Bonefish Beginner
By Bob Reece
After twenty five years of fly fishing for freshwater species, I recently threw my first casts into salt water.
As is always the case, hindsight is 20/20. While I had plenty of success, there are several things that I wish I would have done prior to my first saltwater trip.
I’ve always been a huge proponent of practicing your casting. Throughout my time guiding freshwater trips, it is consistently one of the most common elements that holds anglers back from having greater success. While I did practice a handful of times prior to my trip, I should have practiced more. I’m a confident caster with lighter weight rods, but never having cast an eight or nine weight left me lacking the muscle memory of working with a heavier rod. As part of this practice, it cannot be overstated how important it is to have the ability to effectively present the fly with a backhand cast.
In addition to the casting itself, I wish I would have practiced my footwork. In the vast majority of freshwater situations, we as anglers target slowly cruising or posted up feeding fish. The rapid directional change by the bonefish was a drastic difference from any other fly fishing experience that I’ve had. The need to change the path of my line and body position mid cast challenged me. Extra practice time with this factor would have helped take advantage of opportunities that I missed.
As a newby to salt water flies, I had no idea what I was doing in this category. I phoned a friend.
Read More »Sunday Classic / 3 Tips For Fly Fishing Kung Fu
WE ALL KNOW THE CHINESE PHRASE KUNG FU, BUT FEW OF US KNOW IT’S TRANSLATION. KUNG = ENERGY AND FU = TIME. TO PUT ENERGY INTO ANYTHING OVER TIME IS TO DEVELOP KUNG FU.
I love to teach fly fishing. I do it every chance I get and I see folks wrestle time and again with the same three issues. I can remember being there myself and it sucks! Three things that seem so simple to me now just about cost me my sanity. I’d like to spare you that. If you are new to fly fishing for trout following these three suggestions will not only put you on more fish, but it will accelerate your learning curve dramatically.
Here are the three things that come between every new angler and the fish they want to catch.
PRACTICE YOUR CASTING
The first, most basic skill an angler needs is the ability to put the fly in front of the fish. This means, not only distance but accuracy as well. There have been a truck load of books written about fly casting and there will be a truck load more but there is nothing in any of them that can replace time spent with the rod in hand. That really is the trick. Time plus energy. Set aside a time, just ten or fifteen minutes a day, for the next year and spend that time casting in the yard. Every day! In a year you will cast like a Grand Master.
Saturday Shoutout / Orvis On Demand
The Orvis Guide To Fly-Fishing is now streaming on demand on Amazon Prime.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more clear and thorough tutorial on fly fishing. Host Tom Rosenbauer strikes an amazing balance of covering both basic and advanced techniques in a way that absolute beginner can understand, while serving up details useful to advanced anglers. Tom does more than make it look easy. He gives you the tools to make it easy, and fun.
Each episode features casting instructor Pete Kutzer with a segment on casting skills specific to the topic of the episode. Even if you are an advanced caster, there’s plenty to learn from watching pete. He has some of the best technique I’ve ever seen.
Each episode is devoted to a specific topic and, of course, covers every modern technique for catching trout, but doesn’t stop there. Tom covers topics and species from bass to bonefish.
The thirteen part series is free to watch for Amazon Prime users.
CHECK OUT THE ORVIS GUIDE TO FLY FISHING AT HTTPS://WWW.AMAZON.COM
Read More »Redbands, 9X9
By Dan Frasier
“HE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU.” MIKE, THE OWNER OF ORVIS NORTHWEST OUTFITTERS, SAID FLATLY AS HE HANDED ME HIS CELL.
My guide. Colby, was on the phone and he had this idea. “Dude, I just had this thought that made me drop my toothbrush into the sink. We could go fish cutties on the CD, or… I’ve got this thing I’ve been trying to work out. We won’t see anyone and we may not catch anything, but if we do they’ll be big. Most I’ve ever gotten was 7. What do you think?”
