From Midcurrent
By Marshall Cutchin
Noted author Carl Hiaasen can’t get enough of big, challenging bonefish. His long obsession has led him to achieve some remarkable things with a fly rod, like winning the Islamorada All Tackle Bonefish Tournament, an event traditionally dominated by bait fishermen. Not surprisingly, he thinks that these days flies will outfish bait in the Keys.
Carl Hiaasen describes his fly box as a horrendous mess, full of experiments, some killer flies, and even a practical joke or two. But it's a potent collection when it comes to fooling bonefish. Carl Hiaasen photo
Carl Hiaasen is known among the reading public as a master of modern absurdity, sprinkling dirty money, politics, environmentalism and the oddities of tourism through more than a dozen popular books. Some of the fuel for his quirky plots comes from a serene, if equally unpredictable, pastime: fly fishing for bonefish. Read Hiaasen’s Nature Girl
“I CAUGHT my first bonefish in May of 1970 while fishing with my pal Bob Branham, who of course is now a famous guide, in his aluminum jon boat over by Cotton Key. We had a 6- or 7-horsepower Mercury outboard and used a closet dowel for a pole. I think we had both just gotten our driver’s licenses and we would just load up the boat and go anywhere. Eventually we got up to Biscayne Bay and met Bill Curtis, who was tremendously helpful to us both.
But bonefishing for me has always been a special kind of experience. It’s about being there in the middle of it all. I like to go out at sundown and fish for tailers and sure, I’ll look for the big fish first, but if they’re not around, I’m perfectly content to go cast at 5-pound fish.
I don’t obsess over the details. If they work, I keep using them, and some days I will fish the same pattern all day long. Other days I change flies six times in an hour.
Of course bonefishing in the upper Keys has changed a lot. You have to work harder to find fish, and especially fish that will eat. Ted Williams used to pull out of Bud and Mary’s and show off by catching fish right in front of the crowds on the dock, on Tea Table Key. Now you come into the dock at the end of a day of fly fishing in Islamorada, and if you’ve caught a single 5-pound bonefish, you have had a good day — buy everybody a drink. But that’s OK. If you’re there because of the media hype or because you want to measure up and have something to brag to your buddies about, you’re there for the wrong reason. There’s a certain amount of derangement that goes along with it. I’m still amazed, of course, that you can cast to world-class bonefish with the skyscrapers of Miami in the background.
Filed under: --TECHNIQUES, FLIES, FLY FISHING SALT WATER
