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12/09/09

bonefishing hawaii:

...let the games begin.

 

first of all for those not in the know.  the above pic is of a hawaiian style lizardfish or 'ulae.  when i was young we used to call it donko. i'm not exactly sure why it may be japanese or something.  the “lizard” as i lovingly refer to them now are pretty prolific throughout the islands.  due to it’s absolute reckless abandon, it is probably the first fish that most beginning fly guys catch around here.  although not much of a fighter, i find it’s no fear, gungho, balls to the wall, go for broke attitude, intriguing and strangely admirable.  this guy came flying from over five feet away and cracked my fly just as i dropped the fly at my feet to test its sink rate.  i also had a couple more come flying out of the water while attempting to hit the fly but missing.

 

anyway,  this was greg “pops” first day off of his vacation so nwff crew e.t., jay, and greg, and loomis rep garett and i hopped on the “yellow bus” and headed out to fish ke’ehi.  the winds were light mostly coming out of the south east.  it was a great day for sight fishing and the guys did so with good success.

 

i had made other plans, though, and a little bit (or a lot of sun for that matter) wasn’t going to change that.  i wanted to dial in the 8 wt. g. loomis roaring river switch rod that garett had let me use.  i used two lines on the rod both airflo scandi compacts in 480 and 510 grains.  they both worked okay for me.  i liked the 480 a little better but i didn’t feel that either was “magic” for me so the quest goes on for that rod (suggestions are very welcome).  “pops” joined me with his 8wt. deer creek switch.  i was very impressed by the progress that greg had made casting the switch rod.  it’s amazing what some daily casting practice and a couple of dvd’s can do.  we are both still very novice with two hands but are enjoying every minute of the journey, the ultimate goal being to fish a fly where no one in hawaii has figured out yet.  in the mean time the flats are easy places to try things out and hone our casts so we can start pounding the more “technically challenging” places that we have in mind.

 

so it turned out to be one of those good days, which, in retrospect, is always the case when the crew gets out together whether there's fish or not.  today the fish were around and the crew stuck thirteen bones in total as well as some other bonus critters. pops found his first tako (octopus) and got his first inking of the season.  some trumpets and cudas were also in the mix as well as the ravaging lizards.

 

i managed to test the loomis switch on a few bones myself including one fall fatty and the rod came through fabulously.  it laid the wood to the fish just like i like rods to do in corally situations.  and the fatty never got into my backing much to the disbelief of jay.  i think he has never seen me fight a fish because he’s always so far away from me when we fish (he’ll say it’s because i don’t catch any fish).

 

in other news sean solo missioned on monday and conked a couple of rats himself despite the less than favorable weather.  greg is off until christmas so...let the games begin!

 

sean’s monday rat fix.

 

the loomis 8wt roaring river switch looks like it will prove to be a valuable tool in the hawaii fly guy arsenal.

 

there are still a higher than normal amount of “summer rats” running around for this time of the year.

 

bone parts.  i just catch them, i never claimed to be able to photograph them.

 

fall fatty mc fat fats... it’s cool when they start looking like carp.  thanks greg for getting wet to take the pics.  good times.

 

clay.


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