If you’re planning to chase bonefish in the Caribbean, the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) may not be the first destination that comes to mind. It also may not be at the top of the Google search results as you start planning your next warm weather vacation with the family. But if the idea of having some excellent saltwater fly fishing options available during your next family vacation sounds appealing, TCI should be high on your short list.

Whether you are looking to sneak in a quick do-it-yourself afternoon session, wading the flats while the kids hang out at the pool, or you’d prefer to spend an entire day casting from the bow of a skiff, TCI offers quick and easy options to scratch the angling itch without taking you far from your beach chair or breaking the budget. The Turks and Caicos Islands may be the best kept secret for the saltwater fly angler on a family vacation. 

The Turks and Caicos Islands is a British Offshore Territory comprising two groups of islands that sit atop Caicos Bank, east of Cuba and south of The Bahamas. Of the Caicos Islands, Providenciales (with its world-famous Grace Bay beach) is by far the most popular for family vacations. There are plenty of activities, restaurants, and accommodations ranging from budget friendly to luxury. My family and I took our first TCI vacation nearly a decade ago. Explorers at heart, we have generally avoided the resorts, instead indulging our preference for renting houses or condos and embracing the ability to tailor our own experience. Our favorite over the years has been the Chalk Sound area, though the Leeward section of the island has seen development in recent years and has many good options.  

Several airlines serve Turks and Caicos Islands with regular flights into the area’s main airport on Providenciales (often referred to as “Provo”). Given the state of air travel these days, a direct flight is a good idea when possible. While both taxis and rental cars are available at the airport, consider renting a car if you are planning to do any exploring while in TCI; taxis can be expensive. Driving is done on the left, in British fashion, and isn’t as difficult as you might think.  No special driver’s license is required, but be sure to look to the right to check for oncoming traffic.

Resorts have their own excellent restaurants, but if you’d like to explore a bit (and you should), there are many restaurants in and around Grace Bay and several more within a short drive. Fresh seafood is always a good dinner choice. Catch of the day paired with an ice cold Turks Head beer is a fine way to wrap up a day on the beach, shopping, or fishing. For the true do-it-yourselfers renting a home or condo, local grocery stores range from upscale (closer to Grace Bay) to modest (further from Grace Bay) with relative prices to match.  

Bonefish are the focus of fly fishing on Turks and Caicos, though barracuda can also be found.  Guided fishing trips are mainly done on North Caicos Island, which is accessible from Providenciales by a short ferry ride from the Leeward ferry station. Ramsar Nature Reserve on the south side of North Caicos is a system of sand flats, mangroves, and channels. Bottle Creek and the East Bay Nature Reserve on the north side of the island includes five flats protected by small barrier islands. Both sides of the island hold schools of bonefish that see relatively little fishing pressure (over the course of several trips to North Caicos, I’ve only seen one other boat).  There are only a handful of fly fishing guides in TCI, though despite the limited number of guides, trip availability is generally good with reasonable lead time. Last-minute cancellations do happen, so if your schedule is flexible it is possible to find last-minute openings.  

Both sides of North Caicos are home to more than bonefish. In addition to the possibility of finding barracuda, you are likely to see turtles, rays, brilliantly colored box fish, and flamingos.  Most guides charge a flat fee for one or two anglers, so why not bring along a non-fishing family member for some sightseeing and photography? TCI fishing licenses can be purchased in increments of a day or a month, and are inexpensive. They are not available online but can be purchased at most marinas. If you happen to be on Provo, a good place to pick up your license is Turtle Cove Marina, a short drive from Grace Bay.

If you are not able to book a guide, have limited time, or would just rather prefer the challenge of stalking bonefish on your own, there are solid opportunities for self-guided trips on Providenciales. The best is Flamingo Lake, a short drive from the resorts on Grace Bay made by taking Venetian Road off Leeward Highway. There are several spots to park and simply begin wading steps from your car. While there occasionally are flamingos, there usually are bonefish.  The bottom is typical mud over hard sand, standard bonefish territory, and easy to navigate. Be on the lookout for schools of bonefish or cruising fish in singles and pairs. Locate holes and depressions in the bottom and you may also find fish as they tend to prowl these areas in search of crabs and other forage.

While this fishery doesn’t see much in the way of fishing pressure, bones are still bones, and in their shallow-water habitat they are generally skittish. When casting either from a skiff or while wading, try to make as little disturbance on the water as possible (e.g. try not to rock the skiff when casting) and keep noise to a minimum. A fast-action 8-weight rod with a floating tropical line is the standard setup, but don’t be shy about stepping up to a 9-weight to deal with the wind if necessary.

Fly selection for TCI bonefish doesn’t need to be tedious; these fish don’t see many flies in general. If you use darker-colored flies for overcast days and lighter-colored flies for sunnier days in any of the standard bonefish patterns (Gotchas, Bonefish Bitters, Crazy Charlies, etc.), tied sizes 4-6, you won’t be far off. Because TCI bonefish don’t see many flies, presentation is probably more important than pattern, so solid saltwater casting skills are a must.

I recommend plenty of casting practice ahead of your trip. Wind is always a factor, and slack in your cast is your enemy, so strong casting fundamentals are a must. Opportunities at bonefish happen fast, and if you’re not prepared for them, you’ll spend most of your time watching fish swim away. Being able to quickly deliver a fly at a variety of distances with a minimum of false casts will allow you to take advantage of these often fleeting opportunities.

When planning a guided trip from a skiff, practice quickly changing direction and delivering a cast just as you will need to do when your guide calls out a direction and distance. It’s always important to be aware of both wind direction and the location of your guide with respect to your backcast. The ability to make casts from both your dominant side and non-dominant sides is key, as is the ability to deliver a cast in both the forward and backcasts. Having a strong grasp of these skills will not only increase your chances of catching bonefish, but also keep you and your guide safe. An otherwise good trip can go wrong in a hurry if you inadvertently hook yourself or your guide with a weighted crab fly. I’ve pulled more than a few flies out of myself and/or my clients, and it’s always at least an awkward moment and at worst a trip to the local ER.

When delivering your fly, find a spot 8 to 10 feet in front of fish that are on the move, and aim for it. Leading the cruising fish with plenty of distance will avoid spooking your target and allow that fish to stay on its line. Even a well-placed fly may need to be repositioned if your target changes course. If that’s necessary, make as little disturbance as possible as you get your fly out of the water. For every bonefish we see, there are likely many others we don’t, and carelessly ripping line out of the water could send an entire school racing for cover in the mangroves.

Once your fly is in sight of a cruising bone, create lifelike action by slightly twitching the fly.  When it’s clear the fish has locked onto your fly, begin to strip quickly and smoothly, keeping the fly moving without hesitation just as a crab or shrimp would do if fleeing for its life. As in most saltwater fly fishing situations, strip setting is the name of the game. Continuously stripping the fly keeps the fish’s predatory instinct engaged and the fish in pursuit of your fly, so even if you think the fish has eaten your fly, keep stripping. Once you feel the take, strip again to set the hook before raising the rod tip to fight the fish. When guiding freshwater anglers on saltwater trips, I often suggest keeping the tip of the fly rod in the water as they retrieve their fly. Muscle memory from their normal trout-set can be difficult to overcome, so the added resistance of lifting the tip of the rod out of the water can sometimes mean the difference between hooking a fish and disappointment.

Our most recent trip to TCI happened during our town’s public school February vacation. That’s a great time to break up the long grey of winter here in the Northeast with some sun and warmth. Despite the popularity of the week, we enjoyed uncrowded beaches and restaurants.  The fishing was great, too, at least part of the week. Bonefish spawn by forming large offshore aggregations, often during or near new moon periods from late Fall to early Spring. During this time schools of bonefish truly can be here today, gone tomorrow, and such was the case during our trip. The southern flats of North Caicos were teeming with bonefish early in the week, while later that week (coincidental to a new moon) the flats of Bottle Creek on the north side of the island were nearly vacant. As I lamented that situation to my cab driver on the way back to the ferry landing on North Caicos, he casually said, “They went to the ocean to wash their roe.”  That local knowledge lines up with what we know about bonefish spawning patterns. As he drove the cab away, I made a mental note that bonefishing TCI in February, while a nice winter break, could yield unreliable results. The decision to return in May and try again was easy.

Over the years my family has enjoyed vacations on the Turks and Caicos Islands, and there’s no doubt others would, too, as there’s a little something for everyone, even some great fly fishing.  If time and budget allow, hiring a guide is a good option. You’ll cover more water and have a better chance of locating fish. If you have less time or budget, you don’t have to give up your fishing plans because there’s great bonefishing within a short drive that can be done very simply. The ease of access, lack of fishing pressure, and overall likelihood of success make TCI a great place to have your first bonefishing experience and a unique destination for fly anglers planning a Caribbean family vacation.

Bio: Captain George Sylvestre, CCI is lead guide and instructor at Sylvestre Outdoors, a veteran-owned, family-operated fly casting instruction and fly fishing guide service offering both saltwater and freshwater fly fishing trips from Cape Cod to the rivers of Massachusetts and Connecticut. He is a Far Bank Pro and saltwater fly fishing instructor. If you would like additional information on fly fishing the Turks and Caicos Islands, he can be reached at george.sylvestre@sylverstreoutdoors.com.

The post BONEFISH IN TURKS AND CAICOS first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post BONEFISH IN TURKS AND CAICOS appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

by Joseph Ballarini

On my first cast to a bonefish, on Biscayne Bay near Miami in August 2008, I hooked up.

We rolled out of Black Point Marina, into a skinny-water eel grass flat that was as smooth as melted glass. The sun was starting to surface in its awesome orange glow, illuminating the horizon. We saw spiders the size of birds high up in the mangroves in the early morning light; there may have been a bird caught in one of the webs. What am I doing here?

