The Other Fish

Besides the mullet and the bones, I also hooked up with a BFT (and missed another - but the strikes were awesome!), several big goat fish, tons of snapper, a bunch of wrasses, some darts and a grouper. Very good day flyfishing! Also - I've just about got my double haul nailed. I can tell when I need to haul to load the rod on both the back cast and the forward cast - feels really good to be able to cast far and strong. If it isn't apparent from all the blogging I've done on flyfishing, I think I'll be sticking with this for a long time to come -

Mixed Plate Preparation

Flyfishing a nearby flat. TONS of parrotfish, but they weren't interested in the flies I cast. I might try to "spike" some flies tomorrow with some squid... I did catch this hodge-podge - two Two Barred Goatfish (chunky ones), a bunch of small snappers (I only kept one), a Dart and one of these really colorful wrasses. I saw a bunch of pinfish and some bonefish - but just like most of the fishing right now, the New Moon is in effect (the fish aren't biting...). Check the next post for what I am doing with these fish.

Small Fry Flyfishing

I found a new flyfishing spot today - it was full of fish grazing on the flats during low tide. I caught a lot of small fish - goatfish, young Bluefin Trevally, hawkfish, darts, young bonefish and a snapper. I saw some vibrant blue parrotfish and some of the bright green wrasses, but they wanted nothing to do with the flies. The next few posts will have more pictures of the fish I caught. One bad note about the fishing trip - one of the fish I hooked into broke my new rod. Good thing Orvis has a 25 year repair warranty!

Today's Fishing Report - 22 April

Flyfishing in the morning. Caught three schoolie bones, this huge Dart, a pinfish, a two-bar goatfish, and I hooked (and lost) a big Bluefin Trevally - more on that in a second. I caught most of the fish on an Orvis "Meko Special". I am going to start compressing the barbs on the flies I use to make releasing easier. So about the BFT. It was actually the first fish I hooked - I started off with a gummy minnow on the line. I found the magic spot where I normally fish (it was harder to recognize because the tide was not as low). Within a few seconds of wading out, I saw a blue flash - I cast the fly on a short roll cast and it hit it hard. Learning from the last few times I was in this situation, I let the fish take more line than not. It took me around two rocks and drug me out to water that was deeper. I wrestled that fish for 15 minutes and after another rock wrapping, it finally broke me off. The scream that I let go could probably be heard back stateside. 20# test was what that fish broke off - even though I lost, it was an epic battle and I'm getting closer to winning. That Dart was the biggest I've hooked up - it fought almost as hard a decent sized bonefish. All in all - a great day of fishing - hard, and slow between hits, but still great!

Sunday Morning Flying

The Trevally and Bonefish were not playing today - I was out for three hours and not a sign of them. The rematch will have to wait until after the full moon wains -

I did see a bunch of Unicornfish and some Titan Triggerfish, but as usual, they didn't go for the fly.

What I did catch were three of these Wrasses and two of these Two Barred Goatfish.

The goatfish seem to be nervous fish - the first one I catch went from pale pink (normal colored) to bright red while I was removing the hook. When I released it, it sank straight to the bottom and stayed there for two minutes either still in shock or playing dead. Then it returned to normal color and swam off like nothing happened. That happens pretty frequently when I catch these guys - maybe it's a mechanism to help it cope with getting eaten by a GT...

The Wrasses were a different story - defiant to the end. Another "poo" flinger...

Balancing...

Went flyfishing down south this morning.

The pictures are what I landed:
Three Darts (this one was pretty big - with all it's surface area, it was a great fighter)
Two Goatfish
One Bonefish (forearm sized)

I let all these guys go on their merry way.

What I don't have pictures of are the three medium sized Bluefin Trevally that took the fly, ran line out, fought a minute then spit the hook -

Not once

Not twice

But three times this happened to me.

After the first one spit, I contemplated using more force on the line during the fight. I figured I did not have enough tension on the line if they could spit the hook. But what I didn't want to do was break off at the tippet.

The small darts I let run, but the rod could easily overpower them (and flung the last one out of the water...).

On the other side of the scale were the three spitting BFTs.

I'm going back down tomorrow to settle a score... and possibly find some balance.

Friday Afternoon Fishing

Late afternoon pitching surface lures (with no luck) and casting the fly. I caught two red two-barred goatfish off a bonefish bitter (such an awesome fly!!!).

I saw three smaller bluefin trevallys running the shallows, but I didn't see a single bonefish.

Still good fun!