Bahamas Bonefishing (Jacks, ‘Cuda, and Shark, too) Tactics and Technics

Flyfishing for bonefish begins with deciding on flyfishing, spinning, or baitfishing. Most bonefishing is the pursuit of flyfishers, men and women determined to cast tiny shrimplike offerings to extremely warty bottom feeders in very shallow water, preferably under bright sun and windless conditions. If the fish senses your presence, it leaves for a place a mile or more away. If it takes your fly, it leaves for a place a mile or more away. Otherwise, it feeds constantly as it swims upstream watching the bottom for shrimp, crabs, worms, gobies, clams, snails, and insects. And that’s a good place to begin, choosing the fly.

Flies:

Shrimp Imitators: Gotcha!, Crazy Charlie, Puff, Horror, and all the other shrimp-like offerings that are found in the books are potentially the “right” fly. It’s best to bring an assortment of at least the first two sizes in #6 to #1. Andros Bones can run big, and you’ll likely use up the #2’s and #4’s long before the #6’s. The other consideration is the weight of the fly. You’ll probably be fishing most of the time in about two feet of water. Try tying different flies that sink to this depth in about a six count or a touch less. Use dumbbells, bead chain, blind (no eyes), and plastic beads for different sink rates and size eyes. Also make up your flies in different color, but here, be a little conservative. Stick to tan, pink, pale gold, and white in that order and you should do fine. Bringing only one fly? Make it a #4, tan with brass eyes, Gotcha and you’ll probably be right at least half the time. The other fly pattern to bring is a small clouser with like-minded varying size eyes. Tie these in yellow/white and green (chartreuse or olive)/yellow on #4-#1 hooks. These are your bigger fish flies and can sink well in the occasional four feet of water you’ll find in channel centers between the mangroves.

Leaders:

Shorter for windy days and longer when it’s still. This makes sense from both a casting perspective and delivery. On a windy day, there is more chop on the water to hide a fly’s introduction. On calmer days, that little blip of the landing fly may be overwhelmed by the line landing nearby. Bring leader bulk in the following sizes: #30, #20, #14, and #10. I’ve found that the best leaders for all-purpose are about ten feet long plus about a two foot tippet. Tie these of six feet of #30 to four feet of #20 and then a tippet of #14 flouro has worked well to turn flies over in a breeze yet not spook fish. You can build a finer, smoother leader from: six feet of #30, three feet of #20, two of #14 plus tippet of #10 or #12 but this may fail to roll over in a breeze.

Fly Line:

Floating is the rule, but you should bring an intermediate sinking in case you want to fish for jacks in deeper channel centers or drive into the wind along an ocean shore or fish the barrier reef, which is about eight feet deep. My advice? If you’ve gotten used to throwing something that actually has weight to it, practice a lot before you leave for the Bahamas. Trying to get a floating line to roll over in an eight knot breeze can be very frustrating while you are also trying to drive it fifty feet (plus a long leader) and the fish are spooky. Bonefishing needn’t be a difficult task, but not having a feel for a floating line makes it tougher than it has to be. You may also want to practice actually trying to land a fly in a small circle, like a trash can lid, at varying distances and angles. If you can do this in three or five false casts (one front, two back, etc.), double hauling the last two, with any kind of frequency, you’ll have a great time on the bonefish flats. If not, you’ll learn there. I can help you!

One more note. Try buying and casting a floating line one weight heavier than your rod. This could be a real boon to loading your rod with a short line or in the fewest number of false casts. Some rods handle heavier line as well; some do not. Experimentation is the only teacher, but this is a worthwhile experiment. If it works, you may find yourself using it every day on the flats and not just on windy days.

Standing on the Foredeck:

When it’s your turn to fish, you’ll take the front of the boat and ready yourself. I recommend stripping out about as much line as you can cast reliably and then casting it so that you can strip it back onto itself in the right order (last on top). Then you’ll want to leave about thirty feet of line and leader hanging from the rod tip in a loop as you take up the fly in your rod hand. This will leave a big loop trailing from your rod tip beside the boat but not so far back as to interfere with poling and boat turns. When I spot a fish (you won’t for a while so trusting me and following directions is an asset, especially at first), you’ll drop the fly and make a roll cast aft to straighten the line before making your first forward false cast.