We traveled by canoe through a very small creek. It was shallow, muddy, smelled like sulfur, and there were lots of bugs. What was I thinking this morning?

The creek fed into a small cove named Black Point about 10 miles south of Miami Beach. As I was admiring the sunrise, just as we entered the creek mouth onto the flats, the guide whispered, “See them? There they are!”

I was nervous—very nervous. I had just started fly fishing after being a bait chucker since age four, and frankly, my fly casting wasn’t good. “I’ll get you closer,” the guide said. “Get ready to cast.” My heart was racing at about 120 beats per minute. I felt my palms getting sweaty, and the grip on my cork handle started to loosen. The cork was indented from the raw pressure of my grip, but it just didn’t seem tight enough, so I just kept squeezing. My body felt heavier, and there was little I could do about it.

“Twelve o’clock, about 45 feet. See them?”

I did. There were six or seven big bonefish right in front of me—tailing. I’d never seen them tail at such short range. This was my chance to catch my first bone on a fly. I was excited, and I could taste success.

I completely flubbed the first cast, throwing the fly about 20 feet short and about 30 feet to the left of the school. I picked up my line with a water haul, which at that moment I really didn’t know existed. Somehow, maybe with the adrenaline or just plain luck, I fired a 40-foot laser into the center of the small school of tailing bones. I saw a flash of silver and heard the guide scream, “He ate it! Set it! set it!”

Huge Fish and a Bad Knot

I pulled back on the line and set the hook on a roughly 7-pound bonefish. My rod bent like I had never seen it bend—because I had never had a fish of that brawn on it before. With the reel screaming, the mighty bone pulled off about 150 feet of line in a blazing initial run that only took seconds.

“You are the luckiest guy in the world,” my guide bellowed. “No one catches a bonefish on their first cast.” Technically, it was my second cast, but it didn’t matter. As quick as the fish was hooked, it was gone. My knot gave way, leaving a pig-tailed leader shooting back at the canoe. I quickly retrieved my line, and the guide grabbed it for a closer look.

“You need to check your knots, man,” he said. “You just lost a huge fish because of a knot.”

I had a pit in my stomach, and for the first time since I was four years old, I didn’t want to fish anymore. That was probably good, because there weren’t any more fish that morning. I felt like a complete failure, but there was a part of me that thought I could do it again. The optimism kept me coming back.

Finally, near Matheson Hammock in Miami, it happened again. It was the same scenario,

but I had been fishing without a guide for about a week. I launched my kayak from the public beach on a pebble shore which wasn’t far from a channel. It was overcast and warm for the time of year, the tides were very dramatic, and there was rain on the horizon. Only lightning would make me leave the flats, especially after waking up at 4:30 a.m. to get on the water by sunrise. But indeed, there was lightning amid the raid on the distant horizon. I didn’t have much time. My favorite 8-weight was ready, handle at my feet with the tip off the bow. This time I tied my own leader and checked my knots twice. I even tied my own fly, Peterson’s Spawning Shrimp, my go-to bonefish fly at the time.

While poling my kayak over a deep boat channel, I saw something in the distance. There they were—six or seven bonefish tailing in about a foot of water on an eel grass flat. They were fat and happy. It almost looked like the same school as that first connection, but the chance of that was virtually nonexistent.

Here we go again

I pole with a rope looped around my wrist. The rope is tied to the anchor line, which allows me to loop the rope around my push pole and gently drop it behind the kayak to drag behind my vessel, well out of the way. I pushed hard one more time to get into a better position.

I looped my rope, dropped the pole, picked up the fly rod, and attempted to visualize my attack.

This time I was ready. Calmer, more experienced, and a much better caster, but still no bones to date, so the nervousness persisted to a significant degree. In this moment, you just accept the tachycardia and sweaty palms, knowing that the hunt is on.

I began my cast, very sloppy and too fast on the backcast, which seems to be the norm while casting when fish are actually present. I threw a 35-foot lob that hit the water like a rock, just to the right of the tailing fish. Fortunately, they were just starting to move right. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

There was almost no light, so little that I was surprised I saw them in the first place. I couldn’t see what was going on, but before I could react, something took the fly, and a fish was on.

Again the rod had a ferocious bend and a crazy bounce. But this one wasn’t as big as that first hooked bonefish. It took off into the boat channel that I had just crossed, and before I knew it, it was well into the holy crap part of my backing. Over 250 feet of backing was gone, and at no point did I have any control of the fish.

Then it stopped suddenly. My heart sank as I thought the fish was lost. In frustration, I began to reel as fast as my hand could move and watched the kayak start to drift toward the direction

of the fish’s run. It was still on. In a few minutes I had retrieved my backing and was back to fly line, but at that point the resting fish recovered.

Another screaming run began and soon put me back into holy crap territory. I noticed that the lightning, which had been far off on the horizon, was much closer, and rain began

to fall. I was standing on a kayak in Biscayne Bay in a lightning storm fighting a bonefish that just wouldn’t make it easy. I debated whether I should break it off and head for shore, but my ego got the best of me, and I refused to let it go. I was tired of failure and frustration, and I was going for broke. Succeed or die trying, which in retrospect was incredibly stupid.

I started to pressure the fish hard. Really hard. I was expecting him to break off at any moment and become another “almost” story. To my amazement, however, he began to wilt. He lost his mojo and any desire to fight. Again, my heart raced. I could taste success.

Within five minutes, my leader was to the tip, and I had a bonefish—my first bonefish—to the

side of the kayak. He had surrendered. Soaking wet from the rain, not remotely concerned about the lightning, I pulled him out of the water, so excited that I dropped my rod in the

water. But it didn’t matter.

There it was—mirrored silver scales, blackish green stripes, unrealistic pink lips, and my

Peterson’s spawning shrimp stuck in its top lip. It was slippery, slimy, and stinky, but it was a bonefish, caught on a fly, finally, in my hands.

It was glorious. The most beautiful fish I had ever seen. I just stared at it, taking in the details for too long before realizing it was raining hard, there was lightning nearby, and this poor bonefish couldn’t breathe. I lunged for the camera for a quick photo, but to my dismay the battery was dead. Adding more insult, I dropped the fish in the water and stepped on the fly. I can be such a bonehead.

One rookie mistake after another. But after months of frustration, repeated failure, and countless hours of research and investigation, I had just caught my first bonefish on a fly. I soon realized this was more than an obsession. Perseverance in the face of constant failure and determination to succeed had turned my obsession into a healthy addiction.

I still had so many questions. Why was it so hard to find good information about fly fishing in salt water? Why did it take me more than six months to land a bonefish when I’d been

fishing my whole life? Where are other places to fish? What other species are as challenging? Where can I get really solid advice and real data? I didn’t have any answers. Then it hit me. I’m a bonehead … a fly fish bonehead.

A quest in earnest

While heading back to my truck, riding the high of catching my first bonefish on a fly, lingering questions substantially limited my joy. My father had me out fishing since I was four; it was something I had been doing my entire life. Why did I have such a hard time catching a bonefish?

Was this the pinnacle of my fishing experience? Are other fish going to be as difficult?

What other fish are out there?

Well, I found other fish, plenty of them: tarpon, permit, snook, tuna, shark, barracuda, billfish, and roosterfish. There are milkfish, trevally and queen fish in Australia. There are fish similar to permit in Asia, as well as a fish in the Indo-Pacific called snub-nose pompano. Hawaii has giant bonefish. There are many targets for fly anglers. Each one requires a fair amount of knowledge and competence.

So my search for competence began, emphasis on “search.” There were hundreds if not thousands of websites for fly fishing. To my dismay, most of them were utterly useless. I found plenty of dead links and lots of self-serving information that was just trying to sell products or book a trip.

My research and quest for knowledge was stymied by a glaring lack of good information. I wanted data on species, migration patterns, typical foods, which flies mimicked which foods, destinations, weather conditions, and tides. It was stuff I couldn’t find without reading hundreds of pages and rooting through piles of garbage. The internet was full of information that was mostly unorganized, incomplete, and inaccurate, and there were a lot of people masquerading as authorities.

I remember searching for “bonefish fly” and getting results for nymph fishing in Pennsylvania.

Trout fishing is fun, but I wanted to learn about saltwater fly fishing and get better at it.

I wanted to learn how to fly fish effectively in salt water for the top ten or 15 species. One fish in six months—that’s not fun, but it was a learning process. I was done putting in time and paying dues. The addiction had taken over now; I wanted to hunt for fish, not information.

For the next 18 months, I researched saltwater fly fishing information and began to create database. I fished with every captain that I could from Florida to the eastern Caribbean, from California to Australia, and made notes and took photos and video. My travels took me to the Florida Keys, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, California, Australia, the Bahamas, the Windward Islands—anywhere to learn. And I did just that.

I practiced casting and specific techniques for casting in wind and less desirable conditions. I began studying the art of fly tying and collected flies from all over the world.

My science background enabled me to search data, organize it, and understand it. It became more of a study of the species and the ecosystems that they inhabit rather than a fly fishing study. If you understand the behavior of the fish, then you understand how to target and hunt for that fish. If you know a species’ migration patterns, for example, why would you need fishing calendar?

I gathered a lot of solid knowledge from all of that traveling, as well as many tips and tricks, and most important, an understanding of how to read water and how to read fish. During my travels and time on the water, perhaps the biggest thing I learned was that our waters are in trouble. It was all too common to hear captains talk about how plentiful the oceans used to be.

Seeing debris washed up on scenic Caribbean beaches and even in Biscayne Bay, polluting the system and endangering the wildlife, was troubling. Rips and scars in the sea grass and on manatees from the carelessness of recreational motor boaters. It’s just a matter of time before it’s all gone.