A guide asking you for your opinion on fishing a certain waterbody isn’t what it appears. He knows the water best, you’re paying him to know the right answer to that question and you’re effectively guessing. Him asking you your opinion doesn’t make sense. Of course, that’s because both of you know he isn’t asking your opinion. He doesn’t think you have any special insight into where the right place to fish is, and he certainly isn’t at a loss for where there may be some trout. Instead, a subtle communication is taking place. A dance, usually understood by both guide and sport. There is a risk to be taken here and a choice to be made. The guide is telegraphing to you that you have two choices, the sure thing that will be good and an uncertain thing that may be great. He isn’t asking if you think that particular stretch of river will be any good to fish. Your opinion on that is worthless. He is asking you how much risk do you want to take. Are you willing to gamble a full day on the water for the possibility of something special?
The answer isn’t as easy as it may appear. If you spend 100 days a year on the water, or are on some kind of headhunting mission, then yeah, you take the risk. But if you only get out on family vacations the risk of a fishless day may be too much. Or perhaps you’re looking for a nice wade over cobble surrounded by mountains more than you’re want to hang a hog. We talk about flyfishing like it is a spiritual experience catalyzed by convening with nature in beautiful places. Believe it or not, some people actually feel that way about it to. Of course, despite the poetry flyfishing puts in your soul, I’d put dollars to donuts I could catch most of you fishing a golf course if it held 22 inch browns; passing up the 9 inchers in the babbling brook 3000 feet higher up in elevation.
I could tell by the tenor of Colby’s voice he was excited and I learned long ago that when a guide has something they’ve “been working on” you go.
Read More »Sunday Classic / 3 Fly Fishing Situations When I Will Stop My Streamer During the Retrieve
Warning: The fly fishing advice you’re about to read may go against your present beliefs. There’s a good chance you’ll feel inclined to tell me I’m nuts for recommending it. That’s totally cool, I just ask that you read what I’ve written, before you make the decision to set me straight.
IT HAS LONG BEEN DRILLED INTO OUR HEADS, THAT THE WORST THING A FLY FISHERMAN CAN DO WHEN A FISH IS TRACKING HIS/HER STREAMER, IS STOP THE RETRIEVE.
I agree with this advice 95% of the time because most prey when threatened by a predator, will swim as hard and fast as possible to escape being eaten. That being said, I’ve been on the water many times when the constant-strip retrieve, or even the speed-up retrieve with my streamer, has failed to get me the hook up from a following fish. It was only when I thought outside the box, and found the courage to go against the popular view that streamers should always be kept moving when a fish is tracking, that I found myself with a bent rod.
With most things in fly fishing, there’s always exceptions to the rule. No matter how rare the exception may come up, a fly fisherman should always be willing to experiment when traditional tactics aren’t producing. If I told you that you were going to be streamer fishing a river where there were lots of injured and dying baitfish, would you still believe that a constant retrieve with a streamer would be your best tactic? What about if you were fly fishing trout water that had huge populations of sculpins or I said you were going to be fly fishing on a lake for largemouth bass, with water temperatures in the high forties? These are just a few fly fishing situations when I’ve found that a stop-and-go retrieve with a streamer can produce better than a constant retrieve, when fish are tracking but not eating. Below are three situations when killing your streamer retrieve, could prove to be your golden ticket.
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / Somewhere Else
Ever get that feeling you should be somewhere else?
Rolf Nylinder does. Even if only to watch his, so called, friends catch big brown trout, while enduring mosquito bites and the seeds of envy.
ENJOY: “MOSQUITOES & MAYFLIES | EP1 | SOMEWHERE ELSE”
Read More »How To Tie The Billfish Knot: Video
The Billfish Knot is a simple knot for wire leader that will not break.
I use a Billfish Knot almost every time I use wire leader. It’s super simple to tie, taking only a few seconds, it has a small profile and it simple will not break. I use this knot for barracuda, shark, musky, golden dorado and any other species that requires a braided wire leader.
The only time I use a different knot for wire is when I use single strand wire, which requires a Haywire Twist, or when attaching the hook for a pacu bead. If you are going to catch toothy species, this is a knot you need to know.
WATCH THE VIDEO AND LEARN TO TIE THE BILLFISH KNOT.
Read More »Strategies For DIY Bonefishing
By Rod Hamilton
I RECEIVE EMAILS EVERY DAY FROM ANGLERS LOOKING FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO CATCH BONEFISH ON THOSE DAYS WHEN THEY ARE NOT WITH A GUIDE.
