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When bonefishermen talk about runs of 35o and 400 feet, doubting Thomases flap their ears. But those unbelievers should see for themselves. The longest-running bonefish I have ever hooked took out 700 feet of line. That powerhouse also proved to be my biggest, an 11-pound, 5 1/2-ounce fish. A 10-pound, 13 1/2-ouncer I took while […]
Because of the tremendous numbers of salt water fish, as compared to the fresh water species, the angler who takes his fly rod into the salt always has a chance of getting into something new and different. Perhaps the species which arc consistent fly takers could be boiled down to a dozen, but there are […]
Some species, although not quite as easily spooked as the bonefish, demand just as great accuracy in casting. The redfish or channel bass, for instance, especially when feeding on the flats, calls for the ability to drop the fly on a dime.
This fish is remarkably short sighted and unless a fly is put within […]
While fly fishing for bonefish was developed largely along the Florida Keys, the species is found in most of the warm seas. in Hawaii, Africa, Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Haiti, throughout the West Indies, and in Cuban waters. Their size seems to vary in the main according to location—that is, the bonefish found in Mexican […]
The appearance of the bonefish soon becomes familiar and you quickly get hep to their tailing as they feed on the bottom and tilt their bodies so that their tails break the surface. Before long it is quite easy to spot the “mud,” too, in water too deep for the tail to show. The mud […]
The bonefish and permit, in particular, call for an enormous amount of care and quiet in approach. No brown trout was ever spookier than a bonefish in six or eight inches of water.
The bonefish is one of the few gamefish which have survived unchanged since prehistoric times and he seems to have retained his primeval […]
A baby tarpon hits hard and fast and the angler must strike at the Hash of the fish below the lure, if he hopes to hook him. The big fish, on the other hand, are slow and deliberate takers. A big tarpon sucks in the fly. He comes up with his mouth wide open and […]
Many times, bonefishermen working the banks in Florida Bay will see schools of tarpon circling or just lying still in the great holes that arc spotted like lakes through the banks. Here, where the water is seven or eight feet deep, is another ideal spot for baby tarpon, and it is much easier to land […]
Big tarpon react to poppers in much the same way as big stripers do. A small popper may get a small one but more than likely it will go unnoticed by the whoppers. Yet with a single pop of a big bug, the angler can turn that same big tarpon from as far away as […]
Many waters that are good for stripers are also good for shad. Shad run into East Coast fresh water rivers from Florida to Nova Scotia, the most famous shad rivers of the East being the St. John’s in Florida, the Susquehanna in Maryland, the Potomac in the same state, and the Connecticut River in Connecticut. […]
For me, the most exciting part of bonefishing with a fly is stalking the fish. It’s a combination of hunting and fishing. Bonefish come onto the shallow water flats to feed on shrimp, crabs and small minnows. They flit across the shallow flats like ghosts, every sense alert, knowing that in such thin water they’re […]
In the Chesapeake Bay area, where they are known as rockfish or simply as “rock,” stripers feed along the salt marshes looking for soft crabs, minnows, and schools of alewives. The bigger ones work singly or in pairs and now and then a school of smaller fish will sweep by. All a guy needs is […]
In Northeastern waters, the striped bass is probably the choice of fly rod possibilities. Hard hitting, slashing and rambunctious, he moves into the shallows of coastal areas all the way from New England to northern Florida, and cruises the shores in three to four feet of water, an ideal target for flies.
Salt water fishermen who’ve […]
Anyone who has a good bass bug rod, properly lined, is reasonably well equipped to fly fish the salt. But as recommended in the rod article, earlier, the ideal is a 9-1/4-foot rod with slow action that comes right down into the grip. The slow action is needed to handle the large, wind resistant lures […]
Poppers are potent lures for almost every salt water species, in one circumstance or another, and because of the thrill the angler gets when he sees some big, hard-hitting ocean fish sock a surface lure, they are widely used. Some poppers are built so they will skip across the water making plenty of commotion, looking […]
Salt water fish seldom, if ever, feed on real flies which have fallen to the surface of the ocean, and there is no aquatic hatch similar to that of a fresh water stream or lake, and therefore there are no dry flies tied for salt water. Rather, flies for the briny have been designed to […]