Every time I go out fishing on the kayak, I come home with a bag of trash. Not my trash, but trash that was floating in our water that I collected for proper disposal. I can’t tell you how many beer bottles, plastic bags, and chunks of Styrofoam I’ve collected.

I found that not only was I becoming a knowledgeable fly fisherman, but also an informed and very concerned guardian of the ecosystems the fish inhabit. I wanted to make people aware of the problem and do something to help support the trusts that study and protect the waters and species.

And so it began

This was the catalyst for Flyfishbonehead. “Hunt for fish, not information.” That’s catchy, but there’s a bigger goal. Let’s create awareness of dangers posed to our ecosystems. Perhaps we can create a global network of members, and maybe this network can make a difference.

What if I could create a website with accurate, organized information that promotes the sport of fly fishing in salt water and supports the charitable trusts that support the ecosystems?

So I did.

In 2010, I started organizing my database and planning a website. I had thousands of photos and hours of video: tuna, blue marlin, sailfish, roosterfish, all kinds of sharks, striped bass, weakfish, bluefish, tarpon, bonefish, trevally. I had so much information to sort. It was overwhelming at first, but after a few years and many terabytes of storage, it’s now somewhat manageable. And I’ve kept fishing and traveling.

My friends and fishing buddies were initially a bit concerned about my “addiction.” They later recognized that it had become a healthy outlet for the good of the sport and the environment,  and they began to help. Like old college buddies chanting “chug, chug, chug,” they kept me moving forward and contributed as much as they could, and in 2011, we created Flyfishbonehead.com and Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

Little did I know how insanely difficult it was going to be to launch a website and magazine. With so many details, countless considerations, photos and videos to edit and process, writing copy, and verifying copy to ensure accuracy, there wasn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. We wanted it to be great; everything had to be perfect. But it didn’t work out that way.

We were almost a month behind schedule, and due to some major obstacles and a few failed designs, it was another year until Tail Fly Fishing Magazine launched in August 2012 during the beta trial of Flyfishbonehead.com.

In September 2012, the beta tag came off, and Flyfishbonehead.com was finally officially launched. My addiction was fly fishing for bonefish, but now it has become fly fishing and also making sure future generations of fly anglers get to enjoy the same waters and experiences that we now enjoy. Perhaps together, as a global fly fishing community, we can even make it better.

I still remember catching that first bonefish. Almost getting struck by lightning. Dropping a Sage rod in the bay. Stepping on the fly and hooking my foot. I’m a bonehead….a fly fish bonehead. You’d think that would’ve been enough to make me quit. But addiction is a very strange thing.

Reflections from the Mill House Podcast

Alive & Well in the Florida Keys

Chico Fernandez joins Tail Fly Fishing Magazine

The post Addiction first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post Addiction appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

Editor’s note: These excerpts are transcribed from Mill House Podcast episodes. They’ve been lightly edited for brevity and clarity. Andy Mill has added recent reflections on the clips that are signified by italicized text.

Tackle was barbaric and fish were plentiful. Before GPS and sonar, navigation and exploration was about timing with speed and compasses. What was the evolution like for fishing sophistication?

Our history is told through decades of ageless, weathered anglers and guides who dedicated their lives to the pursuit of gamefish far and wide. Their quests and stories are riveting and compelling, instructive to those of us interested to know where we’ve come from and how we arrived where we are today.

If these stories are not told and documented, and if the emotion that accompanies them is not captured on camera, our heroes one day may only be remembered by name, their stories eventually lost with the trade winds.

Archiving our giants is our mission. For the rest of time, generations to come will have a chance to listen and see their forefathers and icons. Our goal at Mill House is to preserve these historical people and the lives they’ve led.

Included here are examples of two of our sport’s greatest statesmen, Flip Pallot and Steve Huff, speaking about when life gets closer to the finish line, a firsthand account of how weighted permit flies came into existence, and also how epoxy flies came to be. We also include moments from our time with Billy Knowles. We thought it would be valuable to share these snapshots as moments in time when a reflection made becomes a legacy for the ages.

From the Mill House Podcast interview with Flip Pallot

Andy: When I called you recently, I asked, “What are you doing, what’s happening?” You said, “I’m sitting in my Yeti chair looking at my backyard, looking at the woods, having a cocktail, trying to figure out what kind of mischief I can get into tomorrow.” What’s your life like now?

Flip: I sharpen a lot of things—hooks, arrows, and bullet points. I’m always happiest when I’m sharpening something or cleaning something.

Andy: I spoke to some of your buddies, great friends, prior to coming up here and they all agreed you’re the ultimate outdoorsman.

Flip: Well, I don’t know about that … but it certainly calls to me … always has. I never had an interest in sports, never knew who the biggest hitters were. It was never part of my stream of consciousness. I remember more than anything else sitting in elementary school classes looking out the window at the birds and wishing I was out there. School was always terribly difficult for me, not because of the school; it was because I didn’t want to be there, and I finished school because my parents wanted me to. It meant a lot to them. I wish I had those years in college back and do something really cool with them.

Andy: Your number-one rule, you’ve said, is to follow your heart. It appears as if you’ve done that now.

Flip: I have with the exception of a few little detours that were important to people that were important to me, family.  And so I spent some misguided years working in corporate situations which was like elementary school. I’d look out the window and wish I was out there, and then at some point I came to the full and certain realization life has a finish line and I was going backwards.

Andy: You know, I think, too, Flip, that we all go through those early years when we didn’t really understand who we were, and what our voices were saying, what our heart was saying. Are you listening to your conscience or your heart, but we’re not really sure until you get to the point with some experience and mileage. We all went through those years; it was painful but there was no way out, because we didn’t know the way out.

Flip: Exactly right! You have to find that, and there’s a price to pay for that, as there should be. But when you break through the veil, clarity exists. You realize this is what I was made for, this is where I belong and this is where I’ll stay to the finish line. And, just along those lines there is a point at which you clearly realize that you’re closer to the end than you are to the beginning. And so then every moment becomes precious. I mean, sometimes I’ll wake up in the morning and look at the clock and say what am I doing here? I could be doing something right now. And you realize there are only so many moments left, I should say so many vital moments left, and by vital I mean those moments you could spend on a poling tower poling, pushing a skiff into the wind. That comes to an end. How many moments are left that you could walk up a hillside at 9 or 10,000 feet and do your thing there? Those moments come to an end. And I don’t look forward to the time when all I can do is sit around and reflect and remember, I really don’t look forward to that. I look forward to to those vital moments that I just described, and many other things as well. You know what I’m talking about. It was so clear to me this past year when we lost Lefty, and I remember because I spent so much time with Lefty, and I remember when he couldn’t pole any more, and I remember when he couldn’t stand on the front deck of a skiff anymore. And I remember how sad … it wasn’t sad for him; he seemed to deal with it marvelously. It was sad for me because when vitality goes, you’re at the end of the trail.”

For me, closing in on 70 with a worn-out body makes it harder to stay in the game. When Pallot spoke of being at 9,000 and 10,000 feet, I knew he was directing that statement to me, knowing that’s where I live in the fall chasing elk. Since then, I dove back into a weight room and onto my bike. I want to still be successful at the things I love. Pallot’s voice hit me right between the eyes. But he’s telling us all to continue doing the things we love, the things we’ll be talking about for the rest of time. Take that fishing trip you always wanted to take. Keep skiing, rafting, hiking, and loving life to its fullest. Spend time with family members, grandkids. You can be tired when you’re dead. Do something this weekend so spectacular you won’t sleep all week. That’s a vital moment.

From the Mill House Podcast interview with Steve Huff

Andy: Tell me about those early years of permit fishing west of Key West with you and Del Brown.

Steve: Actually, I learned about permit fishing on Del Brown’s money. So he called me in 1980. He wanted to target permit and fish for permit a lot, and I’d done a lot of permit fishing, but had only caught 15 or 20 fish on fly so this was a learning experience … and we were using lots of different kinds of flies. Del was quite an innovator of flies. He was using other people’s ideas as well, so it wasn’t Del’s exclusively. There were a lot of guys trying to catch these things more frequently, but for whatever reason we started to catch a lot of permit and more permit than anyone had ever dreamed of catching. It was like if you caught a permit in your life it was a big deal. We had countless days when we caught five or six. Sandy (Sandy Moret) caught seven with me one day. That was the best permit fishing I’ve ever had, but also how the fish were getting in a feeding mode. Sometimes they were eating crabs off the surface like a dry fly. Basically, you could see them coming down a channel eating flies off the surface. It’s really cool, and that’s a caught fish when you get a fly in front of that thing. The right kind of fly, something that floats, quiver it, don’t strip it, shake it, cause these things are just coming down … they’re dead meat. The coolest permit strike I ever saw, I was with Charlie Causey, and we were going down this edge of a channel and the tide had fallen out, and we had on one of these floating flies looking for one of these cruising permit taking crabs and we weren’t seeing any. And this permit tailed in this little alcove maybe a foot or so deep, feeding on the bottom, you know. And we had the wrong kind of fly on, and he threw that floating fly over there and it drifted over this fish, and the fish had his head down and he looked up and saw this fly, and he was trying to get his head up to the surface but his tail was hitting on the bottom. He couldn’t get the fly and swam off into the channel, and Charlie said, “Goddamn, man, I thought he was going to bite that thing!” And I said, “Watch this.” And this fish went out into the channel, got a head of steam, and lunged up onto the flat and took the fly off the surface. His head was completely out of the water, like a 25-pound fish. So it makes your hair stand on end to see something like that.

Andy: Was there point in time with permit fishing when you got over the hump? Was it a fly design or you just understanding the dynamics of permit fishing?

