arrive in the dark to maybe find a snook or two before the sun comes up. Then I’ll peddle-paddle my kayak to an area where the tarpon hang out and snook spend their day hiding in the mangroves. Occasionally, a snook wakes up for a mid-morning snack. If I find the juvenile tarpon rolling, I can see if they’ll play with me. Like snook, tarpon feed actively at night on a full moon, so they may be sated by the time I arrive.
I’m preparing for the BSSMs the night before, putting into play a few improvements over my last trip to Mosquito Hell:
I take my khaki fishing pants, outer shirt, and gloves to the driveway, spray them with DEET, and place them inside a 2-gallon zip-loc bag. I lay out a towel to protect the car seat from the DEET. The rest of my special mosquito gear I place on the passenger seat: for my head, a Tilley hat and insect head net; for my feet, Simm’s neoprene wading gaiters and neoprene dive booties. Mosquitoes are not going to bite through 5 mm of neoprene.
My scheme is to drive to the launch in the dark, and change into my stinky DEET-soaked clothes, then get out of the car to rig and launch my kayak. I will start fishing at 06:00, before the first dawn light. The nearly full moon sets at 05:49 and the sun rises at 07:06, with civil twilight starting at 06:36.
It’s tricky fishing in total darkness, and tricker fly fishing. I only know that a snook is nearby if I hear it blow up the water while chasing mullet. Sometimes the water is silent. Other times I cast too far and hang the fly into a mangrove tree. Then I have to turn on my head lamp to untangle the line and of course the light attracts mosquitoes to my head. But other times I cast the fly near a snook and things get exciting in a much better way. Hope springs eternal.
My alarm is set for 3:50 am. Time for bed.
Fishing report
On the Mosquito Horror Scale (0-10) the morning ranks an 8, “Severe” but not “Extreme”. My mosquito gear system works perfectly. The only mosquitoes that try to bite me are 3 or 4 that go for the pads of my fingers where I have no repellant. That’s not a safe place for a mosquito to bite a human, and they are instantly dispatched with a pat of the finger. With my DEET-soaked outer clothes, mosquitoes don’t even follow me into the car.
No mullet are splashing around the kayak launch area in the dark, so no predatory fish are there either. Too bad – sometimes the fishing is amazing right there. I light out for the far mangrove shore, about a mile’s paddle.
The first traces of dawn light appear, with Venus still visible directly above the tallest thunderhead on the left.
Dawn explodes enroute. Yowza.
I reach the other side eight minutes after sunrise. The water is extremely murky and tannic, like donut shop coffee with a tiny splash of horrid non-dairy creamer. I dip my finger in the water and taste it through the head net: slightly brackish.
To find fish in water this opaque I need a “search bait” that’s dark, for maximum contrast when viewed from below against the sky, but with some sparkle and a lot of vibration to get a fish’s attention. I put away the fly rod and rig my spinning rod with a 4” paddletail in rootbeer & gold with a gold underspin jig – just the ticket.
The paddletail, true to its name, wiggles its tail back and forth, and the underspin leaf twirls up a storm.
At 7:15, my second cast is slammed by a snook in the 30″ range. It makes one jump, a brief lateral run pulling line off the reel, then runs straight for me as fast as I can take up line. It passing directly under the middle of the kayak, bending the rod hard. The tip section of my three-piece TFO travel rod snaps, creating a brief moment of slack that pops the lure free of the fish’s mouth.
This is the 4th time this spinning rod has broken, every time in exactly the same spot, 5″ above the ferule. Until now, I’ve blamed myself, but thinking on it, each break occurred under a different circumstance and stress geometry and I’ve never broken any other spinning rod. I’d wager the TFO Traveler is weak at the internal edge of a carbon fiber sheet wrap. I will write the company about this problem. I bought two replacement tip sections the last time one broke, so I still have one left, but I need a more reliable multi-piece spinning rod.
Why even bring a travel rod on a local fishing trip? When kayak fishing tight to the mangroves, it helps to have the rods I am not using at the moment disassembled and stowed safely out of the way. That’s a key advantage of multi-piece rods, not to mention the obvious advantage when I travel.
Back to fishing. Having broken the spinning rod, it’s “fly or die”. I re-assemble the 8wt fly rod and choose a black dark-water fly, this one tied from Drew Chicone’s pattern, The Devil’s Daughter. The tail is ostrich and peacock herl, the body is fluffy marabou feathers, and the head is spun deer hair. Peacock herl gives It shimmer and the ostrich and marabou make it swish enticingly in the water.
I start with the fly in the photo and immediately hang it in a mangrove. Impatiently, I shove my kayak into the mangroves to untangle the fly, leader, and line, then tie on another I’d made with a weed guard to keep it from hanging in trees and roots.
Predatory fish that have spent the night foraging under a bright moon generally won’t be hungry again until the afternoon. This morning fits that typical pattern, with fish ending their feeding spree shortly after sunrise, shortly as in 9 minutes. In the next hour, I get rained on briefly (feels good) and catch a couple of small juvenile tarpon on fly (they’re always hungry), while their older cousins roll on the surface for air but won’t eat.
Fishing is over until afternoon but the shoreline holds birds, orchids, and bromeliads. I can see for miles, the mosquitoes have let up, the rain shower has cooled things off, and I have yet to spot another human. It’s has turned into a pretty fine Sunday in the Everglades wilderness, but it’s time to get out. Bigger storm clouds are assembling and I don’t want to be crossing open water in an electric storm.
On the way home I stop by Moreno’s Tortilla shop in Florida City to pick up hot tamales and a pack of corn tortillas. Josephine greets me and knows what I want without my asking. This little hole-in-the-wall makes the best Mexican tamales and you can’t buy all-corn tortillas this good in a supermarket.
On the drive back, I divert 10 miles to check out a canal that friend Jay and I had identified from a YouTube video. In the video, a young kayak fisher from out of town was catching lots of fish while getting bitten on the eyelids and lips by something he called “yellow flies”. As soon as I step out of the car I am engulfed by a swarm of hungry deer flies. Uh oh.
I consider deer flies even worse than mosquitoes because they are active midday when it’s too hot for protective bug clothes, they will find the the tiniest spot of skin on which you did not apply repellant (e.g. lips and eyelids), and their bites really hurt.
Climbing over two metal gates, swat swat swat, I find the kayak put-in, swat swat. From the vague track through the vegetation, swat swat swat, I can tell it’s rarely used. I wonder why not, swat swat.
I mash the deer flies that followed me into the car and photograph one that wasn’t too mangled.
Serious rain slows the drive home but returns a few minutes by washing salt from the kayak and car.
Unpacking my fishing gear, two stow-away mosquitos escape into the house. It’s still summer here in South Florida where if it’s not one nasty biting bug it’s another. I’ll bet the Wisconsin Driftless Area is getting really nice about now.
Eye of the Cormorant 