Further information ...
	Home NWFF blog clay's blog archives 04/07 tailing fish, blind casting, and questions... oh my. 04/08 tippy and the golden. 04/11 a day at hickam and k flies in the shop 04/20 unfortunately bad pics do not a blog make... 4/23 one fast blog... the goings ons. 04/26 the weekend and the tfo pro review. 04/30 shallow bones

04/07/10

bonefishing hawaii:

tailing fish, blind casting, and questions...oh my.

new nwff customer jon wrote to me with a tailing fish and a blind casting question.  so i thought i’d answer him to the best of my ability in this blog.  before i get into jon’s questions, i want to talk about some of the characteristics that i have noticed that all really good fly fishers or even fishermen in general have in common.

over the years i have had the good fortune to have spent hours on the water with guys that i consider to be the best at bonefishing with a fly rod here on oahu.  guys like kevin faucheux, ty shibayama, dean shirota, jay toyofuku, and, more recently, ed tamai.  one of the most obvious traits that these guys all share is a distinct well developed personal fishing style.  a personal “bag of tricks” to get bit on any flat on any tide in any weather here on the island.  the interesting thing is that what we all do in different situations is different, but overall we all manage to come to the same result.

so i guess the point here to those not in the know is that there is more than one way to skin a bonefish.  all of these personal styles are a unique mixture of skills developed by continually trying new things, as well as what other guys are doing, dropping things that they didn’t like, and keeping and tweaking the things they liked.  the “journey” as deano calls it is an eternal work in progress that has no end.

on the other end of the spectrum there are the guys that do the same thing at the same places on the same tides.  though they may become competent at fishing an area or a couple of places on certain tides when the conditions are right, they often find themselves in situations that they haven’t encountered before or conditions that they’ve never seen.  when these situations occur, they reach into their “bag of tricks” and find that there is nothing else in there (or at least anything that they are confident doing.  so i find it best to always keep an open mind.  try things that other people do or tell you to do, but don’t take anyone’s advice as gospel.  the best of the best know what to do in a lot of different situations but they may not know what is best for you to do.  <also never stop evolving and changing how you fish resist the urge to do the same thing every time out just because you had success doing that.  fish the “bad” tides, the unpleasant conditions in other words just go anytime, all the time.  that’s the only way one can develop their own personal fishing style.  how do you know something works better than something else, if you haven’t tried anything else?

all that i know about bonefishing and fly fishing in general is still a work in progress, that’s why my usual answer to any kind of “how to questions” when it comes to how to present a fly to bonefish is “it depends”.  that doesn’t get received well but it is the most truthful answer that i know of.  lets face it, if fishing were as simple as reading a book or doing exactly what someone else says to do and then instantly becoming a master, none of us would even do it... why bother.  but, it is the quest for the unattainable that makes some of us devote our entire one go around on earth to the pursuit of fish on the fly.<

so back to jon’s question.  he asked,

“when you see a tailing fish where do you cast the fly?  secondly, when blind casting how long do you stay in a spot before you move on.”

i have been running around the waters of oahu pounding it with a fly rod for upwards of seventeen years now and in that time i’ve actually managed to hook a tailing bone or two.  what works best for me is actually not casting at the fish while it is tailing.  when i spot a tailing fish i automatically find myself using the time that it is tailing to position myself (you’ll see a lot of tailing fish that are out of casting range) and concentrating hard on trying to see the fish in the water as well as seeing the area around the fish tailing.  if i can see the fish, i’ll wait until the fish stops tailing and fish it like a normal sighted fish.  i take time to look around the area of the tailing fish to prevent spooking any other fish.  often times when bones feel like tailing,  there will be more than one fish in that area and if one is spooked they will all take off (and frequently not come back).  many times i’ll actually hook another fish that i see that’s not the one tailing but a different fish that i picked up while scanning that happened to be in a better position to present the fly to.  does that count as hooking a tailing fish? i don’t know. but it’s a fish anyway.  imho (learned that on speypages.com), i think people get too fixated on the fish’s tail sticking out of the water.  i don’t blame them.  i’ve spent hours just watching bones tail without even making a cast.  it’s a cool and awesome sight to see and sometimes they look so peaceful and into what they are doing, that you don’t want to be the one to bum their trip.  if you want to catch one, however, quick reactions can make all the difference.  you don’t necessarily have to cast quickly (sometimes you do) but you have to formulate your attack and do what you gotta do the moment you spot one.

