Bonefish show with a suddenness. An instant before the flats seemed void of life. The bright sun glaring off the water makes everything look as if it is moving. Off in the distance, there is an indistinct, shady form. Your eyes strain to put order and form into the panorama of light and shadow that stretches in every direction. Concentration turns into tension as the blurred blotches sharpen in focus and take on the shape of bonefish.
This is the moment. The first cast must be perfect. Excuses loom as a luxury and second chances don’t come very often. Timing is critical. You have to drop the bait, lure or fly in the right place. Practice casts prior to this instant no longer count. To compound matters, the fish are closing fast.
Right now, the best advice anyone can give you is to play within your game. Don’t reach out with a cast that exceeds your comfort range. You increase the odds for missing, and a quick recovery for a second try can be frustrating. Try to choose the precise moment when the fish are on a steady course and you can reach them easily. That tilts the scale in your favor. Remember that bonefish tend to feed into the current or across it. Use that to your advantage and make the cast upcurrent of the fish if that is possible. If you’re using bait, that can be essential. The current will help them smell the shrimp or crab. Once they notice it, it’s time to hang on.
Gray ghosts of the flats
Captain Troy Mell, a competitor on the Walmart FLW Redfish Series from Islamorada, Fla., spends his days as a full-time flats guide when he’s not competing. Out of some 200 trips to the flats around Islamorada with clients per year, around 40 of those are for bonefish.
“Bonefishing is a whole different beast than redfishing,” Mell said. “Bones get a lot more pressure than reds, and reds just aren’t as spooky. Bones usually aren’t in as dirty of water as redfish, either.
“Most of my clients are hardcore fly-rodders,” Mell continued. “If they get a bonefish or two per day, then it’s been a good day.”
Tactics for pursuing bonefish are similar to those of reds, so basic flats fishing 101 knowledge is a good building block to start on. The areas bonefish frequent and the way they behave in those areas in relation to tide and food is very similar to the patterns of redfish.
Always remember, however, that when dealing with bonefish, an extra element of stealth must always be used.
“Bones need current,” Mell said. “When the tide comes up into a flat, the bones will come up.”
Presentation ranks higher on the list of priorities when bonefishing than the tackle you use. Bonefish are wary animals that will spook at the first misstep. When one fish panics, the whole school goes with it. Stealth in approaching them is the key. You don’t want them to know you are there.
Look at your quarry and you’ll notice an inferior mouth, hard nose and eyes set high on the head. Based on its physical characteristics, a bonefish does most of its feeding on the bottom, using its hard nose to root around in the mud or sand to ferret out tasty morsels. Bonefish have incredible eyes, keen hearing and an acute sense of smell. It’s not unusual to see a bonefish turn toward a bait or fly that splats gently on the surface at the end of the cast. Studying a bonefish’s movements and body language is the key to catching them.
“If you get on them when they’re cruising, it’s tough to get them to stop,” Mell said. “But when they’re tailing, you know they’re feeding and you can catch them, especially with live bait. They have an incredible sense of smell. You can cast out ahead of them with a shrimp and just let the fish find it.”
Stealth training
Whether you prefer spinning or fly tackle, a rod waving in the area can send a school of bonefish scurrying toward the next flat. During the cast, keep the rod low and parallel to the water. A little practice at home will make this technique seem quite comfortable. Casting is a game of inches. You can’t make a good presentation out of a bad one by hoping the fish will change course and find your offering. If you miss, recover as quickly as you can and try to get off a second cast. Be aggressive. You have to get the fly, lure or bait close enough to the fish so that it is seen, but not so close that the fish spooks. Nobody can tell you the perfect distance on a given cast, but you’ll know when you are too close. Feeding fish and particularly those that are tailing tend to be a tad more tolerant of close presentations.
Two things are often overlooked. Even in ankle-deep water, bonefish search for their prey on the bottom. In current, a small split-shot sinker just above the bait will help get it down. Weighted flies sink faster than unweighted ones. If you are bouncing a bucktail, make sure it hops along the bottom. A short, floating plastic worm with a bullet weight or split shot can be an excellent artificial. The sinker holds bottom and the worm tail floats, making it appear as if a worm is trying to get back into the bottom. Bonefish prefer to tail down on their prey and that’s why it is so important to keep your bait or artificial on the bottom.
No predator expects to be attacked by its prey. It must sense that your tasty tidbit is moving away in an effort to escape if it is an artificial. A shrimp or crab can just remain on the bottom, and a bonefish will pick it up. Anglers and fish tend to view the scene differently. When a bonefish is moving from right to left or left to right, the textbook advises that you cast a few feet in front of it and a couple of feet beyond it. If you start retrieving at the point where the lure or fly lands, you will spook the fish. Instead, retrieve the lure quickly until it is directly in the path of the fish. As the fish approaches, start the retrieve with short, quick, pulsating movements that make it appear that something is trying to escape.