The email usually goes something like this: “I do fine when I’m guided, but can’t seem to either find fish or get them to eat when I am on my own.”
“What am I doing wrong?”
DIY-6I’ve been bonefishing for twenty years and like most of us, spent the first five years fishing exclusively with guides. I thought I was getting pretty good and put my bonefish I.Q. at around 120. So, I tried it on my own, only to find out that it was actually my guide who was smart and my bonefish I.Q. was more like 35.
So game on, challenge accepted, and I have spent the last fifteen years learning everything I could about how to DIY for bonefish.
DIY-1There is a lot to learn to be successful on your own. After all, now you have to know where the fish are, how they react to tides, what they eat, see them before they see you and make a presentation that won’t send them into deep water. There is no boat to run you out three miles, instead a car, bicycle or kayak is your chariot to the flats.
Nothing replaces time on the water and most of the early lessons are going to result in fishless days, but let me see if I can ease the pain and help shorten the learning curve with some basic strategies for the DIY fisherman.
1. Learn to use Google Earth
Instead of spending those hours at home dreaming about your upcoming trip, spend that time scouring satellite images to find places others might not easily discover. The hardest bonefish in the world to catch are those that have been trained by the few hundred anglers before you.
2. The DIY Fly Box is different then the Guide Fly Box.
Read More »Through A Lens Darkly
What is an angler without his eyes?
All of my life I have defined myself by my eyes. Certainly as a photographer, and as I developed in the sport, more and more as an angler. My vision has been at the center of my life, in both my work and my play. It was just over a year ago that I was on the bow of a flats boat in the Bahamas, on a cloudy day with tough visibility. I had explained to my guide several times that I have a 40% loss of hearing. It takes a long time for guides to adjust to the idea that they have to yell at their clients when they’re not F-ing up. Fortunately I’d done pretty well at finding fish for myself. About the fourth time I spotted, and hooked, a bonefish before my guide saw it, my guide mumbled something and my boat-mate started to laugh.
“What’d he say?” I asked.
“He said, you may not can hear but there’s not a damn thing wrong with your eyes.”
I didn’t know it yet, but he was wrong. In fact, I had already started to lose my sight. The change was slow and I didn’t notice it at first. Oddly enough, my first clue was not that I couldn’t see but that I couldn’t hear. For years I’ve gotten by in conversation by reading lips. I only started to realize I had a problem with my eyes when I could no longer see well enough to know what people were saying.
It wasn’t long before the truth was painfully obvious. Driving became difficult, and impossible at night. Horns would blare when I changed lanes and I missed turns because I could no longer read signs. Not even the big ones over the interstate. I started walking into door casings. When I closed my left eye, the world looked like a Monet painting. In the space of a year any usable vision in my right eye was gone and much in my left. Forget about seeing bonefish.
Read More »Sunday Classic / Czech Nymphing: Dell Neighbours Talks Tactics & Rigging with G&G
For a while now, we’ve been getting requests from G&G readers about writing a Czech nymphing post. It’s a subject we’ve wanted to tackle on the blog for a while now, but neither Louis or I specialize in Czech nymphing. Furthermore, we’re not the kind of guys that write about fly fishing topics that we’re not experienced with. When we find ourselves in this position, we go out and talk with the professionals who are, gather the information, and then bring it back to you. Dell Neighbours, head fly fishing guide for Reel Job Fishing, is highly competent in Czech nymphing, and he’s volunteered to talk with us today about Czech nymphing tactics and his rigging recommendations.
CZECH IT OUT!
I often have clients ask me about my fishing style when I mention I normally don’t use strike indicators when I’m nymph fishing. Currently, there seems to be a growing interest with indicator-free nymphing for trout, so I was pretty excited when Kent asked me to write a post for the G&G readers about Czech nymphing. There’s many different styles and tactics out there for catching trout without strike indicators, but the primary method that comes to mind for most fly fishermen, is Czech nymphing. When you strip away everything to the bare bones, Czech nymphing is very similar to the traditional American tactic of high-sticking with nymphs. The only real difference lies in the rig setup and you don’t use a floating strike indicator.
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