All Day Every Day!

Measured somewhere in 50 inch range +

Beauty and the Beast in One

Cuda 

Perpetually stoked!

The "key ingredients" that saw the job thru...

Bow to the King!

Had an unbelievable day out on the water today. For one reason or another the stars decided to align. We have seen "the beast" for at least two years now and have finally convinced her to feed. She took a fly that I tied up this past fall for Vermont pike that I am now calling "the critter." We had partly sunny conditions with a blowing east wind. I drove way up wind of the honey hole and set a drift that looked good.  Standing on the back poling platform during the drift I spotted her from way out. Once my lucky positioned drift closed in on the honey hole I  picked up my 11 wt with 10 lb tapered bonefish leader(100#+ wire)  and flung my 350 grain out. Letting the fly sink deep I thought she hit bottom. Sometimes the fish just does not realize that its hooked and opts to set up anchor. After about 4 seconds the fish took off taking all my line with it. She jumped multiple times. Seeing her mid air I absolutely lost touch with reality. A fish this big is a once in a lifetime kinda deal. Chances of me catching another this big ever again are slim to say the least. IGFA record fish potential without a doubt. FYI if I was not driving the skiff during this fight and gaining line I WOULD have lost her! 

Tight Lines
p.s. this is the fish I was talking about last week! Click Link

Snook and Tarpon Food

Saw a lot of bones this morning. Two of them being 9 lb range. Didn't fish for them though was focused on finding a snook. Didn't see any rough high tides. Im sure they were there just deep in the mangroves. On a different note i saw a gar in the 5 foot range. Never seen one close to this size. Did some spear fishing and saw a goliath grouper in 60 lb range. Massive! 

Bonezilla

Had an epic morning on the water. Drove 30 miles out to the middle of nowhere in search of poon on my favorite flat. Instead I found myself surrounded by ghosts. All in all I saw around 150 fish in a short period including a bone in the mid teens, no joke. I wish the rod was out at the time. Still, I managed to hook and land a 10 lb.+ behemoth. Driving home and seeing four bottle nose dolphin was the icing on the cake. Wahoooo!  

-Click Link for Video of the beast!

Bonezilla

Lady Fish AKA Poor Mans Tarpon

On my way to the Do It Center today I checked out the boys secret Lady Fish spot. The fish are resident and very big. A few in the 5 lb range. Anyways I saw the group of about 7 and snuck up on them. These fish are incredibly smart and once you hook them its usually over before you know it. Like their cousin the tarpon they take straight to the sky and snap your mono with a swish of the gill plate. The fish were onto me from the start. No luck! Either way I thought i'd get in some practice before tomorrows tarpon outing. Heading 20 miles out on the bank and into the middle of nowhere. With the SAT phone in hand lets hope things go according to plan. 

-Tight Lines

Calm Before the Storm

Jumped on the vise for a bit tonight. Eric Peterson's infamous spawning shrimp! 

Had a quiet day in the fishing department. Snuck out for a half hour or so before a big storm came through. I cannot emphasize enough the importance on always taking (learning) something from an outing. One might even argue that you can learn more on a day where you are constantly scratching your head wondering…where the heck did all the fish go? Getting inside a fish’s head is quite impossible.  However, if you spend your time immersed in observation and write it down the day of, you will become more and more consistent at producing shots. Yes, because unlike your fishing buddy you will have notes upon notes full of dates, tides, lunar phase etc…. to pull out of the archives. For the past 15 years I have done just this and boy does it help. Without writing ones thoughts and observations down one could never make the complex connections. Especially, on the days with tricky conditions. 

Anyways back to my 30 minutes session on the water. I have heard that guides in the Bahamas find that bonefish are sensitive to barometric pressure changes and act in a spooky manner. From what I have heard places like Christmas Island it is the opposite. Being so close to the Bahamas I have always found the fish to be sensitive however, they still tend to engorge themselves. Today I went out to prove just this. Arriving on the flat I immediately saw a great mud. The flat was very shallow and to see a mud of this magnitude I was very surprised. Either way, with 7 or so tails a hundred yards in, I realized I forgot the wading boots. I’m sure I would have bagged a bone if I waded into the ankle deep water. The water was skinny and I was lazy pure and simple. Here is a quick clip of the adventure.

-Tight lines