Fly-fishermen often encounter another problem. They make the cast toward the fish, but the wind blows a belly in the fly line and leader so that the fly lands left or right of the fish. As the angler starts the retrieve, the fly actually tracks toward the bonefish before it starts moving away and that is more than enough to spook the gray ghost.
When bonefish are coming toward you, the easiest approach is to cast short of the target, allow the offering to sink, wait for the lead fish to approach, and then start the retrieve if you are using a fly or artificial lure. If it is a natural bait, leave it right there. When you fish bait, break the tail off a shrimp or a couple of legs off a crab so it will emit more scent.
The other consideration is color. Think in terms of dark and light. I prefer to start with brown or even tan. If the fish refuse the darker color after a couple of presentations, my next choice is white, yellow or pink. Make sure, however, that the fish definitely sees your artificial and refuses it before you decide the color is wrong.
When a bonefish takes a bait or lure and starts moving off, all you have to do is lift the rod. The motion of the fish streaking away from you should bury the hook into its jaw. You do not have to swing the rod through a 90-degree arc with enough force to turn the boat over.
For the fly-fisherman, it is slightly different. When you feel the strike, tug sharply with your stripping hand without moving the rod. If the fish is on, simply lift the rod. If it isn’t, continue the retrieve.
Although a few anglers opt for revolving-spool reels, spinning tackle is more common for bonefish. Putting the right outfit together starts with the line. Ten-pound test proves to be an excellent choice. Some drop down to 8-pound and even 6-pound test, but there is no practical reason for this. Standard bonefish rods are 7-feet long with a fairly soft tip for casting a shrimp but have plenty of backbone to battle the fish. A handful of aficionados will resort to longer rods, including some built on a fly-rod blank, but a 7-footer will serve you very well.
Whatever line size you select, the reel should hold 250 yards of it and boast a smooth drag designed for line of that breaking strength. Many of us use a 20-pound-test fluorocarbon leader about 18 inches long just in case the bonefish rubs the line on the bottom. That first run is one of power, so you’d best be ready for it.
“You’re going to lose a lot of line in that first run,” Mell said. “And you can expect two or three good runs. If your drag can’t keep up with them, you’re done.”
Some fly fishermen think it is sporting to pursue bonefish with a 4-weight or 5-weight outfit. You can certainly handle one on that tackle, but a 9-weight rod makes a lot more sense. Pull out a fly rod and you can almost bet the wind will be blowing or at least there will be a breeze. Pushing a 9-weight is much easier than struggling with a much lighter fly rod.
A floating, weight-forward fly line ranks as the perfect choice. It gives you the ability to pick up and make another cast without an aerial roll cast or stripping in most of the line. In deeper water, you may need an intermediate or sinking fly line, but that’s the exception. A standard 9- or 10-foot leader stepped down three or four times in a simple taper will usually do the job. Some experts use 12 to 15 feet of leader, claiming more strikes. The longer leader, of course, is much more difficult to cast and turn over. Tippet strength of 10-pound test is ideal, but you always have the option of going lighter if that becomes your preference.
Fly reels should hold a minimum of 200 to 225 yards of 20-pound-test backing plus a full fly line. Most serious anglers prefer a direct-drive reel (handle turns backward when line is pulled off the spool) over an anti-reverse model. You know that every time you crank the handle, you are gaining line.
If you are right handed, you should reel with your right hand. A growing number of misinformed fly-fishermen think it is better to cast with the primary hand and reel with the secondary hand. In most cases, they cannot reel as fast or as long without tiring when they crank with their secondary hand. If you still have doubts, take an empty reel and crank on 200 yards of backing using your secondary hand as fast as you can without stopping or slowing down. It works better with your primary hand.
Bonefish earn their reputation by becoming masters of the long, sizzling run, barely showing as fast-moving blurs across the turquoise flats. Listening to the music of an overtaxed drag on a reel and watching line melt toward the horizon become memorable facets of the total experience. No matter what type of tackle you select, don’t try to stop a bonefish on its initial run or even subsequent bids for freedom. Point the rod at the fish and let it go. When the bonefish stops, you can start working it back toward you.
Whether you stalk bonefish while wading or from the bow of a flats skiff being poled across the shallows, you’ve picked up the gauntlet for one of angling’s most demanding challenges. It’s a one-on-one sport where you rely on polarized sunglasses to help spot your quarry and can’t blame failure on anyone else. There are no shortcuts to success, but every day on the flats adds to your storehouse of knowledge and experience. When you think about it, the rewards of watching a bonefish streak across skinny water tethered to your line make you forget all the frustrations. You can’t ask for more than that.