Steve: So I could go through an entire talk about the evolution of permit flies, but nobody was putting weight in flies back then for permit. You know Nat Ragland came up with a little fly that had glass eyes on it, which was essentially weight. It had glass eyes on a piece of wire. Nat had somebody, a guy by the name of Bill Levy, catch a couple of permit on this fly. So I said, “Holy shit! We have to put eyes on our flies.” I’ll tell you where the epoxy fly came from. I was looking for eyes, because all of a sudden I knew that eyes were the deal, right? So my wife had some shelf paper in the drawers in our kitchen that had daisies on it, but the center of the daisy was basically an eye, right? So I cut the centers out and it’s got sticky paper, and I tried to stick them on and they wouldn’t stick on, you know? So I made this chenille body and I took some epoxy glue and I tried to stick these things on which made a mess. So I said, “Screw it! I’m just gonna cover the whole head of this thing with epoxy.” So that’s where the epoxy fly came from. Harry Spear came over a couple days later. I think we caught a permit on it because there was more weight, it added more weight. Screw the eyes. The eyes didn’t mean a damn thing. It was about the weight. So then we started adding more weight. The epoxy fly had its day and we started putting on little barbell eyes to get the fly down. I think the real thing was the right amount of weight, because sometimes they’re in shallow and sometimes they’re deeper and sometimes they’re in 4 feet of water along the edge of a channel and you can see them down there mudding, and you need something that gets down there, because they won’t see anything up there, you know? But that’s how the epoxy fly got started.

The epoxy fly, as Steve said, “Had its day.” But the way Steve layered the transition to the epoxy fly and ultimately fly weight is possibly the most important transition in all of shallow saltwater fly design. In another Mill House episode, Michael Guerin said the inventor of weighting flies was something on the order of a genius. Well, we don’t call Steve Huff the “God of Guides” for nothing. This story is one of a million pertaining to Huff’s creativity throughout 50 years of guiding.

From the Mill House Podcast with Billy Knowles

Andy: Let’s talk about Homosassa, because you were there with Carl (Carl Navarre), right?

Billy: No, I went there the first year in ’71 with Jimmy Lopez. The first morning out, we were the first boat down the river, and we got down to just before Chassahowitzka Point. I mean the tripod. He said, “Maybe there’s a few fish right here. Let’s stop and take a look.” And I shut down. We were in his boat, no electrics, strictly pole, and I was standing on the back of the boat and pushing around some. I see a fish roll. I said, “Jimmy, stand up. A fish just rolled and there might be more with him.” He starts shaking, and I said, “Hurry up!” I said, “Five or six fish just rolled.” He’s still shaking, and I said, “Forget it.” And he said, “Why?” I said, “There’s more damn fish here than I can count. He said, “You’re serious?” I said, “Yeah, it’s a big daisy chain.” Andy, when the sun came up, we weren’t outside the daisy chain throwing in, we were inside throwing out. That’s how big the school was. And he said, “How many fish do you think’s here?” I said, “I don’t know—1,000, 1,500, 2,000. I have no idea.” That day we caught seven and wouldn’t say how many we jumped. But we did catch seven. We were there for ten days. We ended up catching 77 fish in ten days. On the tenth day we never caught a fish. We hooked a fish in the morning about 7 a.m. and we fought that fish till a little after 12. The fish was way past two (200 pounds). He said, “We got to get a shot with the gaff.” I said, “You fight the fish. Let me worry about the gaff.” So not having electrics I had to pole outside of the fish to get up wind of him so the wind could blow me down on him. So I poled outside of the fish, laid the pole down real quiet, picked up the gaff, and the fish turned around and blew the fly right back in his face. He got so mad he threw the fly rod and reel down in the boat, bent the reel all to hell, lowered the motor down, cranked up, and we came in. And I said, “You’re a real sport, aren’t you?” He said to me, “Bring the boat back to Islamorada. I’m flying home.” Now, he had his plane there then. I said, “Whatever you want.” That was my last year with him.

Billy Knowles died January 4th, leaving a profound hole in the collective heart of Islamorada, Florida, where his family homesteaded in the 19th century. At 81, he was still on his tower chasing fish daily. He was one of the first skiff guides. He started fishing offshore as a youngster and over time became one of the planet’s best bonefish guides, winning some of the biggest tournaments on multiple occasions. Billy’s love for his fellow man was prevalent over his entire life, and deep friendships resulted from it. Considered the “Mayor of Islamorada” and a father figure to all, his was the voice of reason. Over the years he fished with Ernest Hemingway, President Herbert Hoover, President George H.W. Bush, and Ted Williams. The term legend often gets thrown around too casually, but Billy Knowles was the real deal, and even “legend” falls short when describing Billy. He was as big as they get in every way, Rest in peace, Billy. We miss you terribly, son.

If you’d like to hear more stories from fishing legends such as Chico Fernandez, Stu Apte, Al Pflueger Jr., and Mark Sosin, check out Mill House Podcast on any podcast app, or watch on YouTube.

Homosassa:  A Reminiscence of The Greatest Tarpon Fishery

Topwater Permit

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The post Reflections from the Mill House Podcast first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post Reflections from the Mill House Podcast appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

by Joseph Ballarini

It was perhaps legendary Keys guide Harry Spear who originated the very effective style of fly that sports a flat body, allowing for linear movement without spinning. Spear used his Tasty Toad to target the large, spooky bonefish off Islamorada. The Toad landed softly, sank quickly, and refused to spin even when stripped aggressively.

You’ll see this same concept manifest in a number of subsequent flats flies, including Del Brown’s Merkin, the Tarpon Toad (with which Andy Mill has won five Gold Cups), the Kwan Fly (for redfish), and most recently, Dave Skok’s Merkin Shrimp. This concept is also the basis for the Bob Branham’s M. O. E. (Mother of Epoxy) Fly, which has proved itself deadly on permit.

One of my favorite pattens for bonefish and permit is Peterson’s Spawning Shrimp. However, this fly does spin if stripped aggressively, so I stopped using it in Biscayne Bay in favor of Branham’s M. O. E.

Eventually I got the idea to combine the best aspects of Peterson’s Spawning Shrimp with the technical aspects of Branham’s fly—with a few personal touches. I thought the Evolution was an appropriate name, since it’s best described as a mashup of two existing patterns.

The Evolution has superb action, is effective, and is relatively easy to tie. I’ve tested it everywhere I’ve fished, and it seldom fails to produce. In green, the Evolution is my go-to fly in Mexico and Belize. In Florida I prefer pink and ginger; in the Bahamas, pink and tan.  But you can tie it in any color combination and with any head color. Frankly, I don’t think the colored head really matters much for fishing, but they sure do look nice in the box.

If you have any questions, you can email me at admin@tailflyfishing.com.

Materials

Hook: Mustad S74SNP-DT 2XH/4XL size 6 long shank
Thread: Danville flat waxed nylon, 210 denier, pink
Tail: Orange fox and tan Craft Fur (alternatively, I use golden doodle fur after our dog is groomed), flanked at each side with a thin barred ginger hackle tied splayed
Antennae: Black Krystal Flash (optional)
Legs: Tan barred silicone ( I color mine by hand with brown and black markers Borski-style, but the commercial versions work well also)
Eyes: small red shrimp eyes
Flash: Tan Krystal Flash
Wing: Barred tan rabbit fur
Weight: I-Balz
Head: 5-minute epoxy tinted with fine orange glitter

Step 1: Tie in a base of thread on the hook shank above the point.
Tie in orange fox fur, leaving about 1/4 inch beyond the bend of the hook.

Step 2: Measure and trim the trailing portion of fur to bend back over the the bend of the hook and tie in creating a slight bulge for the legs and eyes in the upcoming steps.

Step 3: Tie in craft fur (or dog fur) that should be about twice the length of the fox fur.

Step 4: Tie in two small barred ginger hackles, splayed and extending to approximately the length of the Craft Fur.

Step 5: Tie in black Krystal Flash so it extends slightly beyond the tan Craft Fur (optional, not shown).
Tie in one of the silicone legs so that it extends the length of the Craft Fur (you can trim the legs later, if you wish).

Step 6: Tie in another silicone leg on the other side of the tail. Tie in one of the shrimp eyes to flank the tail. 

Step 7: Tie in the the other eye. The shrimp eyes should extend beyond the bend of the hook by about 1/8 inch.

Step 8: Tie in tan Krystal Flash on the underside of the tail.

Step 9: Tie in the weighted eyes. I-Balz have a wider gap and result in a flatter head on the finished fly.

Step 10: Tie in the first section of barred rabbit for the wing on the underside of the shank.

Step 11: Tie in the second section of wing, just in front of the first and behind the weighted eyes.

Step 12: Wrap the thread to just behind the eye of the hook and whip finish.

Step 13: Mix the two parts of 5-minute epoxy along with the glitter. 

Step 14: When the epoxy is mixed, place a small amount on the eyes. You will need much less epoxy than you think.
The big mistake here is adding too much epoxy and not leaving enough space for a flat, lightweight head.

Step 15: As the epoxy begins to firm, wet your fingers and shape the head using your thumb and index finger to flatten and smooth the epoxy. The key is wet fingers so the epoxy does not stick to your hands. Shape and smooth the head until it’s flat, smooth, and symmetrical.

Heres a quick smart phone video showing how to make the head

Subscribe to Tail Fly Fishing Magazine for the great features, the unique and effective saltwater fly tying and other information that will undoubtedly make you a better angler.  Here are some links to more great fly tying features…

Candy Corn Crawler

Soft Chew Wiggler 2.0

Saltwater Fly Fishing: Saltwater flies – Hammerhead Crab

Characteristics of a Great Bonefish Fly

The post The Evolution Shrimp Fly first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post The Evolution Shrimp Fly appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The Bahamas is somewhere I never thought I would get to visit until later in life. Family, work, bills, yard work. . . the list goes on and on. I would feverishly scroll though images of Bahamian bonefish dreaming of when I would get a chance to have my time on the bow stalking bones. I live in central Ohio, so I spend most of my days chasing the working man’s bonefish (carp), waiting for my time. 

