Mele Kalikimaka!

It's been a happy holiday. I fit in one day of fishing during our stay on Oahu, but what a good day it was. My friend Kirk picked me up in the morning and we headed to the south shore in search of o'io (bonefish.) The sun was shining and the trade winds were unusually quiet, good conditions for fishing.
I have fished for o'io perhaps half a dozen times in Hawaii, with very little luck. Even when the fish are all around, and the conditions are good, I can't get them to eat. I've tried fly fishing and bait fishing and I've fished all around the island. I have hooked plenty of fish, wrasses, hawkfish, cornetfish, but never a bonefish.
Most people associate bone-fishing with sight-fishing, where the angler actually sees the fish first and then casts to it. Kirk said that the sight-fishing had been spotty and suggested that we instead spend our time blind casting. Blind-casting is not really blind. Instead of looking for the fish themselves, the idea is to look for structure that might attract fish and cast near that.
Since blind-casting is more of a probability game I decided right away that my strategy would be to cast as often as possible and to fish every cast, even the bad ones. I simply figured that my chances of catching a bonefish were directly proportional to the amount of time I had my fly in the water.
We saw a few tails, but the fish stayed mostly out of sight. Nevertheless, Kirk started catching fish right away. He lost the first one but soon landed another. Confident that the fish were around, and feeding, I stuck to my plan and kept casting.
Kirk was on a streak. He kept landing o'io. Determined, I made a cast into a small sandy depression and finally got a good strike! I was so excited at the prospect of catching my first bonefish that I set the hook too vigorously and pulled the poor fish clear out of the water. It was a small barracuda, fun, but not an o'io.
Barracuda tend to chase fast moving flies through the water, not on the bottom, so after catching this fish I switched to a bigger, heavier fly which would stay down where the bonefish feed.
The new fly worked well on a little wrasse, but it was even smaller than the barracuda! The tide was rising so Kirk and I made our way closer to shore, fishing as we waded. I made a cast between two small depressions and began stripping the fly back along the bottom. I felt several sharp tugs and suddenly line was flying off the reel - hana pa'a! Fish on!
I have caught fish this size before and I wouldn't say that it took much longer to land this bonefish than it would a comparable sized carp, but after landing my first o'io I would say that, in my experience, the speed and explosive power of these fish is without peer. What a day!
Check out the rest of the pictures here!

Do You Uhu?

We are off to Hawaii for Christmas! Boarding passes have already been printed, and still I haven't packed. Mostly my tardiness is due to the fact that I can't decide what fishing gear to bring. Spinning, or fly? Salt, or maybe a little fresh?
While I can peruse weather and tide information online, it's really difficult to get a good enough sense of the conditions to know what to bring.
Regardless of what finally goes into my bags I'm excited to get into some salt water and hopefully find a few fish.

Jack Gartside

The December 6 post from Jack Gartside's blog, Roccus Writing:

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish

Sad news. Last evening, after a hospitalization of several weeks, Jack finally lost his protracted battle with lung cancer. He was in bed resting comfortably, attended by friends, with the first snow of the season falling silently outside.

Jack Gartside was my fishing hero. He was a master fly tier, an artist, and in each of his creations the music of his soul was made visible.
His attitude and fishing philosophy inspired me on many levels, not just in tying, and not even just in fishing, but in life. After all, I think to Jack, fishing and living were the same damn thing.

Thanks Jack.

Super-Yachting

After 10 weeks living and working in Palatka I have returned home to Nashville. There were fish, and I did catch them, but overall I was disappointed with the fishing in Central Florida.
To be fair, my expectations were high. My previous trips to the Sunshine State had left me with the impression of an excellent fishery - great diversity in species and habitat coupled with a large biomass. Central Florida, in particular the stretch of the St. John's River where I stayed was pure freshwater. Despite being advertised as great bass water it didn't hold a candle to the bass fishing in Tennessee. The only bass-like fish I caught were two little sunfish:

I decided to change tactics. Based on advice from the locals, I began setting fixed lines baited with pieces of hotdog. I would set the lines when I got home from work and check them periodically until I finally reeled them in and went to bed.
This technique was much more successful. I caught plenty of bullheads and other small catfish, as well as a few big channel catfish:
I also hooked a variety of other creatures. By some strange accident, I managed to pull in a crab, caught in the act of stealing my bait:
I also landed two freshwater stingrays. I couldn't identify the species, but I was very happy to get a close look at such interesting critters.
Besides fish, the river was home to a number of other animals:

Our resident alligator. This one is about 1 meter in length.