The fish could be as close as ten feet in front of you and coming right at the boat, in which case you’ll want to be comfortable making a little forward cast and crouching to lower your profile. This happens more than you might think, probably because I am watching the limits of my vision and one just gets through every once in a while, coming right at you. These can be very nice fish, good sized, and you’ll want to make a good presentation. This may be one of the hardest casts to make. Practice, and you’ll be happy you did.

Often the fish is quartering past the boat at ten or two o’clock and perhaps thirty to forty feet away. This usually gives you time to roll case back, false cast forward, haul back and haul forward as you deliver the line. It’s always better to take one more pair of false casts than to drop the fly short. The caveat to this is that I can see both the fish and your fly in midair. You might be accustomed to seeing the line and not the tiny flies. It often happens that right at the end of a false cast, just as you are about to haul back, I’ll say, “Let it drop,” because I can see your fly will land in a good spot. If you don’t think it’s hard NOT to follow through on your intended action of hauling back once you’ve decided to do so, then you’ve never been in this situation. I can only say, it feels very unnatural at first, and the only way to get used to stopping yourself unexpectedly is to have a friend surprise you this way while you practice. Very long casts are not the rule because it’s hard to see fish at eighty or one hundred feet and it’s hard to launch a line that far. The twenty to fifty foot zone, in a light breeze with accuracy, is your target.

Once the fly has landed, you must let it sink. Bonefish are looking down, and if the fly isn’t down, they won’t see it. Let it sink for four to eight seconds, even longer if the bottom is clean and the fish a ways off or the cast a bit far in front of the fish, before you make your first strip. You must let the bonefish approach within a few feet of your fly before you move it. When you strip and It’s likely to be a command from me, (“…wait…strip…strip…strip…wait…long strip…”), you will be jumping the fly a foot or two to make it look like it’s fleeing and then resting it on the bottom again. By the way, the “long strip” is when I see the fish has picked up your fly and you’re setting the hook. This is usually about one full second after the fish has tipped down and inhaled your fly. You may even see its tail leave the water. Tailing is the feeding posture of bonefish while they are digging out food or picking it up. It is unnatural for shrimp or crabs to move when the fish are close. That’s why you move your fly at a distance to make it visible and then wait for the fish to come to it while it rests. I’ve seen ten pounders race across four feet of open flats to inhale a fly that’s settling back down, and I’ve seen three pounders ignore a moving fly within a foot of them. It must look natural.

Of course, all this may be happening while you’re wading instead. Then your angle on the fish isn’t so great and you aren’t as likely to see them as far away unless they’re: tailing, traveling in a school, or flashing in the sun, but then you’re also closer to the fish and can be steadier in your casting. Just remember, where there are bonefish, there are sharks. It’s always good, right after hookup, to look around and size up the competition!

While wading, you’re also more likely to stalk fish or ambush fish than when casting from the deck of a boat. The boat is likely to be drifting down current, the fish working up current toward you. Wading, you’ll be walking slowly along watching for telltale tailing or muds where they are rooting around and kicking up sediment or even just swimming by you. The bottom in most places is fairly solid, either hard, smooth coral, hard, sharp coral, or coral sand. No problem with sinking in but walking quietly on any rough surface is important and wading shoes are essential.

A bonefish’s only defense is vigilance and speed. They have lots of both, but they are also constantly feeding and so preoccupied with other important matters to their survival. It’s a little like turkey hunting. They both have great vision, but they are looking for something more important to the continuance of their species, hence your advantage.

Hooking Up:

Once they have your fly, and barbs really aren’t necessary and are actually undesirable, they will accelerate away toward deeper water and safety. This first run is a real surprise if you’ve never hooked up before. DON’T try to stop them! This is when even a three pound fish will break off fourteen pound tippet. They have all the power of millions of years of evolution and they won’t be held back. Actually, they’ll break you off on the second or third run, too. Even when you have them near the boat, when they want to go you have to let them. That’s why folks fish for bonefish after all. They are undeniable in their power for their size. Bonefish have been clocked at twenty-six miles an hour, most boats plane at eighteen!

