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10/14/12

bonefishing hawaii:

fiberglass revisited.

 

i mentioned fiberglass in the last blog and that kind of stuck in my head.  so i took out the 8’6” lamiglass fiberglass 7wt. and did a little sight fishing.  you read that right, clay did a little sight fishing. hah!  contrary to popular belief, i have done a bit of sight fishing for bonefish in my day and have been known to still do it now and then for kicks.  i just kind of enjoy blind casting better you know.  i often hear peeps say that those who blind cast do it because they can’t see fish.  my smart remark  to this comment is always, “people sight fish because they can’t cast”.  it’s pretty tough to sight fish if you can’t see fish just as it is hard to bomb for long periods of time without casting properly.  at least without some major fatigue or worse some kind of injury down the line.  i find it a bit intriguing and a little entertaining when peeps who do one type of fishing put down those who do another type.  why?  it is also a little peculiar that it is always the ones who choose to practice a form of fishing that is less effective (for catching fish), less of the time, putting down those who fish in ways that are more effective more of the time.  the classic dry fly fisherman putting down the nympher, the sight fisherman looking down on the blind caster, the long belly spey guy frowning on the shooting head guy, the fly fisherman putting down the gear guy, the lure guy putting down the bait guy.  why is it never the other way around?  i don’t know, i don’t get it.  i’ll do any kind of fishing from tying a string to a stick and making a hook out of a staple to deep sea trolling, to laying a gillnet.  i won’t actually lay a gill net (anymore) but that’s for environmental reasons, not because it isn’t kind of fun.  anyway it’s all fishing to me and it’s all about enjoying the natural world.  the real world.  not the one we’ve built up around ourselves.  it’s fishing... it’s primal... it’s  fun.  i don’t think that those who look down on what others do get that and i wonder if they are really fishermen deep down inside.  so whatever you are into, do the nike thing and just do it.  i just have this slightly abnormal obsession for fly fishing... and i think it’s because of the cast.

 

anyway, i went off on a little tangent there.  can you tell this is written without editing (or much insightful thought for that matter)?  so i did a few hours of sight fishing with the lamiglass fiberglass rod, the abel switch reel, and a 7wt. 3m bonefish line.  i really like the slow sweet action of fiberglass for sight fishing.  fiberglass makes accurate and delicate presentations in close (as most sight fishing shots are) even into the wind.  i also like a shorter leader than most around here about eight to eleven feet when sight fishing.  i want the most fly line out of the rod tip that is possible when making shorter casts.  contrary to popular belief, it is actually the fly hitting the water that spooks more fish than the fly line itself.  with heavy weighted flies (like bonefish flies), the longer the leader the harder it is to control how the fly turns over.  longer leaders often result in big splash downs due to either overpowering the cast (to try to turn over the long leader) or the cast not turning over the leader leaving a mass of dumbell eyes and feathers free falling through space and ploping down into the water as gravity sees fit.  the golden rule of leaders is always to try to use the shortest leader you can get away with.

 

the winds switched back to trades this week and the light has been okay.  the light is, however, getting lower and trickier as we move through fall and toward winter.  i fished one of the “popular spots” and found fish there and hooked a few of them (and lost a few of them... that’s the game).  doug and i, being the early birds that we are, got on the water a little after noon so i fished into the wind the whole time.  for those not in the know, on normal trade wind days on the south side of the island, the afternoon sun is behind you when you face into the tradewind which comes out of the north east (the sun sets in the west to south west).

 

the fiberglass rod i was fishing performed perfectly, making every shot i wanted with ease, style, and a feel that only fiberglass can provide.  i have a lot of rods and a lot of favorites, but this is perhaps my favorite for sight fishing.  it surprises me that those who only sight fish here, the “hardcore” sight fishers, like the faster stiff rods.  maybe they simply never tried a slower action rod (they are getting harder to find in anything over a 6wt.).  maybe they just see fish farther away than i do.  it’s all good though as long as everybody’s having fun.  just some food for thought.

 

 

good times.

 

clay.


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