A tiny turtle!

The Islander

I am travelling to Florida for about 8 weeks to work on the Islander, a luxury charter yacht captained by a friend of ours. The boat is in dry dock for some renovation and I will be joining the crew in cleaning and refitting as much as possible before the ship is put back in the water.
I believe that the dry dock (see map below) is run by St. Johns Ship Building, located near Palatka, FL. I will be staying in a house across the river. Hopefully, in my spare time, I will be able to track down some fish, and catch them.

View Larger Map

Bluegill Soup

Labor Day weekend, Tara and I took three of our friends fishing. Heather has been fishing with us before, but she had never actually caught a fish. Hang and Dapeng, two of our friends from China, had never even been fishing.
I knew the best way to remedy this situation was a tub of nightcrawlers and my favorite bluegill spot. I only have one light tackle spinning rod, so we had to take turns, but it wasn't long before everyone had succeeded in landing fish.

Dapeng with a hungry bluegill

Hang with her very first fish

Heather landed a big'un with the fly rod

Tara showing off her skills

Dapeng with a keeper

We had a great afternoon of fishing. Everyone easily caught fish with bait so I broke out a fly rod and let everyone take a turn at that. It turned out that nymphing produced the biggest fish of the day.

On our walk in, we came across this strange little fellow:

catching (up on) carp

Though I've only mentioned carp in one of the past six posts, I have been chasing them quite a bit. Here are a couple of photos from recent trips...

Felix

It's been a little while since I've gotten out after carp. While nothing gets my heart pumping like fly casting to a tailing fish, I figured that since I have a bunch of juglines rigged up, I may as well set some out with carp bait and see what happens. Dedicated British anglers have developed complex baits based on very scientific nutritional guidelines. I don't know if "Rob's Carp Assassin" is such a bait, but the directions read like a cookie recipe so I thought I'd give it a try.
The morning started brilliantly, right away I hooked up a beautiful fish on my version of the carp carrot fly.Next I paddled into a small lagoon, the same lagoon where Tara and I had placed our juglines a few days before, and baited 8 jugs with sweet smelling dough-balls. The lagoon lies right between two good flats and I knew that carp often hang out there between meals. Having just landed a fish in one area, I left the jugs and moved on to the second flat. The carp were everywhere! Even though the wind was blowing, the morning sun penetrated the water and I could see orange tails in every direction. After missing a few, I hooked up to a medium sized fish. Some carp don't run far when they're hooked but this one took off like a rocket. It paused about 100 feet away, and then swam off in a completely different direction. Unfortunately, my leader had tangled in some algae and the direction change pulled the hook free.
I reeled my fly in and looked over my shoulder. One of the jugs was moving! In fact it was twitching violently as though something was trying to submerge it. I quickly weighed anchor and paddled over. At the entrance to the lagoon is an old submerged bridge, and as I got close I saw that indeed something was trying to pull the jug underwater and under the bridge.
I grabbed the jug and hauled it in. Hoping for a carp and expecting a turtle, I was thrilled to see I had caught a big ol'catfish:
I'm pretty sure this is a big channel catfish. Though big channel cats are hard to distinguish from blue catfish, blues often have more than 30 rays on their anal fin. This fish only has about 23:
With only 8 jugs out for less than an hour, I caught this fish on a carp bait in the middle of the morning; it makes me question some of the conventional catfishing wisdom.

Got Milk?