Last winter, a trip with friends to South Andros fell from the cold Ohio sky and landed in my lap. I couldn’t pass it up. With a three-year-old at home and the blessing from my expecting wife, I somehow got the green light.

I didn’t really know what to expect. I had heard stories of 20 fish days and giant schools of bonefish that came in with each tide. I also know from years of tarpon fishing in the Keys that you have  to keep your expectations realistic.

The morning of my departure, the weather dumped about 8 inches of fresh snow on Ohio. My first thought was about flight cancelations. My next thought was that I would be barred from the house if I didn’t shovel. I managed to do what was quite possibly the worst/fastest shoveling job in human history and then set off for South Andros.

Perhaps the best part of going to South Andros is connecting in Nassau to the rickety, small plane that takes you to Congo Town airport. Getting on that plane was one of the few times where I truly felt as if I were leaving everything else behind me.

Over the months leading up to my trip I had become fascinated and borderline obsessed with the famous west side of Andros island.  I wanted to fish there all three days. It’s a long, beautiful and invigorating ride to the west side from the dock. As soon as you leave the dock and take a hard turn down the canal, there is not another sign of civilization. The west side of Andros  is a Bahamian national park that abuts one of the world’s largest reef systems. It’s a spider web of lagoons, canals and tidal creeks: bonefish heaven.

The first morning was tough. Low clouds made spotting fish very difficult. I was fortunate enough to be fishing with one of my best friends who let me have the bow till I brought my first fish to hand. After a few very long hours (and some morning refreshments), the sun decided to make an appearance and the true glory of the west side opened up. At that point, the guilt of hogging the bow set in and my friend Joe immediately hooked into a nice bone. Seeing my first bonefish in person that Joe brought in was an amazing experience. The beauty of these fish is something that cannot be put into words. After a quick change, I got my opportunity. Within minutes I was on. Of course, I get the one that takes me deep into the mangroves. Without any hesitation Joe jumped off the skiff and chased him down, determined not to lose my first fish in the groves. Minutes later, I was holding my first bonefish, something I will never forget. The day continued with fish after fish.

The second day of my trip gave my friend Josh and I full sunshine but intense 20-25 mph sustained winds. It was tough spotting fish with white capped flats but I managed to get a few. What I learned was the value of a good guide who could position the boat in a way that gave me a down wind casting advantage. What really made the second day though was the cuda. After a long walk with our guide Charlie, we decided to head back to the boat for lunch. Charlie decided to go check out a lagoon on the other side of the boat on foot. He waved me over and I grabbed the spinning rod (no judging) to get a chance at one of these big cuda hugging the far bank. I threw out the plug and it quickly started to get the attention of the big cuda. On my second cast, I caught the plug on the tip of my friends borrowed 8 wt, sending the tip flying and in the process losing the plug somewhere in the mangroves. After all this commotion, the cuda were on the prowl looking for something to crush. I decided to make the 100 yard dash in shin deep water to get my 11 wt rod. I quickly rigged up and then ran back hoping the cuda was still around. This time it was even closer,  feverishly looking for a quick meal. I stripped out my line and sent a cast out towards the cuda. My  fly landed on the water 20 ft from the cuda. It turned around and instantly went towards my fly. I tucked my rod under my arm and did a two handed strip as fast as I could and the cuda took a big swipe at my fly and missed. I picked up and cast again, intentionally slapping my fly on the water. This time the cuda didn’t miss and ate the fly 30 feet in front of me.  Seeing a massive cuda eat a 7” fly in front of your face is sick. After the take, the cuda took off running like a favorite in the Kentucky derby. As my line screamed off my reel, two things happened: my guide was yelling at me to get back to the boat because rumor has it that cuda will sometimes come after you if you’re on foot and that my reel’s drag was still set from the last tarpon season and this thing was ripping line off with ease. I started my sideways shuffle through the lagoon back to the boat to land the thing safely. When I reached the boat, I noticed its size. It was huge. You know how this goes…as soon as we got him close to the boat, he broke off. I learned quickly that day who the real boss of Andros is. Barracudas are the apex predators of the flats on Andros, eating anything they want and not taking shit from anyone—apparently anglers as well.

On the last day of my trip, my friend Matt and I decided that we wanted to get a bonefish  on foot. That morning the winds were blowing at a consistent 20 mph and we knew we were in for a rough day. We linked up with legendary guide Torrie Bevins to make sure this could happen. After we bubbled into a lagoon, we managed to get into some fish early from the boat. But we both really wanted to get one on foot. To me, stalking bones on foot is the pinnacle of bone fishing. Torrie knew it was our last day and decided that we should pack a snack and take a long walk to one of his thousands of holes. On the walk to his spot we each managed to get into some nice fish, one pushing 8 pounds. Torrie managed to get us pretty deep into the lagoon and hidden out of the wind as much as possible. As we approached the spot, the tide started to pour out. He put us in position with him in the middle and us off to his sides. “Get ready,” he said. Within minutes, a parade of bonefish started pouring in from around the corner. At one point I lost count of how many doubles we had. For two hours it’s was fish after fish. As fast as you could get them off you would have another one on. It reminded me of fishing in northern Minnesota for sunfish with my father when I was younger. With the day ending, we had to leave fish, but I wasn’t a bit disappointed because I had truly experienced the west side in all its glory. I couldn’t wait to have one of many cold Kaliks in the boat waiting for me.

Shawn Abernathy

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North Andros – From Top to Bottom: PART 1

North Andros – From Top to Bottom: PART 2

The post The Westside of Andros first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post The Westside of Andros appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

Well, as they’re seven and ten years old, I realized the answer now should be yes. I’ve taken them fishing many times on rivers and lakes here in the United Kingdom, and both of them have always been keen. I’ve always been very careful not to push fishing on them, or make them stay longer than they wanted to, in case it had a negative effect rather than a positive one. However, I had never taken them on a full-fledged international fishing trip, and I figured the time was nigh. Thomas, my oldest, has always been fascinated with tales of bonefish and saltwater species, and they both thrive in that tropical environment. As my wife, Elisabeth, has always loved bonefishing, this seemed the perfect opportunity for a family fishing adventure.

The next question was, Where? As this is what I do for a living, you would think that would have been easy, but it did take some thought. Then It hit me that the obvious choice was Turneffe Atoll in Belize. Why? That’s where I caught my first bonefish with my family—a trip that I have never forgotten. Taking Elisabeth and our children there would complete the circle. I began making arrangements.

One evening last autumn, I switched off my children’s usual YouTube viewing, flipped it over to the Aardvark McLeod YouTube channel, and put on a video of Turneffe Flats Lodge in Belize. The two of them watched the whole thing through, captivated by the location, the beaches, the bonefishing, and running around in flats skiffs. When their questions subsided, I hit them with the news: We were going there in August of the following year. A small riot of excitement ensued. This was exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

Over the next six months, a continuous stream of fishing kit began to stack up in the sitting room. I acquired each of them a Hardy Demon Saltwater 7-weight rod matched with a Hardy SDSL 8000 reel. We would spend some time each Sunday practicing casting in the park. Slowly but surely, they developed reasonable casting skill, with Thomas beginning to double haul after studying a Lefty Kreh DVD. I supplemented their casting practice by grabbing the end of the line and mimicking bonefish runs so they would feel comfortable with pressure and retrieve. I also offered them some tips on avoiding obstacles.

Finally, August was upon us. Our bags were packed, and the ten-month preparation period was over. I was excited.

Our journey began with a flight to Miami, the discovery of pancakes and bacon, the Miami Seaquarium, South Beach, and the sun setting over Biscayne Bay. We then flew down to Belize City, where I had a small surprise waiting for them. Rather than our taking the 90-minute boat journey out to the atoll, I had arranged a helicopter transfer. As none of them had ever travelled by helicopter, this was a whole new level of excitement. As we flew over Belize City and over the outer cays, Turneffe Atoll came into view, giving them an incredible perspective of where we were going and the remoteness of our location.

Having settled into one of the family apartments of the new Pelican Villa, we looked out across Home Flat in front of us, and I immediately began looking for fish. (What can I say? I just can’t help it!)

Elisabeth and I had agreed we would take the children out fishing each morning until they had had enough, and then we’d return to snorkel, swim, relax, and enjoy the island. We would alternate between them and fish close together so we could share the experience as a family.

The first morning we ran north in the flats boats to one of the last cays on the atoll, Mauger Cay, where our guides, Dubs and Alton, knew a large school of bonefish lurked in what is known as a mud. This is deeper water where a huge number of bones congregate and feed. It was the perfect spot for both children to get off the mark and hook some fish, figure out what it was all about, and practice some of the skills they had learned. It didn’t take long, and after some huge excitement, both of them were cradling their very first bonefish. For me this was quite special, as it took me back to my first bonefish here 20 years earlier. Thomas and Grace proceeded to land over 20 fish in a couple of hours. I wasn’t sure which they enjoyed more—the fishing or the speed of the flats skiffs!

The following day I graduated them from the muds onto the actual flats around the coral reef. The big, open flats areas stemmed from channels near the mangroves, up over the turtle grass to the rough, broken-coral areas of the reef itself. We could see barracuda patrolling the deeper edges and hanging in white holes, looking for an easy meal. Way up in the skinniest water, often amongst the broken coral, were large schools of bonefish, often tailing or showing their backs. This is not the easiest environment in which to hook and land bonefish, and it certainly presented a challenge—one that my son relished. Thomas had already flipped into predator mode, and with the help of his guide, Dubs, he was more than capable of sneaking up around the back of these fish and presenting a tiny Bonefish Bitters on a long leader.

