Bonefish Spawning Research Posts New Discoveries
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’ll always remember the first bonefish I caught with a fly I tied myself. The bonefish was cruising slowly along a sandy beach, the water so shallow the top inch of the fish’s back was exposed above the surface. As I watched the bonefish move slowly along the shoreline toward where I stood, hiding in the shadow of a mangrove at the end of the beach, it would occasionally make a quick lunge after one of the small crabs that were feeding along the water’s edge on the late dropping tide. I was so interested in the fish’s behavior that I almost forgot I was there to catch a bonefish (that’s the scientist side of my brain).
lunged toward the fly with such energy that it beached itself, fly in its mouth. The fish made a few wiggles to get itself back in the water, as I crouched, mesmerized. I set the hook.
But the fishing side of my brain pushed its way forward, and I crouched and moved up the beach to give myself some backcast room away from the mangroves. I was casting what a friend calls “crap on a hook,” a poorly tied, Clouser-like, crabby imitation made mostly of brown deer hair.
We always think of bonefish as shallow water fish.
As the fish moved within range, I plopped the fly on the water’s edge a foot in front of the fish. As the fish came even with the fly, in slightly deeper water, I made a small strip. When the fish saw the movement it 36
B O N E F I S H & T A R P O N J O U R N A L FA L L 2 0 2 0
I’ve always been drawn to the skinniest of water in my pursuits of bonefish, water so shallow it’s as if they are crawling over the bottom. But even on days fishing for bonefish in deeper water, we’re still only talking about water that’s a few feet deep. And Andy Smith’s pursuit of the monster bonefish on the east side of Andros are still in water that’s only six feet deep.
In recent years, as we’ve learned more about bonefish biology, the scientist side of my brain has more than once told the fishing side of my brain to sit down and shut up. There is so much more to bonefish than being the gray ghosts of the shallows.
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