Jug-fishing for catfish is a popular southern pastime. A jugline is simply a float with a baited hook suspended below. Some jugs are weighted while others are left free to drift. Jug fishing is often done in the dark when catfish move out of their hiding places to feed.
After a recent, and unsuccessful jug-fishing attempt I decided to try again. I bought more foam pool noodles, which I cut into "jugs" and rigged up a total of 29 new juglines:
Surely, I thought, this would be enough to tip the scales in my favor. So, Tara and I headed out one evening in the boat. We baited the hooks with pieces of squid and placed the jugs in a shallow bay. After several hours paddling around in the dark and having caught nothing but an unfortunate snapping turtle, we headed home.
Maybe, I thought, squid wasn't the right bait. So I called up Matt and headed out one morning to catch some panfish. Fresh cut bluegills, I had read, were an excellent catfish bait:
With our superior bait, Tara and I once again headed out into the darkness. This time we placed the jugs carefully, 25 of them in a long line along a submerged road bed, and four of them in a small lagoon nearby. Then we paddled in and headed home, leaving the jugs for the night. We returned early the next morning, anxious to see what we had caught.
The jugs were still in a long line. A bad sign. Indeed the baits were untouched all along the road bed, until the last one. The last jug had been pulled 20 or 30 feet from its original position. Expecting another turtle, I grabbed the line and gave it a pull. I felt a fish on the other end! We had caught a small flathead catfish.
After releasing our catch, we paddled over to collect the last four jugs from the lagoon. Mysteriously, all of these baits had been taken! In fact, one hook was missing completely, and the swivel-snap that held it had been twisted apart:
Later, I told all this to Ronnie "Grumpy" Howard. If Ronnie lived near the ocean, he would be the saltiest sea-dog I know - even though now he is primarily a fly fisherman and trout guide, when it comes to catching fish in Tennessee, Ronnie's been there and done that. When he heard about the broken swivel-snap he told me that when a big cat gets hooked, it will spin in an attempt to free itself.
Had we hooked and lost a lunker?

The Hazards of Fishing

Besides hooking oneself, freshwater fishing has a number of other hazards. I ran across two of Tennessee's more dangerous residents this morning - the dreaded denizen of the deep, the snapping turtle (look closely, it is there):
Even more fearsome, I also ran into the deadly
cotton-head rattle-moccasin!

Post Script: This snake is actually a cotton-mouth! Thanks to Bill Bailey for the I.D.

Black & Mild or Getting Skunked

My buddy David had us up to his lake house this weekend. We arrived in the evening and headed out on the pontoon boat after catfish. Four anglers, four rods, 11 jug lines, three and a half hours, and all we managed to do was lose three jugs and catch a stunted, one-eyed channel cat!

All we could hope was that the next morning would bring better luck. We awoke to excellent conditions and headed back out to fish for bass before breakfast.

 On the way out we spotted the three lost jug lines. One bait was intact, and more or less where we had placed it the night before, but the other two jugs had clearly been pulled out of position. One line was cut above the hook, a sure sign that something had been on it. The final jug had a fish on! It felt like a decent sized catfish, but unfortunately the line had been badly abraded and snapped as soon as I put tension on it.
After breakfast we traded the big pontoon boat for the small jon boat and headed up David's secret bass stream:

 David wasn't exaggerating when he talked up this spot. Even though it was a Sunday afternoon, we were completely alone and the fish were stacked up in every deep pool and log jam along the stream. The water was full of big hungry bluegills: Brennan tried out fly fishing for the first time and had some luck with the sunfish:

Bigger bass were hiding deeper but would attack big lures or flies. David caught his weight in big bass before lunch time:

Land Between The Lakes

This past weekend, Tara and I decided to go camping at Tennessee's Land Between the Lakes. We bought back country camping passes at the park entrance, packed up our boat, picked a spot on the map and started paddling.
We managed to pack the gear without any trouble and after a a few hours we reached the bay where we hoped to find a suitable camp spot.
Turning off the main channel we were met with an exciting occurrence:
The back of the bay was filled with nervous water (all the little circles of ripples in the picture.) Millions of small bait-fish had congregated in the warm shallows. Such a gathering doesn't go unnoticed by hungry piscivores, and every 30 seconds or so a marauding bass would bust through part of the school with a splash.
As soon as we had set up camp I set out to try my luck fishing. I waded out into the school and tied on a clouser minnow that was about the same size and color as the bait-fish I was seeing. There were schools of bait and feeding fish in every direction so I just started casting. I began with a fast retrieve near the surface but got no strikes. I slowed my strips, pulling the fly almost leisurely through the water, and letting it sink down near the bottom of the school. It wasn't long before I felt tension on the line. I set the hook and played the fish a few feet before it leaped into the air, a nice bass!
I landed half a dozen fish in about two hours and lost as many more. Most were bass, but I did catch an aggressive bluegill and a small drum that was cruising for an easy meal.