I watched him stalk down to some tailing fish, and I was very proud to see him throw a lovely loop that stopped above the fish and then gently dropped to one side. The rod tip went down—twitch, twitch, and strip set! He was into a lovely 3-pound-plus fish that streaked off across the flat like a silver bullet as the rest of the school exploded in panic. Dubs was clapping his hands and clasping Thomas’ shoulder like a proud uncle. Thomas weaved the fish in and out of the sharp coral before he brought it safely to hand with a beaming grin. Seeing this vista unfold was not the highlight for me; rather, it was watching the expressions on Thomas’ face. I saw the mixed emotions of concentration, surprise, nervousness, and utter elation. I watched a passion ignite in him that might one day equal my own.

Grace, too, was enjoying the experience, though at only seven she was struggling with casting in the wind. She was more than content to stick close, participate in the stalk, and then take over once the fish was hooked. The first fish I hooked on the edge for her was not large, between 2 and 3 pounds. As I checked the drag and handed her the rod, the fish took off, and she watched the backing start heading very quicly across the flat. The vague look of terror was replaced with grim determination, and slowly but surely she started to gain ground. After what seemed like an age and a couple more blistering runs, the leader was in sight and I could see the fish. Sliding across the flat about 5 feet behind it was a massive barracuda, which obviously was reckoning on an easy meal. I charged it, flailing and splashing as I ran, and I sandwiched myself between it and the bonefish. I knew murder would ensue if Grace lost that fish after all the hard work she had put in. Luck was on our side: The barracuda backed away and soon we had the bonefish to hand.

The week progressed and both Thomas and Grace found their feet. Alton had been a marine researcher at one of the stations on Turneffe for 15 years, so as soon as Grace had had enough, he would take her by the hand across the coral and show her the flora and fauna inhabiting the flats and coral rock pools. Dragon snails, urchins, gobies, and crabs kept her captivated. The snorkeling and diving at Turneffe Atoll is phenomenal, so we kept snorkeling kit in the focsles of the skiffs. When the children had had their fill of wading the flats and chasing tails, the guides would take us to a suitable spot where we would snorkel together as a family under their watchful eye. Alton came into his own here as he could point out particular items of interest that the untrained eye would miss, such as a sleeping nurse shark tucked under an overhang (harmless!), lobster, grumpy octopus, or various species of crab. This allowed Thomas and Grace to experience a world they don’t normally see and to learn more about what lies beneath the water they had spent so much time gazing into. Afternoons were spent lazing by the pool, kayaking around Home Flat, husking coconuts, or just chilling under a palapa. Time slipped away into island life and the children slipped into early beds after tiring days.

On the last day the guides took us south to a stunning area called Calabash Cay, a huge shallow flat with mangrove islands and the ocean lapping over the edge of the reef. On arrival we could already see the glint of silvery tails in the waves and I felt my pulse quicken. After a short while the children announced they were tired—it had been a long week!—so we built them a den on one of the skiffs from the mooring rope and some towels and left them to it. They would be in sight wherever we were, so Elisabeth and I had the chance to spend some time fishing ourselves with the guides. I found some fish tailing against the pilings of a long-since-disappeared dock and managed to land one. Elisabeth hooked up but sadly was coral-cut. There’s something truly magical about hunting bonefish in really skinny water; the tails give away their position but also their mood. Stealth, long leaders, small flies and accurate casting are required, but the rewards are huge.

On the return ride to the lodge, the guides allowed the children to hold the tiller of the motor, which I suspect blew their minds.

Sadly, the journey had come to an end and it was time to leave this island paradise. For Thomas and Grace, this journey to the other side of the world gave them countless new experiences that will broaden their horizons as they grow. It has brought them closer together as siblings and us as a family through shared experience. I am sure, like myself and my wife, this trip will remain carved in their memory for the rest of their lives.

Fact Box – Family Fishing Trips

There are a few things I have learned about putting together trips for families over the years, especially those involving children. If you want children to engage with fishing, they must catch fish pretty quickly, especially the first time out, or they’ll lose interest fast.  Bonefishing trips work well, as it’s visual and the beach environment is always a hit, even without fishing. With that in mind, destination such as Belize, Mexico, the Bahamas, or the Seychelles are excellent. Plenty of fish, experienced, patient guides, and comfortable, well-established accommodations remove all stress and ensure your children will get the most out of the trip. Turneffe Flats had the added benefit of phenomenal snorkeling in a safe environment.

Bio: Peter McLeod began guiding fly anglers for Atlantic salmon in Norway at the age of 16. He is the founder of Aardvark McLeod, international fly fishing specialists. Peter is the author of the acclaimed GT: A Fly-Fisher’s Guide to Giant Trevally (Merlin Unwin Books, 2016). For more information on putting together a family fly fishing trip, you can contact Peter through www.aardvarkmcleod.com.

The post Next Generation Fly Fishing first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post Next Generation Fly Fishing appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

In 1991 I was invited to dinner by one of my longtime clients, Mitch Howell. Mitch was by far one of the best bonefish anglers I had ever fished with. This was confirmed by his multiple tournament victories in the 1980s and ‘90s.  He was the only client who told me to come down from the platform to cast while he was hooked up, which enabled the only guide/client bonefish double in my career thus far. Mitch was the financial advisor to Lefty Kreh, Flip Pallot, and a bunch of other people.  He knew Lefty, and he knew that Lefty would be in town for a casting demonstration. Mitch also knew that I would be a nervous wreck, so he didn’t initially tell me that the dinner plans included Lefty Kreh.

Mitch planned a meeting at Burt & Jacks, Burt Reynold’s fancy steakhouse in Fort Lauderdale, which was already a problem for me.  You see, I like my steak well done, and when you order a well done steak at a place like this, you get that annoyed look from the waiter; the chef looks out from the kitchen to see who is ruining this piece of meat.  It’s pretty uncomfortable.

To make matters even worse, Mitch leaned over as we were getting out of the car and said to me in a stern voice, “Just don’t embarrass me by ordering your steak well done.”

So there I was at a table in a fancy steak house with Lefty and Mitch.

My palms were sweating before the waiter even approached, and now he was at the table asking to take our orders.  He started with Mitch, who ordered his steak black and blue, which is burned on the outside and bloody on the inside The waiter turned to Lefty and asked, “And you, sir?”

Lefty quipped, “I want my steak the color of your apron.”

The waiter, wearing a black apron asked, “Well done?”

“Not just well done,” Lefty replied, “extra well done.”

I instantly felt my body relax as my palms dried up.

Mitch had known all of this and just let the drama play out, but the result of his fun was my introduction to the legendary Lefty Kreh.

Once the steaks arrived, both Lefty and I sent them back for addition cooking—and once more after that. While waiting for our entrees, Lefty and I ate onion rings and shared fishing stories. Mitch quietly and competently finished off his meal, content that his introduction was successful. With our mutual agreement that overcooked meat was better, Lefty and I were kindred spirits.

On the Skiff

After dinner, Lefty said he would be back in Florida soon and would be in touch. He wasn’t lying, it was only matter of months before he contacted me with his arrival information.

I first guided Lefty in 1992. We fished regularly when he came to Florida both in Miami (Biscayne Bay) and, after my wife and I moved our residence, in Islamorada. I picked him up and dropped him off at the airport, and he stayed at my place when he was in town. It was always a pleasure to host Lefty, and we developed a friendship that would last for decades. I don’t know about all of his fishing trips, but we fished a lot over the 25-plus years that we were friends.  His big trip, however, was his annual trip with Flip Pallot in the Everglades. They would fish with permit king Del Brown and legendary Key West guide Steve Huff, so you could just image the conversations of these heavyweights.

I assumed Lefty liked fishing with me because it enabled him to get out of the spotlight to catch his favorite fish: bonefish. Back then, the Keys were loaded with big bonefish, and catching a double-digit bone was common. Who wouldn’t enjoy that?

No Tournaments

Lefty didn’t like tournaments.  He never participated in any of them.

He frequently spoke of tournaments, but never in a good way. He thought that they brought out the worst in anglers and created stress in what should be a stress-free environment.  There was one tournament that was new and different from the others, the Redbone Tournament.  It was more of a celebrity/pseudo-celebrity contest with a very noble cause. The proceeds went to help with the healthcare expenses of a guide whose daughter had cystic fibrosis.  As you may know, many Florida fishing guides don’t have health insurance, so this disease was a real financial burden for the family. I told Lefty about it one day when we were fishing and he said no tournaments–but it wasn’t a firm no. 

I was friends with Miguel Sosa, a financial advisor and avid angler from Coral Gables, who was also a proponent of the tournament. I convinced Lefty to participate in the Redbone tournament and paired him with Miguel. It changed his mind about tournaments, and we ended up fishing three of them together over the next few years. I believe these were the only the tournaments Lefty ever fished. (I’d like to remind everyone that the Redbone continues today, and proceeds still go to helping families with cystic fibrosis.)

Sidebar: I have no pictures because the only photos of Lefty and me together were taken by D.L. Goddard and they were all out of focus.  Goddard was a great fly tier but a lousy photographer.

Reality Check

One day we were driving down to Loggerhead Basin, a well-known tarpon spot in the Lower Keys, with Randi Swisher (from Sage Fly Rods, at the time). Lefty always slept in the back of the truck on the way down. He liked his naps.

It was a little windy, but we got the boat in the water and Lefty was first on the bow. There was a nice tarpon laid up right in front of him.  Lefty, surprised by the easy shot before him, got flustered. He got his line tangled up and in the process of getting untangled he created a rat’s nest.  We were all laughing as he stepped down to give Randi the shot. Randi stuck the tarpon and I joked with him, saying, “Lefty Kreh has problems casting in the wind–who knew?”

