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Day 1: Finally back at our home base comfortably anchored at explosive anchorage #16. Took newly purchased 10wt out for a shakedown. Left leader material in other bag (luckily got some from other fishers), hooked coral, snugged up un-noticed knot on flyline attempting to free from coral, lost first clouser to the reef. cut short evening fish and drank vodka at Officers club.
Day 2 starts in less then 2 hours. Hopefully better than day 1.
Pic from a couple moths ago(not on the fly):
Nice fish! Is that Bakers I see behind you to the left? Little Misery? :D
Day 2 was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better.
10-15 knot winds from the SE(go figure) and low tide.
Wind and sun at my back created pretty good conditions for where I am.
fished a combo of 2/0? white/grey and white/brown clousers.
Stashed bikes at Point Marianne and worked NW along the shore for about a mile. Lots of sand with shallow inner coral reefs perpandicular to the beach separating the 1/4 mile sections of flats. Nothing deeper than knee to thigh. Got spooked by the first stingray, but just moved slow and carefully. Bonefish were all over. I swear I hit a few in the tail with my fly as they were sniffing through the sand. I was still feeling out the area looking for sharks and other things not to step on. Guy I went with caught about 10 bonefish in about 12 minutes in one stretch. Saw them schooling, maybe 3-5 in each group. Landed my first ever. Very happy with the rod/reel setup. A few big jacks and trevally were spotted by my new fishing buddy Paul. Forgot camera but managed to bring leader this time. Lost one fly as I made a cast near a sandy a hole in the reef where some bonefish were chilling out, a goroup of larger blueish small tuna shaped fish come flying in and snatch my fly and I assume break/bite through the 20lb leader. More research on species tonight. I will head out again on Monday with camera. First bonefish eva!
Day 3: Solo mission to area covered by day 2. Very windy, 2 hours after low tide. I got there later than I wanted to but oh well. only 1 bonefish that I got a shitty pic of.
view looking SE into the wind.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1275632834
View looking downwind towards reef I caught my one fish. Not windy in here, but windy further down the flats.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1275632834
Day 4: Paul broke his last rod yesterday so I am him money ticket until he gets more gear from home= He shows me the GOOD spots! And it was good. stooed counting fish after about 10 minutes
This is the ocean side, no longer the lagoon. There is a outer reef to the left that runs parallel with the beach. about 150-200 yards out from where we were.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1275632834
Maybe a 6 or 7 pounder? We had a few real nice ones like this and lots of smaller ones.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1275632834
I am SO HAPPY the collective found me a 10wt.:biggrin: Its been awesome so far and I have 2.5 more months of this. Really getting a desire to chase some big fish. I have decided I need to get some bomber gear, a.k.a. an expensive reel. We saw some trevally and jacks but no hits yet for me. There were some GT's caught not too far away the same day. 30-40lbs. We saw a few lemon sharks so next time out I will take some extra gear for shark watch.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1275632834
Sweet!!
789
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1275632834[/QUOTE]
This pic makes me hope some pirates try and approach you guys.
Pirate hijack= DEATH FAIL
Day 5
High tide @1900
Light SE winds
I didnt get to our newly discovered area, inside the outer reef on the ocean side, until 1800. As I made my way down the beach I gave the old fishierman hands up question to paul, "any fish?" A shake of the head led me to believe not much was really going on. As sooon as I got a white clouser flying......3 casts=3 bonefish. So he was just fucking with me. Kept up fishing white/brown clousers for 45 minutes with 75% of that time fish on the line.
We then saw some of the local fisherman calling it a day from the outer reef, the 2 fly guys decided to try their now empty spot. It was tough for me without a stripping basket but made it work for a bit.(perhaps I will make one) I could see tons of mullet? moving under the rolling surf, only a waves foot high with maybe 2-3 feet deep. No hits offshore so moved back inside the reef.
Now it's been an hour and a half and its getting dark. Spooky when you are supposed to be out of the water(Brit. rule) for fear of "large numbers of aggressive sharks." Just as I call it a evening we see a large GT come hurling out of the water chasing some bait. I quickly thew a popper on but he had moved on. A few more casts and we decided to try another spot. As we approached a sand bar located behind the officers club we could see 2 large fish under the flood lights. 1 trevally and 1 jack. SO as we both had on poppers and we thought it best to put clousers back on...after 2 casts each the fish were spooked and that was that. Still a great day with plenty of nice bonefish.
