Does anyone want to go Bonefishing? Hold tight, we'll be standing in the warm Atlantic waters in a moment.
Late May 2006, my business travels had me in Boca Raton, FL - the big PINK hotel - for a week of Continuing Education, Compliance Testing, and Product Training.
Yeah, like this Flexible Old German can be trained!!! ;D
At the end of the week, Jennifer arranged for a short 3-night cruise with the first stop at the most northern island of the Berry Islands of the Bahamas - Coco Cay or as it was called Little Stirrup Cay.
The Berry Islands are on the left side of the RED LINE - wedged between the Grand Bahama and Andros islands.
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And here is our quarry - BONEFISH!!!
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I arranged to fish with Percy Darville - who was the ONLY fishing guide listed in the FODOR'S Travel Guide for the Bahamas - BUTT when I arrived his brother Jimmy Darville was there to take me fishing.
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We had very little chit chat - then we took off for the day.
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Said GOOD BYE to the cruise ship and my loving wife for the day.
We were skipping along, and I have NO idea where we are going. Remember this is 2006 - NO GPS, no iPhone it wasn't invented until next year, 2007!!! I'm using a BlackBerry phone today. Blackberry, they still in business???
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Well, we stop the boat and get out and walked, and walked, and walked some more - with all our walking, we SAW NO ONE ELSE for the entire day.
I asked Jimmy where is this location, any name??? He said we are fishing at Ambergris Cay. Look it up on a map ;D
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Walked all day - barefoot - cause that's what the guide did.
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Jimmy called this marl - a combination of silt and clay. Soft and squishy, each step.
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What is this?? a Sponge??
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Been fishing now for over an hour, and all I managed to do was bust up bonefish pods while casting to them. He would say, "40 feet at 2 o'clock", BUTT I COULD NOT see them in the water. That's when Jimmy told me, "Mon, don't look for the fish, look for the shadow BELOW THE FISH!!!" BOOM!!! There they ARE!!! And on my next cast.... Success!!!
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MY FIRST BONEFISH!!!!!! The first run was a blistering 60-70 yards. I tossed my camera - a canon point and shoot - to Jimmy and he took the photo.
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Bonefish are very silvery and with a blueish cast to the fish. Very cool.
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And this is why they are called the Ghosts of the Flats - just released and you can only see their black eyes.
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And the fly, a small Crazy Charlie - worked just great.
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And with Jimmy's help, we continue to pick off Bonefish after Bonefish.
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He tried to keep me 40 yards away from the Mangroves, they lowered our CATCH RATE!!!!!
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Then trouble shows up. This shark began to swim closer and closer to us.
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And for 20 minutes, would NOT leave us alone, we threw marl at the shark, and I used my fishing rod to bump it on the back a few times. I'm using a 9' rod.
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During our flats walk, I found a conch, Jimmy kept it, said he would make me conch salad, Never had that before, let's give it a try.
So we wrapped up the fishing for the day and headed back to him home dock. BUTT not before seeing this, THOUSANDS of schooling bonefish!!! What a sight!
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Here are more schooling bonefish!!!
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We were running back to his dock, around 35-40 mph.
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We arrived, Jimmy runs up to the house to get an onion, blood orange and a small green pepper that would take hair off your hide. REELY.
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Here's Jimmy making me conch salad!!!! Wish I had make a video of him removing the conch from the shell. Very cool
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And here is the extracted conch - which will be my lunch in 20 minutes.
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Looks like conch is enjoyed here in the Bahamas.
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We head back to the Cruise Ship, clipping over the waves at 40 mph, me enjoying my conch salad out of a ziploc bag and a cold local Bahamian beer - KALIK
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It was amazing and saw NO ONE ELSE for the day.
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Arrived back at Coco Cay - I settled up my day's bill with Jimmy, provided a thoughtful gift and generous tip,
and told him, I'll be back.
This was one for the books,
Wayne
Luv it - Thanks for that Wayne :)
Looks like you had a good time and caught some good fish in a beautiful location
Kim
Wayno, nice job on the report as usual. What fun walking among the sharks. Do that again and you'll get to be called the shark whisperer. I'd have gotten out of the water in a flash. Conch salad is delicious. Dominick
Great report Wayne, nice clear water, the way the bone fish were schooling, do you think they were spawning, maybe thats why, you did not see many when you were fishing, cheers Don.