Let them run. Use your drag and your palm too if you want but let them run until they stop. A five pounder can take a hundred yards of backing if it wants to. I’ve seen them take good fisherman with big reels to the spool. But they have a weakness. When they stop, they’ll let you reel back half your line or more with little or no resistance. If you want them to stop, then you must stop resisting their flight. That’s right; reduce the drag to nearly nothing and they will slow and stop quickly. Pull against them and they will pull back. Simple as that. If it’s truly a big fish, eight or more, you’d better lighten the drag and feather the real with your fingertips or else they’ll hit the end of your backing and just keep going. (Which brings up a good point of tippet vs. backing. Be sure the weakest point in your line is the front of your fly line or else you can lose it all!)

Even when they are close, they will break off if you grab the leader too soon. Regrettably, you mist tire this fish to bring it to hand to release. But, you don’t really want to bring it to hand. It seems that if you touch the fish, it creates a slime and a scent that sharks can use to track and hunt the fish down. Therefore, you want to bring it to the side of the boat where, since you don’t have a barb on your hook, you can slip it free with your fingertips or a hemostat and save the fishes life in the process. Hooked deep? Snip the tippet. After all, a fish that fights that well ought to fight another day (even if the odds that it will meet another fisherman in its life are extremely slim).

Big Fish, Little Fish:

I say, “Any fish is a good fish.” True enough. I’ve taken a lot of people to a lot of fish. Big and small. If you’re looking for big bonefish, like anywhere else, you have to play the odds. You’ll have to look at a lot of fish and then you’ll have to be looking in the right direction to see the big ones as they go by (I’m talking about ten pound plus, here). I can help, but you can help, too. I’ve seen big Bones go by because they were so big, we all thought they were sharks. Sharks swim with an undulating motion from head to tail; bonefish only use their tails. If you aren’t sure what you’re looking for, ask for confirmation and be false casting while you are. On Andros, if you want fish that have never seen people, that are big and wild and all or nothing, ask me to take you to the Western shore of the island when the wind is down. This is where the fish are undisturbed because they are forty miles from any people, surrounded by wild mangroves and the Atlantic Ocean and absolutely naïve fish could be to the hook. Otherwise, you should optimize your chances by tying on a fly for big fish. This means that you may be sacrificing a good chance at good fish in order to get a chance at a big one. It kind of defeats the purpose of having fun, but everything in life has its tradeoff. For the big ones, try: Clousers on #1 hooks and big eyes to get down; crabs (especially swimming crabs) and goby patterns (including those gobies that live in conchs (brown/grey) and are common on the flats). Tying on a big fly is an invitation to frustration when a lot of smaller fish go by and are spooked by your offering. Everything is a choice, again. But if you see a big one, you’ll want the right fly to turn their head. Otherwise, I’d recommend you enjoy the day and catch whatever you find to cast to. Why not?

Spinning:

I’d always recommend bring along spinning tackle, even if flyfishing is your first love. There are times, windy days and big fish and other species that are simply more available to the spinning enthusiast than the fly caster.

Equipment:

I like to have two setups ready for spinfishing. The first is an ultra-light setup, short whippy rod, good smooth drag reel, and about eight pound test line for trying the jacks, snappers, ‘cuda, and even bonefish. The other is a medium/heavy casting rod about seven feet long and a good quality big spool reel capable of holding a hundred yards of #14 test line. This second rod is for bigger jacks, snapper, ‘cuda of five pounds or more and does passable duty on sharks and tarpon up to five feet.