I will let Paul take pics from now on.
Has anyone done buisiness with Front Range Anglers in Boulder? I am going to order a Ross Momentum 5 from them with a rod as well. They have been great to deal with, especially Bill.
I'm not sure which is causing my boner, the tourquioise water or the automatic weapons.
Srsly tho, any surf to speak of round those parts?
There is surf. Prevailing wind is offshore. It doesn't get very big, I will get some pics next chance. Only problem is- "Large amounts of aggressive sharks."
You might want to consider the Momentum 6, as the 5 only holds 250 yards of backing with 9 wt line. Or consider gel-spun backing to get more on there. FWIW, I have an old Gunnison 5 that has been unbreakable. I doubt they have these on your ship, but a laundry basket makes a decent stripping basket, just put a lot of holes in the bottom, (or order the Orvis plastic one somehow). http://www.orvis.com/store/product.a...ELAID=28340984
I got a great deal on the ross, so thats why I am going with the 5. I have been thinking about gel spun and will probably go that route for the extra length. In teh process of finding suitable materials for a stripping basket fabrication. The Bosun on here is pretty handy and used to fly fish, so him and I may get together and come up with something. So far though only when I am on the outer reefs has it been an issue. I have spent very little time on the outer reefs since the fishing had been so good inside.
I love my life but can we trade places for a couple weeks?
How about we wait until January?;)
If the fish was good...sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2nd mate
Day 6.
Arrived at Cannon Point around 1800, right at low water. This has been our money hole for the last week or two. Didnt really have any expectations of catching fish but wanted to check out the bottom and you never know, maybe some fish? Waded out indo the 6-12 inches of water. All the way out to the outer reef. Made a few casts but only saw 2 bonefish finning and 1 parrot fish fly past me. Got a great look at the bottom in the area we are usually casting into. There were a few sandy patches with mostly rock and coral bottom. Only a few sharp things to get wrapped on. Really a pretty flat rocky flat.?
Got underway after messing about for 30 minutes and hoofed it towards the Officers club(Eclipse Point). I had at this point maybe 45 minutes of daylight left. This area is the furthest downwind beach on the atoll and it merges the lagoon with the ocean, with a small sandy point that nearly intersects the outer reef and main channel a lot of water moves by. The sandy outcropping has maybe 50 feet of beach thats easily castable with normal wind conditions. Then you get out of the lee and you are facing 20-25 knot winds. Luckily you are casting downwind. After working the area for 10 minutes I though I might have snagged a rock.....and then I saw my fly like go bye bye and was looking at my backing. My fisrt thought was "there goes my rig" and my second was "now I can justify buying a new one." After about 100 more feet though I realized I probably was not in that dire a situation. I had had a few really pretty bonefish but this one looked OLD. His face was way more round than any others I has caught so far. It really did look as if he had been sticking his head in the sand for years looking for crabs. I was kind of afraid of killing him so by the time I got him in my hands I really wanted to see him live and said screw the picture. He wasnt all that pretty as I had said. He was by far the biggest fish I had caught thus far. I estimate 8-10 lbs. Much fatter and rounder than the others and his scales were more white than silver. He lived and I didnt get a pic, sorry. I will be out on Sunday and will make sure Paul gets some good snaps for the log.
pic from where I got my day 6 boner. The old man looking fish.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1276523576
Day 7: Very little wind over the last few days, so we hit the "runway" location for a few. Normally casting into 15-20 knots of wind, toady maybe 5-10. waded through lots of mini sharks and stingrays all for not. saw a few GT's and spooked the shit out of them with my shitty casting. I did catch a couple small bonefish though. I don't like stingrays and reef sharks by the way.