Lefty responded with: “I can cast in a controlled environment like an auditorium all day. I can put a fly through a hula hoop from 100 feet, but with one of them looking at you I’m just like everyone else.” I must have looked disappointed, because he added: “I did that on purpose so I didn’t have to deal with that thing. When he’s done with that, let’s go find some bonefish.”

Lefty was a real person, as flawed and vulnerable to mistakes as everyone else. He would rather fish for bonefish than tarpon any day of the week.

I miss that guy.

Well Done
By Greg Poland (gregpoland@icloud.com) was published in Tail Fly Fishing Magazine in early 2020.  To read more great stories from fly fishing legends and greats like this, subscribe to TFFM today. SUBSCRIBE 

The post Lefty Kreh – Well Done first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post Lefty Kreh – Well Done appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

Bonefishing’s romantic vision is often daydreamed in the minds of anglers. Beautiful, endless, crystal-clear flats. Cloudless skies revealing huge schools of happy, eager fish. We wade into this dreamland and imagine throwing precise, perfectly timed casts to intercept cruising bones. Or we gently present to a tailing bone—close, but without spooking. The fish eats, and immediately it takes off at blistering speed for deep water….

We all know the dream. This dream can be a reality. Time your trip right, luck out with great weather, and the fantasy can unfold right in front of you.

But what if it doesn’t? What happens if the romance isn’t working out? The skies are overcast, the water is discolored, or the flats are just empty. What then? Do you go home, sit in your cabana and wait for better conditions?

No way! I suggest you take a different approach. I suggest going after the bonefish they don’t write about: the bonefish without the romance.

When things just aren’t happening in the skinny water, we must seek alternate bonefish habitat to fulfill our dreams. Deeper water from 3 to 6 feet can offer such a habitat, but it’s often overlooked by anglers. The deeper-water bonefish can be a trip-saver, but the game changes drastically. In order to increase your chance of success, you need to adapt.

When fishing deeper water, some anglers would automatically reach for a sink-tip fly line (and that may be warranted for really deep water), but for depths up to 6 feet I prefer a full-floating line with a compact head section. There are several reasons for this. First, floating lines provide a more attention-grabbing presentation, as the line always lifts the fly off the bottom on the strip and then drops it back down on the pause. Contrast this presentation with that of a sink-tip line, which will drag the fly along the bottom.

I find floating lines spook fewer fish, especially if you happen to cast over them. Deeper water is a bit more forgiving as it puts puts a bit of distance between your fly line and the fish, and there’s less chance of the line or leader physically touching your quarry. I also prefer the more compact head for casting in the windy conditions you’re likely to encounter on any bonefish trip.

The biggest reason I prefer sticking with the floating line in deeper water is that it is provides you with a visual connection to the fly; that is, the floating fly line becomes your  strike indicator. By watching your line and its movement, you can determine when a fish bites. Often with this style of fishing you won’t feel the take. It will come as the fly drops during a pause, or just as you begin the next strip. The strike is quick and has a unique feel; it feels almost like weeds or debris on the fly, with the entire setup getting tight. There’s rarely a pull until you set the hook. If the strike comes on the drop as you are between strips, the fly line will straighten and lose its subtle S-curves, especially in the tip, close to the leader. If it comes as you are stripping, the tip of the floating line will sink an inch or so. Strip set on all of these. Sometimes it will be a weed, but often there’s a silver ghost behind the pull.

In deeper water your flies must must be more heavily weighted to increase their sink rate and keep them at a sustained depth. Replace the bead chain used on classic bonefish patterns with tungsten, brass, and nickel dumbbell eyes. The hooks can be stouter on these flies than on their skinny-water versions; the extra weight will help turn the fly over more easily in the wind and will also help sink the fly. As with all bonefish flies, the hooks should be razor sharp.

To ensure these flies get to the bottom, they must be tied on long leaders—10 to 14 feet is the norm. Because the extra depth will help camouflage your presentation, you can easily increase the size of your tippet to 12-pound.

Along with your flies and leaders, your strategy and techniques will change as well. Deeper water calls for a slower, more subtle action of the fly. No fast stripping here—mostly slower strips, 2 to 6 inches, punctuated by pauses. It’s important to keep your fly on the bottom, where the bonefish are feeding. Each strip will lift your fly, and each pause will drop it back.

When fishing deeper water, you’ll cast more methodically than when you are sight fishing. Instead of casting at a moving target, you’ll cast in a pattern to locate the first fish. Cast from right to left, moving often to explore the water. Once you find the fish, it’s better to stay close and move back and forth no more than 20 feet to search for other cruising fish. The real trick is locating them in the first place. Once you find one bonefish, odds are there are more.

In water 3 to 6 feet deep, seeing seeing bonefish is difficult if not impossible. This is where a guide can come in handy. A guide has intimate knowledge of the area and where fish may be holding. Guides know why fish hold in certain areas while being completely absent from others. If you’re more of a DIY angler, and hiring a guide is not your style, you can start by looking for features that you would look for on flats: channels, sand-to-grass transitions, tidal flow areas, and natural structure lines such as beaches and rock outcroppings. Tidal phase is less important when fishing deeper water, but it still has an influence on bonefish behavior. A moving tide is preferable to a slack tide. Shallower areas tend to fish better at higher tides, while areas with troughs, deeper holes, and hiding spots fish better at lower tides.

Once you locate the bonefish’s habitat and change your approach, you are sure to meet with success. Bonefish are a blast to catch no matter how you target them. You may just need to adjust the dream of bonefish on the fly to include those fish that didn’t get the memo regarding your romantic notions.

by Brandon Fawcett
Brandon Fawcett is head guide at Fly Fishing Little Corn Island in Nicaragua (flyfishinglittlecorn.com).

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More on Bonefish:

Fly Fishing Hawaii

Fly Fishing For Permit & Bonefish in Tulum, Mexico

North Andros – From Top to Bottom: PART 2

Why fish get on skinny flats

The post No Romance – Bonefish first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post No Romance – Bonefish appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

While traveling, few things inspire more panic than sitting at the luggage carousel watching bags pass, none of them yours. The feeling is much worse when said bag contains every rod and reel needed for a week-long fishing trip abroad. Jealousy and rage set in as you watch others grab their belongings and start their sure-to-be-awesome adventure. This would be the beginning of ours.

We’re the So Fly crew, a team of fly fishing podcasters and content creators. We made our way from Toronto to the Yucatán to fish the Sian Ka’an. This is our most exotic trip to date and our first as a team to the tropics—one we accomplished mostly DIY. Mostly DIY. If we hadn’t immediately lost our rod bag upon arrival, it would have been totally DIY.

 We called the guide we’d be meeting to break the news to him. Although we’d be going it alone for most of the week, we were lucky enough to come into contact with Rhett Schober (mexicoflyfishing.com), who was going to take us out on our first day of fishing. Rhett was a contributing author to Rod Hamilton’s book Fly Fishing the Yucatán, and he’s been exploring, living in, and fishing the Yucatán since the 1980s. We had been corresponding for months and were eager to meet and fish with Rhett, so this wrench had us concerned we may miss our chance. 

“Oh, hey man, you’re not the first and definitely won’t be the last. Don’t worry, I’ve got rods and reels—we’re still on, brother!”

Instantly, Rhett put our anxiety to rest, and the stoke levels began to rise. The airport beers also helped. We left the Cancun airport to go pick up our rental car. Anyone hoping to fish the Yucatán, especially if you’re a Canadian, will most likely be flying into Cancun. Our base camp, so to speak, was to be Tulum, which is an easy enough drive south along the coast. 

A wall of humidity and heat met us as we picked up the car. October is the rainy season, but as rain usually goes in the tropics, it lasts for a very short time and gives way to brilliant sunshine. We made the roughly two-hour drive to our Airbnb (casaflamingotulum.com), a wicked three-bedroom oasis in town with a massive pool and ample fridge space for the Tecate. We decided to stay in the more bohemian vacation town of Tulum because of its proximity to the fishing as well as its amenities like grocery stores, banks, wicked taquerias, and a little bit of nightlife. 

So things were looking better. The place was amazing, the beers were cold, the sun was shining, and although we didn’t have our own rods and reels, we did have all of our terminal tackle, flies, clothing, and boots. We were just getting settled when we got a message from Rhett. He was in town and wanted to make a plan for tomorrow. We hopped in the car and headed out to meet him in the parking lot at the Chedraui, which can be best described as a Mexican Walmart. 

There are so many reasons to love fly fishing and travel. One of our favorite things is getting the opportunity to meet new people and personalities. We pulled up beside Rhett’s SUV and saw an already-grinning man, eager to meet. What a great first impression. Rhett is a larger-than-life personality. He met us with open arms, smiles, laughs, and love. We immediately felt comfortable and excited to be spending time with the man on his water.

“You call that a cooler? How many beers do you expect to fit in that little thing?” said Rhett.

We had been instructed to fly down with a soft-sided cooler, an essential piece of equipment we’d later find out. Obviously, ours didn’t quite meet the standard, but guides are usually a prepared bunch, and he said not to worry because he had two sizable coolers perfect for sandwiches and cervezas. We made a plan to meet early the following morning and make the drive into the Sian Ka’an.

The Sian Ka’an is a biosphere reserve located roughly 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Tulum. Founded in 1986, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site the following year. It is located on the east coast of the Yucatán peninsula and spans roughly 2,800 square kilometers (about 1,100 square miles). In it you can find freshwater cenotes (natural swimming holes), lagoons, wildlife, expansive flats, beaches, and fish. Most famously for fly anglers, the town of Punta Allen is located in the Sian Ka’an. This is where some of the more notable lodges, like Pesca Maya, are based. Although some of those lodges offer daily guided boat outings, we were sticking to our plan of discovering the Sian Ka’an on foot with Rhett’s help. 