in lower light, overcast, or calm and glary situations when you can’t see in the water, i’ll try to focus on the tail itself and focus on which way the fish is facing.  then i’ll wait until the tail drops and cast on the side that the fish was pointing.  this situation is probably the toughest to hook one in and the only thing i can attribute to the bones i've caught this way is luck.  i actually think this is more “blind” than blind casting for them.  you get a read on the fish cast to where you think it’s going, say a little prayer and hope you’ve been good enough that the gods will let you get bit.  these days when i get into this situations i almost never cast, preferring to enjoy the show in front of me instead.

< 

distance in front of the fish to place the fly?  simply put, we all strive to present the fly at a distance that will not spook the fish but the fish will somehow see it.  how far is that?  each shot at a fish is different.  where you place the fly is a culmination of every just about every factor that you can think of.  where you are, the bottom, the tide, the wind, the mood of the fish on that day, and especially your own past experiences.  i’ve asked many people what they try to do and heard all kinds of theories but what i have come up with is that it is more of an instinctive kind of thing.  in general i can say that some guys (like e.t.) tend to lead fish by a lot and get them to “come across” the fly.  i like to get the fish to see the fly sinking, but not all the time.  in reality i find myself doing all kinds of things that i don’t even realize that i am doing until after i’ve hooked the fish (sometimes days or weeks after).  we simply call it “doing what you gotta do” or “making them eat”... and, don't get me wrong, we all still get rejected daily. < obviously, if what you are doing is not working on any particular day, do something else.  the presentation may not be wrong, just wrong for that day, so put it back in your bag and grab something else.

there is also no real answer to when to move when blind casting a spot.  bonefish are not fish that hold in an area they are all over the place.  you can blind cast in the exact same spot for a thousand casts and on the thousanth and one cast hook a fish.  there are some practices that i loosely follow.  in general if it is an incoming tide i’ll spend more time at a spot before moving.  i will almost never blind cast over areas that i can see fish on.  this is because i’ve seen how spooky bones are when sight fishing.  i think that blind casting over these areas tends to spook more fish than the occasional one that i see some guys catch bombing sightfishable areas.  so i tend to stick to the deeper areas of the flat or the dropoffs.  other than that i usually don’t move around too much because that’s just my style and pace of fishing (i've been known to stand in the same place for hours).  if i move it is only because i don’t “feel the love” but that’s just more of a confidence thing than anything else.  for all i know. every single time i ever moved to another spot, i could have caught a fish with one more cast at the spot i just left.

one last point, what i think makes the biggest difference in fishing success, is always having confidence in what you are doing.  i always say if you believe it, then it’s true.  you can’t catch anything if you don’t have confidence.  the dangerous part of this is that there are many guys who experience limited success at a certain spot, with a particular fly or presentation, and that's all they do.  these guys never get to expand their knowlege and experience because they only do one thing.  when they try new things or different things they will try it for a short time before resorting back to what little they know.  i continually strive to become confident in as many situations, places, flies, and techniques as i can.  i've found that the more different things that you honestly try, the more things you will succeed with, and the more confidence you will have.  the biggest problem that the nwff crew has is that we can never decide what to do or where to go because no one has any real strong opinions, it really doesn’t matter where we go or what we do.  we just want to fish and usually pick a spot at random and just go, confident that our “bag of tricks” will have something in it that will get us bit no matter what challenge we may face on the water.  lately i’ve been fishing wherever whoever is giving me a ride is going.

jon, i hope that answers your questions, just keep in mind... i’m as full of sh_t as the next guy.  just keep on enjoying the journey, trying different things and learning from your experiences and one day you’ll be amazed at  what’s in your “bag of tricks”.  it may have similarities with others but it will largely be uniquely your own.

hikai this past saturday afternoon.

... they’ll have theirs, you’ll have yours, and i’ll have mine... and together well be fine.  good times.

clay.