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02/11/12
bonefishing hawaii:
north winds blow.
so the first part of this past week, the islands were plagued by some strong north west winds which made things on the water a bit interesting to say the least. around here winds from the north are cold and winds from the west... well winds from the west are just plain wrong. what’s a boy in love supposed to do? (erasure “oh l'amour” reference for those not in the know.) go fish of course!
went out on wednesday. the high for the day was expected to be 75 degrees (it actually turned out to be 78, it was cloudy, and the winds were gusting out of the north/northwest at twenty to twenty five knots. perfect bonefishing conditions... i knew it would be a battle royale to get bit. so i grabbed my sage 7126-4 tcx (the deathstar), an abel #3 reel, scientific angler .30 intermediate running line, a rio 550 skagit flight head, a rio 10ft. intermediate tip, my ipod, and a jacket. i was prepared for battle. as we launched, mike hennessey was coming in with his clients. he motioned to us to go back and said it was “brutal out there”. fishing in unpleasant, nasty weather is nothing new for us so we headed out anyway to see what was going on out there for ourselves.
the reefs here develop under the normal trade conditions and were being rubbed the wrong way so to speak by the cold winds out of the north and west. the currents were odd and the nearshore seas were in complete chaos. needless to say the fishing was slow and it took every bit of adapting and dredging tons of water that the deathstar and i could muster. i fished uncomfortably, carefully, deliberately, and super slowly. i hung up about a thousand times, sharpened my hook about two thousand times, unhooked about five slimy nunu (trumpet or cornet fish), and sang and danced to stay warm. between all of that, i did, somehow, hook bones that bit and fought like they were as cold as i was. the trumpet fish bites were harder than the bonefish which just sort of put the fly in their mouth without moving. hooking fish under these conditions just goes to show that the only way there is no chance of hooking fish is if you don’t go fish. on paper, this looked like the worst possible day to fish here. the only thing it had going for it was the tide. like i always say, “you’ll never know unless you go”.
well the weather cleared up and strong trades (normal winds from the northeast) resumed. the temps were and are still a bit down but it is sunny. so yesterday doug and i went out to do some sight fishing. broke out the lamiglass fiberglass (fast becoming my favorite sight fishing rod), a j. ryall 10 reel, and a scientific anglers mastery bonefish 7wt. line. the winds were, as we say around here, howlin’ like a shaolin, but at least they were from the right direction. the fish were hard to spot in the wind swept murky water. there weren’t many fish around and ones we encountered were pretty closed mouthed. i did my usual stay in one area while doug did his usual ramboing all around the place. just by chance, doug rolled up to me right when i got a fish to bite (casting with my left hand... a handy trick to have in your fly fishing bag of tricks). we got some video and a photo (so much easier with two people). that doesn’t happen often because i like to fish alone as do the guys i like to fish with. so whenever “we” go fishing i rarely run into them until the day is over. that’s just the way we roll and i wouldn’t enjoy it any other way.
anyway doug hooked a fish as well that day but it came off due to a dull hook point (keep those hooks sharp!). all in all some tough conditions but more fish than i thought there would be. i think i got fish this week because i’ve fished those tough conditions hundreds of times before. i fished hard and did what i had to do to get bit. doug had a slightly different take on it. he used my own saying against me and thought the fish i got this week were because, “the sun’s gotta shine on a dog’s ass sometimes”... i guess you just never know.
releasing cold bonefish on wednesday.
another bonefish with fiberglass.
doug you did a great job. you should take videos for the blog all the time... hah!
dog...
ass...
sometimes...
sunshine! but, as always, good times.
clay.
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