Lures:

I’ve tried different approaches over the years, and this is what I’ve learned. Warm water fish don’t expect an easy meal. That translates out to anything that isn’t hiding or swimming away as fast as it can looking unnatural. Regrettably, the soft jerkbaits just don’t work. But fast swimming plugs with a lot of wobble and flash do. Be sure to bring silver, silver/blue rattletraps or the like. These have proven out very well on jacks, snapper, tarpon and perhaps shark. I’ve also found that Yo-Zuri crystal minnows in blue/silver (C58) work well, as do Bombers in “Red Gill” and Silver. Rapala sliver needlefish also do well, particularly on ‘cuda. I haven’t found spoons, jigs, or spinners to do particularly well or consistently with the exception of jigs along the barrier reef for grouper and snapper. You’ll want to make up some tube lures for barracuda. These are only a red tube with a couple of hooks on a wire leader. Retrieved as fast as possible, it’s thunder and lightning on the ‘cuda!

Technique:

Straightforward. Fish swimming lures the way you would expect to but be sure to try at night along docks, bridges, and shorelines, especially if there is a light to attract the bait. A constant retrieve is usually better than stop and pause. Be prepared to catch large fish with sharp teeth and bring flashlights, pliers, and the camera or a cooler if you are planning on sampling the local fare. You only need steel for ‘cuda and the general advice is not to eat any. I eat ‘cuda less than three pounds and caught away from the barrier reef where the most toxin concentrating little fish live and are eaten by the ‘cuda in turn. You can, sometimes, get a reluctant ‘cuda to hit by floating a swimming lure and barely trembling it. Otherwise, more speed of return is usually the ticket for most species.

Bait Fishing:

Bring hooks, snaps, and leader material and wire. Hooks size: #8 34007’s to #12/0 long shank circle for everything from Bonefish to Lemon to Blacktip Shark. The local bait for bones with the Bahamians that are handlining them (that’s right!) is conch or pieces of crab they catch along the shoreline. If you baitfish with me, we’ll most likely use shrimp for both bait and chum. Very effective. On your own, you can improvise, but remember, if you’re chumming, you don’t want to be wading too because you will attract sharks and maybe barracuda and rays too.

Baitfishing for jacks, snapper, grouper, ‘cuda, and rays is much the same. Either chum or don’t toss out an offering in their locale. They aren’t very shy of biting what smells like food (in desperation, I’ve broken tiny snails to catch the first fish which I then used for chunks to catch bigger fish). Barracuda have a particular love of needlefish. The red tube and swimming lures and flies that look like needlefish work the best. Long pieces of needlefish, pulled across their path is dynamite to them, especially up current where they can smell it. You can catch needlefish with small lures, flies, or bits of bait pulled across their path, too. Rays have stingers on the top of their tail just behind their body. They are formidable weapon. If you catch one, cut the leader at a distance and let the (barbless) hook drop out on its own.

Shark. Lemon sharks will be in evidence every day you fish. Where you find a school of bones, you’ll find a lemon and a couple of ‘cuda around the edges. One of the fishing methods we have worked out while fishing is to share the responsibilities. Whoever was in the bow was fly fishing for bonefish until they caught one and then we switched. The person in the back was poling and spotting and had spinning rods available to them for barracuda and shark. The barracuda rod had a red tube on it and it worked consistently. The heavier rod for shark had twenty pound line, six feet of doubled line in a Bimini twist leading to two offed to #80 steel braid tied to a #12/0 long shank circle hooked with a figure eight knot. The hook was baited with a chunk of ‘cuda (head) or jack. This pole lay in the bottom of the boat until a shark swam by. If you’re fishing with your buddies, you may want to give that system a try.

Blacktips are more of an ocean shark and actually show some interest in lures while not finally hitting them (Yo-Zuri’s) and a bit of “scent” might have done the trip. They are considered more of an opportunity to take on the fly when chumming with a butterflied ‘cuda and are also considered a more dangerous shark to wade with.

Spearing:

We typically go for lobsters. Remember, if you’re interested in this, the smell of food in the water turns every sea creature into a prospective predator and the sharks and ‘cudas even more so. Nonetheless, we seem to do quite well without mishap and perhaps you can leave your “Jaws” mentality at home. Still…

If you have questions, please feel free to ask. Whether you’re a seasoned fisherman or a total newbie, I’m here to help! Let’s go catch some fish!