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11/24/13

bonefishing hawaii:

clay fishes for tailing fish...really?

 

well my alma mater’s football season just took a serious turn for the worse.  you can bet that the ducks are experiencing the full meaning of “sometimes like that” after that beat down by arizona.  fortunately for the hawaii bone hunter the fishing has not suffered such a turn.  the fishing around here has held up extremely well despite some sketchy weather this past week.  from what i’ve seen there are lots of bones to be had out there.

 

lots of bones out there to be had. 

 

sean checked in with a couple of pics from his day off from shop duties.  sean, like me, is a big fan of the new sage method rods.  i know i’ve said it before but them’s some goood rods.

 

looks like sean and his sage 790-4 method enjoyed a pretty nice day on the water.

 

i got out a couple of times this week.  on wednesday i gave my sage 691-4 method another spin around the flat.  a storm was descending upon our little island so the sky was pretty dark all day.  fortunately, the clouds were solid enough for there to still be visibility into the water.  i was able to catch a few, and lost a couple others that were perhaps a bit much for my six weight method and abel classic reel.  i was hoping to catch the bite before the storm, but that never really materialized as the storm never really materialized.  despite all the meteorologists foul weather warnings it didn’t rain a drop that day.

 

wednesday brought a few more bones for the sage 691-4 method under dark ominous, but dry, skies.

 

on friday it was a different story.  i fished my 8’6” lamiglass 7wt fiberglass rod because sometimes i like to go old school and fish glass. when i got out on the water there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  visibility was great but the clouds started forming within the hour.  i didn’t see many fish but got one to eat before i saw my window into the watery world close under a veil of blinding glare.  then the rain came and it dumped on us pretty good (where was the weatherman on that one).  when the rain let up, there were still fish on the flat but they were impossible to see through the glare.  we ended up having to fish for tailing fish, something that i don’t normally do but the glare was 360 degrees and it was either that or go home.  so in full on play the hand you’re dealt fashion i scanned the glared surface for the infamous tell tale signs of bones.

 

tailing fish can range from aggressive wagging tails where the entire tail comes out of the water to the "tippy tail"  where you just see a tiny triangle poke casually out of the water.

 

to me fishing tailing fish that you can’t see in the water is the true form of blind casting.  at least here on oahu, the tailing fish you encounter are usually very difficult to track.  you pretty much see the tail, cast to it, hope beyond hope that it bites and that you don’t spook it or any other fish that happens to be around it.  i don’t really dig doing that, they look so peaceful and happy when they are tailing and i don't like to disturb their little groove.  there are parts about fishing tails that i do like.  one nice thing is that you can see tails in any condition so you are not dependent on the sun although it is quite dependent on tide.  they are usually ridiculously easy to see compared to spotting fish underwater.  also tailing fish can be spotted from a long ways away so you can make long casts at them which i like.  it is a game where you spook most to catch a few.  on wednesday the glare never broke and i ended up fishing the tailing fish for the rest of that day.

 

glassy rod and a glassy water tailer.

 

i can’t honestly say how i go about hooking tailing fish when i can't see the fish in the water aside from just getting lucky.  i guess if i had to give any tips to successful tailing fish fishing (at least around here) one thing would be to try to get the best read that you can of the direction that the fish is headed.  another would be to make as quiet a presentation as possible.  use a light fly (i was using a bead chain charlie like fly) and a "soft" cast that unrolls with minimal water disturbance. being a good and moral person (for the karma aspect) and having the fish gods on your side is also always a good thing.  did that help me hook those fish on friday?  well maybe the latter more so than the first two, but doing the first two things can’t hurt.  to keep things in perspective, doug used a lead eye fly and has a markedly less “quiet” quiet presentation than i use and he actually hooked more tailing fish than i did that day.  maybe he’s just that much more of a “good guy” than i am.  who knows.  i'll see you on the water.

 

doug with one of his tailing bones.  i don't know how he did it but he hooked more tailing fish than i did... i guess good karma goes a long way in the guessing game of tailing bones.

 

i just heard that there is more south winds and another front coming this week.  i guess tis the season.  hopefully the fish will stick around throughout for some thanksgiving good times.

 

clay.

 


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