We’d be meeting Rhett and fishing the beachside cut at Boca Paila in the Sian Ka’an. Rhett had us prepare to encounter bonefish, beach-cruising snook, and his favorite target, the large jack crevalle that come in at high tide to smash baitfish. Although it was possible to encounter species like permit and barracuda, we’d likely be focused on the jack, snook, and bonefish. To be set up for success—yet nimble—the ideal outfits were an 8-weight for bonefish and a 10-weight for snook and jack.

We awoke at 5 a.m. to chirping birds, rain-soaked palms, and heat. We made sure to ice up the coolers at the gas station on our way. The road to the Sian Ka’an meanders through the main hotel drag in Tulum. For those looking to shave more time off the commute to the Sian Ka’an, picking up a beachside hotel or hostel instead of staying right in Tulum may be a more convenient, albeit pricier, option. We passed the “Jurassic Park”-style gate to the Sian Ka’an and paid the entry fee and were off down the palm-lined dirt road headed south to Boca Paila.

Boca Paila is essentially a lagoon connected to the ocean by a river system. Fresh water is driven from the cenotes toward the coast and eventually meets the salt water to form brackish lagoons and mangrove-lined flats. The flats at Boca Paila narrow into a river system that pushes water toward the ocean. As we drive in, we can see the flats to our right. Although bonefish, and the occasional permit, are found on the flats, we’d be focused on fishing the beach at the river mouth and oceanside cut to the left of the main road.

We parked on the bridge that spanned the river to get a sense of our surroundings and look down into the water for the first time. Our eyes were promptly greeted by a 12-foot crocodile basking in the sun. 

“Oh, that’s the little guy,” said Rhett with a grin.

Sure enough, just at that moment, a much larger croc swam by. Although moderately terrified, we couldn’t help but think that if you told us years ago we’d be fly fishing the salt in Mexico and observing wild crocodiles, we’d have called you crazy.

The bridge is a good place to see wildlife, but we also spotted cruising bonefish. Having never caught, let alone seen a bonefish, thoughts quickly changed from croc paranoia to landing fish.  

It was a short walk through the mangroves along a worn path to the mouth of the river where it opened onto the beach. We came out from the mangroves and made our way to the beach to set up our base camp for the day. Although not entirely necessary, it’s recommended to have a shady spot to take breaks from the sun and heat. It’s an enjoyable day, but you do walk a lot, so have a spot to chill out. We put our coolers down as Rhett explained how the fishing would go. 

 There are two ways to approach fishing the beach at Boca Paila. For the snook and larger bonefish we’d be patrolling the beach, walking the coastline and spotting fish that were coming in to feed on baitfish. High sun makes spotting easier, so in the morning it can be more effective to target the larger jack crevalle.

The unique aspect of fishing Boca Paila, as Rhett explained, is the opportunity to fish for cruising jacks. The current from the river spilling into the ocean has created a cut in the sand between the beach and a large but shallow sandbar roughly 9 to 12 meters (30 to 40 feet) out from the beach. To fish it effectively, you wade out past the cut and onto the sandbar. From here, waves roll over the sandbar and create a surf break. Those waves are what the jack, ride like surfers, over the shallows, and into the river mouth to aggressively destroy any snack that gets in front of them. What makes things more exciting is that you can target the surfing jacks with large poppers. The whole thing is a very visual experience. All this is being explained to us at 7 a.m. as the sun rises over Boca Paila on our first day, over what Rhett refers to as a “adult breakfast beverage.” 

Our conversation was cut short as we started to see nervous water, baitfish breaking the surface, and bonefish tails not 5 meters (15 feet) from where we stood at the edge of the beach. Rods were rigged, knots were tied, and we took our first steps into the ocean. After walking through the mangroves, wading out into the water, with the warm salt-stained wind blowing in our faces, was an immersive fishing experience that’s impossible to forget.

The light was at an angle where we couldn’t exactly spot fish, especially with rookie saltwater eyes, but we did see shadows in the water close to shore. Rhett instructed us to get our lines going. Yilma, one of the So Fly podcast hosts, took a the first cast at the edge of the nervous water and—boom!—was into a bonefish. Moments later, my fly hit the water and was massacred by my very first bonefish. Within moments, these two Canadians hooked and landed a species they’ve spent years dreaming about.

As the sun climbed, we saw that we weren’t casting to a few random bonefish but rather a sizeable school that moved in to crash baitfish being forced out by the current. They pushed in, fed, and pushed out in a methodical circular pattern. We deciphered the school’s feeding pattern and made casts every time the school moved into the river mouth. This happened at 20-minute intervals. By the end of the day we had landed somewhere north of 30 bonefish, all in the 1- to 4-pound range, and all within about 10 meters (30 feet) of our cooler. To say this was “one of those days” is an understatement. We laughed like kids, we chatted with Rhett and learned more about his life, we landed fish, and I almost—almost—completely forget about our luggage. 

We ended our day and walked back through the mangroves to the cars and decide to celebrate over tacos. As we drove back to Tulum, we received word that our luggage had arrived—it had been held up in Toronto by Customs—and all was well. But our troubles, preoccupied minds, and anxiety had melted away long before that. Surrounded by good food and great company, we laughed and looked forward to the week ahead in the southern Yucatán.

To learn more about So Fly’s trip to the Sian Ka’an and Boca Paila head to www.sofly.ca/podcasts for a full podcast recap of their trip.

@thesoflycrew

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The post Fly Fishing For Permit & Bonefish in Tulum, Mexico first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post Fly Fishing For Permit & Bonefish in Tulum, Mexico appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

It’s part of family lore that when I was three years old I’d go out in a skiff with my father, who’d tie the first fish caught on my line, which would keep me busy for the day. I grew up in Miami Beach, and the backyard of our house bordered on Biscayne Bay. It was easy enough to drop a line in the water after school–and most days I did. Back then, several decades before I learned the art of presenting the ruse of a fly to a fish, shrimp was my bait of choice. My father, a public relations consultant (with the flamboyance typically associated with that profession), once pitched a story to the fishing editor of the Miami Herald, spinning me as a kind of rod-and-reel child prodigy. The editor rose to the bait.  I still have the clip: yellow and brittle as a dried leaf. “My favorite fish is a grunch (a grunt),” I told my interviewer. “And,” I added with precocious certainty (I was six), “when I grow up I want to be a ickyologist (ichthyologist).”

   Fishing was a common language in my family and connected us like nothing else did. My brother is a maniac about the sport—his wife, Maria, too—and, it is telling that on the day he was born my father went fishing and caught a bonefish. When I was growing up, my father would trade in his fishing boat for a larger one at regular intervals before advancing age put an end to boat ownership. Although I left Miami more than 30 years ago to write for National Geographic in Washington, D.C., where a feeding frenzy has more to do with a school of snapping journalists on the trail of a story than it does a bait ball, I could always count on a deep-sea fishing expedition on trips home for the holidays. We typically drove down to Islamorada in the Florida Keys and trolled for sailfish and dolphin in the Gulf Stream, or dropped a line in shallower water for grouper and yellowtail.

   My family, like most, harbors frictions, (some longstanding, others newly minted) that simmer and occasionally erupt, but fishing remained safe territory where abrasions could heal in the mind-clearing astringency of salt air. Years ago, on assignment, I interviewed John Maclean, whose father, Norman, wrote A River Runs Through It, a shadowed story ostensibly about fishing but really about family. As we sat in his Montana cabin, I asked about the role of fishing in his family. Fishing, Maclean explained, had a spiritual dimension and held together a family that communicated in disastrous ways. His father, he said, talked about going to the river because he could say things there he couldn’t say anywhere else.

    La vida es un fandango y aquel que no baila es un tonto, my father used to say.  Life is a fandango (he’d in fact named one of his boats Fandango) and he who doesn’t dance is a fool. So he lived large and danced fiercely, something not without occasional cost to the rest of us. Perhaps that ferocity to live large came from his having survived World War II. He’d flown missions over Germany as a navigator-bombardier on a B-17, and not everyone who flew off returned.

      I knew my father was getting old when he stopped fishing. Two knee replacements, a cracked cervical vertebrae requiring a titanium rod to stabilize it, and age—gravity takes its toll on us all, after all—had compromised his balance. There was no way he could keep his footing on a boat, particularly one tossed about in the Atlantic. Inevitably, he was consigned to a walker, a sentence he met with great resentment. Despite the risk, he longed for one last fishing trip in the Gulf Stream, but it never happened–at least not in the way he’d hoped for.

Years before my father’s deep-water days were curtailed by the rude jolt of age, I had asked John Maclean to talk about his last fishing trip with his father.  “When we returned from our last fishing trip, my father sat down,” Maclean told me. “He was tired.  I asked if I could get something—anything–for him. ‘A drink,’ he said. I fixed it, but it didn’t taste good to him, and I knew he was near the end. He was like an old fisherman who has a big one he knows he’ll never land.”

Recently, my father reached his own end and died. He was 96, and he directed that his ashes be dispersed in the Gulf Stream, where we had fished over so many years.  The ocean off Islamorada was choppy that day. A stiff breeze snapped the lines on the outriggers of the Catch 22, a 54-foot sport-fishing boat owned by Richard Stanczyk, a family friend who took us out for the ceremony. We scattered his ashes into the ocean, and as they unfurled into plumes of gray that disappeared into blue, the head of a big loggerhead turtle popped up from the waves. I swear it winked.

Of course we went fishing afterwards—it was, you might say, my father’s last fishing trip—and in a fitting coda, my nephew, his youngest grandson, caught his first sailfish.

My father would have liked that.

Cathy Newman spent 20 years as a journalist for National Geographic Magazine and was very kind to share her father’s story with Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

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The post (My) Old Man & the Sea first appeared on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.

The post (My) Old Man & the Sea appeared first on Tail Fly Fishing Magazine.