Great, all-inclusive trip report, Wayne. Never knew the Bahamas had that many Islands.
What a narrator!!great report Wayne👍.
Sal
Great thread.
bonefish are the hardest pound for pound fighters I've ever encountered. Spent a week on San Salvador island, Bahamas fishing is excellent.
Just near the resort I stayed is Bonefish Bay Beach where they did the fly fishing like you did. I opted to target Wahoo during my stay but I did bring a telescoping spinning rig that only proved to frighten away any bonefish I threw a lure at. It wasn't until I tied up a hi-lo with little bits of shrimp a kitchen worker gave me and threw it in the middle of those schools of juveniles did I hit a few little ones. They jumped around like crazy, I was blown away at how hard they fought, and they were much smaller than the adults you were catching.
Glad you experienced the Bahamas even if for a short visit. My ancestry both maternal and paternal is from the Bahamas before they migrated to Key West in the 1800's. I grew up eating Conch many ways and it is part of my heritage. Baked Bonefish was even on the menu.
Nice post.
Scott
Bonefish looks like very fun to catch,,,,,, :D now that's got to be a great trip,,,,,,,,, ;D
Great report Wayne. Thank you for bringing it out of the vault for us.
-steve
Quote from: Dominick on May 30, 2020, 02:31:23 PM
Wayno, nice job on the report as usual. What fun walking among the sharks. Do that again and you'll get to be called the shark whisperer. I'd have gotten out of the water in a flash. Conch salad is delicious. Dominick
Thanks Dominick!!! Like the old saying, Cat's got your tongue??? Let's modify it to... Sharks got your toe??? And you know me, first in line for adventure!
Quote from: Donnyboat on May 30, 2020, 02:55:30 PM
were schooling, do you think they were spawning, maybe that's why, you did not see many when you were fishing, cheers Don.
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Don, I have NO IDEA if they were spawning, I think Bonefish are on the flats only to eat, and they spend time in schools to ward off sharks & barracuda. BUTT I don't' know.
Quote from: Gfish on May 30, 2020, 02:56:22 PM
Great, all-inclusive trip report, Wayne. Never knew the Bahamas had that many Islands.
GFish!!!! LOTS of islands in the Bahamas. about 700 islands spread over 500 miles, only 30 islands are inhabited. Fascinating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bahamas#Geography
Quote from: the rockfish ninja on May 30, 2020, 05:55:01 PM
Great thread.
bonefish are the hardest pound for pound fighters I've ever encountered. Spent a week on San Salvador Island, Bahamas fishing is excellent.
Just near the resort, I stayed is Bonefish Bay Beach where they did the fly fishing like you did. I opted to target Wahoo during my stay but I did bring a telescoping spinning rig that only proved to frighten away any bonefish I threw a lure at. It wasn't until I tied up a hi-lo with little bits of shrimp a kitchen worker gave me and threw it in the middle of those schools of juveniles did I hit a few little ones. They jumped around like crazy, I was blown away at how hard they fought, and they were much smaller than the adults you were catching.
Rockfish! San Salvador island has the entire Atlantic ocean to the east, how was your day for Wahoo????? When are you and I going fishing?????
Quote from: oc1 on May 31, 2020, 07:00:55 AM
Great report Wayne. Thank you for bringing it out of the vault for us.
-steve
Steve, IF.... Alan does not mind, I have many past trips to post if you wish to see more. What is your bonefishing experience in Hawaii???? Inquiring minds want to know,
Wayne
Thanks Wayne for the nive little trip. Sure looks like fun to me. Good pictures and story. Warm and Isolated from the masses, you made your siminar work great. thanks, post some mare trips when you can. gst.
Thanks for taking us along !
Great report Wayne. Felt like we were right there with you.
Those schools were not spawners. Schools of smaller Atlantic bonefish on the flats are common. Often they are feeding so heavily that you can't see any fish, just the cloud of mud, and an occasional flash. Spawning events occur in the evening. Bonefish aggregate in swirling schools in deeper lagoons (30ft or so) in the late afternoon, and head to the deep water drop offs to spawn at night.