we then moved on to Thunder Cove and waded through more stingrays about a hour before sunset. Tide was just coming down as we made out way out on the coral towards the outer reef. Thunder cove is the same location as day 2. But this day there were more Golden Trevally. Not to be confused with golden showers. Paul with a nice one.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1276523492
same fish. Got to his backing and it was knotted up. He was very lucky he didn't loose it. he is not gangsta, he's from Seattle. His lid was tipped to keep the sun out of his eyes, or so he said:rolleyes:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1276523492
The only trevally I landed. I did have 2 big ones on though. It was getting dark and we figured getting out of the water would be smart.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1276523492
Now I am seriously addicted :FIREdevil:FIREdevil:FIREdevil
Nice! You'll obviously get better at casting to fuel your addiction. In the meantime, have you tried using lighter unweighted flies and casting further ahead of the fish to not spook them? Then try to time out when they're just at your fly, then strip. Added benefit of being way easier flies to cast.
Bootsie,
I dont have a huge assortment of flies, or any materials to start making any. I am planning making an order soon and I am probably just going to go with some small decievers and clousers. The clousers have been the ticket so far for any and everything. I do have a few decievers but they are larger as they were more for my striper fishing back home. I will try to get something lighter from Paul when I head out later this week and see what happens. I have already seen my casting getting better already as the conditions are generally pretty challenging.
Looks like I found a screaming deal on an Zero G rod and a Galvan torque 10. Pretty much getting the reel for free with the closeout price. Maybe I will pull the trigger here soon.
See if they can throw in some EP flies:
http://epflies.com/index.php/flies.h...dt848g0luq0td2
I know, I know...
Oh yeah, don't forget you can modify your flies out on the water. Use your pliers to take off the dumbell eyes, magic marker to make a fly darker, trim off too much hackle/bucktail with your scissors, put a splitshot at the hook eye to give it jigging action, etc. I do this all the time, when I'm down to my last fly that they want.
I think I prefer Bootsy as in Bootsy Collins:
Also in this Undisclosed Location MWR has 4 30 ft Boston Whalers and 3 30 ft Ocean masters for offshore(out of the lagoon) trips. Half day=140 bucks.
There had been 3 days of SE'ly force 6-7. we were able to get out 1 day after it laid down.
tough to see but a Southerly swell wrapping around teh island and exploding on the western most reef. Shitty pics but overhead for sure.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1277453615
another view of the reef. Hard to take pics @30kts.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1277453615
fish of the day by me:D
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1277453615
we chose to bottom fish the whole trip. Here is our catch.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1277453615
If the yellow-fins are running we troll for them and wahoo instead of fishing the reefs for snapper and grouper. I will try to find that outer break from the beach later and get some pics when its really exploding.
Farc. I have been unable to upload pics for a couple weeks here. seems okay now.
days8-15 pretty much sucked. It seemed as soon as my new gear shipped out here the fish ran away. Still bones here ans there but nothing fancy.
day 16 at the Officer club. a few guys came down to see what i was doing with fly gear in the ocean.
come here little fella
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1279127401
The new gear has arrived, what a nice 5th of July present.
Sage zero g and galvan torque 10. This reel feels bomber.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1279127620
Met up with Paul and headed outside the runway to the seaside. Not much here but a few sharks
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1279127620
This is kinda neat. There is a doggy graveyard on cannon pt that's the final resting place for all the working pups from the past.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1279127688
my rental ride
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1279127688
I will call this day 20
I am so happy I got new gear. I headed out to to the area formerly known as "Thunder Cove" It shall now be known as TREVALLY REEF.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1279128449
I arrived about 2 hours before high tide and started working the flats for bones. Sharks and stingrays scared me back to the reef. Thanks guys.
I shit you not I must have seen 50 trevally in the 2 hours I was there
one more
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1279128390
#1 hookup- leader broke IN the perfection loop. where it joins the fly line WTF? I must have knicked it or something while snipping it. Also i may have had the drag cranked too high.
#2 BIG one wrapped up on reef
#3 see pics, he grabbed the fly no more than 8 feet in front of me. He swam away fine after 3 minutes of me caressing him. took me to my backing twice.
#4 had him in sight then he decided to be out of sight. wrapped on reef and broke leader. I am running 20 lb straight flouro. I may go to 30 lb.???
then the best beer on the island.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1279128390
Top notch shit again!