-J
Quote from: El Pescador on May 31, 2020, 02:24:34 PM
What is your bonefishing experience in Hawaii????
Different species (two of them). They tend to be larger; up to about 30 inches fork length. They leave for a week or so in the summer to spawn off shore. There is little to no management or enforcement so when the gill netters find where a school is hiding they wipe it out. Many solitary fish caught hook-and-line are killed and eaten as fish cakes. It's a wonder there is anything left.
-steve
I always heard they school up on the flats (pre-spawn) and then go offshore as a group to spawn. I am not a scientist so I may be 100% wrong.
Anyway, I have caught Bonefish on cut bait on the bottom in 100' of water, so I know they move into deep water.
Quote from: conchydong on May 31, 2020, 08:18:40 PM
I always heard they school up on the flats (pre-spawn) and then go offshore as a group to spawn. I am not a scientist so I may be 100% wrong.
Anyway, I have caught Bonefish on cut bait on the bottom in 100' of water, so I know they move into deep water.
Schooling is normal daily behavior for small to medium sized bonefish. It is very common. The Caribbean/Bahamian subspecies (Vulpe) also stage before going to deep water dropoffs to spawn, but I don't think that happens much in the shallow flats, and they are aggregating in one place, not cruising around like a normal bonefish school. The staging areas are nearby the spawning locations.
Here is a nice video on bonefish spawning behavior:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuTN0Wj8J_A (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuTN0Wj8J_A)
-J
Very nice thread and must have been great to see all those fish. Enjoyed the video!
Excellent post thanks for sharing, definitely something I would like to do
Can't beat that water clarity. Beautiful place to fish.
Dwight
Nice video Dave👍
Sal
Wayne-o!
Thanks for this! Three years ago in May we and friends spent a week in Spanish Wells about 40 miles due east of where you were- you can see at the northern tip of Eleuthra. A life changing event for me, and most of pics got lost in laptop crash....so yours bring me back! We would go down to the tip of the island at dusk and see the bones tailing on the flat, but couldn't get a hit on the wobble jigs. Made ceviche from yellowtail and mahi we caught ( i took own gear and rented a boat) and also drank a lot of Kalik (Klik, lol) and conch salad.
Awesome!
J
Quote from: thorhammer on June 01, 2020, 03:17:38 PM
Wayne-o!
Thanks for this! Three years ago in May we and friends spent a week in Spanish Wells about 40 miles due east of where you were- you can see at the northern tip of Eleuthra.
Awesome!
J
The GREAT and POWERFUL Thorhammer!!!!
Welcome back from our self-imposed sequester.
Checking google maps, Spanish Wells is just a mile from the Deep Blue - how was your day of offshore pelagic fishing????
Sending you a PM for my summer 2020 BBQ Sauce needs.
Wayne
Had the boat four days, one was a blowout- but did manage to catch mahi daily in a 1000 feet of water a mile or so off the beach, and yellowtail in the patch reefs- enough to feed the masses with ceviche and grilling! what i liked about it was that there was really very little intel on the place being so small, so I brought my own kit and did it 100% my way in a strange place and scored. We actually took the first half day to re-rig / repair a lot of stuff on the boat at our dime- my buddy is USCG Chief, ret., and I'm just generally anal about stuff on boats working and clean, so we weren't having it. Although next time I will hit the gym before humping my shoulder bag of Internationals through ATL!!!!! or buy some TLD 2-speeds lol
I'm hunting the Q -sauce; will advise.
Quote from: El Pescador on May 31, 2020, 02:24:34 PM
Rockfish! San Salvador island has the entire Atlantic ocean to the east, how was your day for Wahoo????? When are you and I going fishing?????
93 lbs, I posted a pic here a long time ago. TBH I really wanted to go snapper/grouper jigging but the groupers were protected that year so to reef jigging trips weren't offered.
We might fish in the upcoming weeks but I'm working on a music project right now, gotta replenish tackle, and recover a little more from that last trip.
I do love bonefish cakes. Like, A Lot. Depending on the time of year, you can actually catch more of them than puffer fish on Ford Island, but casting to them on the flats off of Hickam is epic.
I really enjoyed Hawaii, not as much as where I live, but there were really fun days.
The Man