Subscriber Gary Kemsley is helping me with the “soon to be” added section on my website, Aitutaki Lagoon, Cook Islands. He has put together a collection of quotes from famous and not so famous writers and fisherman about Bonefish that I thought you might enjoy. I have a few quotes of my own that I might well add at a later date. They have to do with: casting into a 30 mph wind at tailing bonefish forty feet away; a trout set on an eight-pound bone; my 15th refusal in a row from fish on Savannah Sound the very short but distinct “quote” from my guide as I hit him in the back of the head with a Clouser. Thanks Gary for compelling the quotes below, gives us all something to reflect on. “Hunting fish is, after all, half of what bonefishing is all about. If you don’t learn to stalk them, your missing much of what makes this sport what it is.” Dick Brown 1993. “Bonefish live in a constant state of panic.” Tom McNally 1978. “Anyone who tells you bonefishing is easy has spent very little time on the flats” A.J. McClean 1974. “Bonefishing with a fly rod is one of the most intricate challenges in the sport of fishing. It can also be one of the most satisfying.” Lefty Kreh 1986 “Even though they have come on to a flat to feed, these fish are wary.” Nick Curcione 1994. “He is the wisest, shyest, wariest, strangest fish I have ever studied”. You see him; he is there perfectly still in the clear, shallow water, a creature of fish shape. Pale green and silver, but crystal like, a phantom shape, staring at you with strange black eyes; then he is gone. Vanished! Absolutely without you seeing a movement, even a faint streak! By peering keenly you may discern a little swirl in the water.” Zane Grey on bonefish 1918. “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make a bonefisherman” Van Campen Heilner 1937. “If bonefish lived in rivers you would never land one”! Gary Kemsley Aitutaki 2013. The bonefish is eternally spooky because he feeds in very thin water and is constantly worried about predatory fishes, birds and men! Frank Woolner 1978. No one pattern will work well all the time. Sometimes these fish will respond better to big flies and other times to small flies. Sometimes they like crabs and sometimes they like shrimp. It is important to experiment and listen to the advice of your guides. From, The longest Cast, 2001 “ Fly fishers who have never hooked a bonefish cannot understand how a 5 lb fish can cause so much excitement” Randall Kaufmann 1992. “ So when an angler eases up on a bonefish that is tailing, mudding or cruising in water that is less than 2 feet deep, everything must be just right. One mistake will send him charging for the sanctuary of deep water.” Joe Brooks 1958. “After you spot a bonefish, you have a maximum of about six seconds………often less…….to make a cast”. Lefty Kreh, 1986. “It took me a week to realise that the almost invisible, silver, ghost like shapes I was seeing flitting by me on the flats were bonefish.” Jack Sampson 1991. Bonefish may be selective at times. One bonefish in the Bahamas was found to contain forty snapping shrimp of a particular species. Doug Swisher Backcountry Flats Fishing 1995. “Jack, It must weigh 20lb” I shouted with delight. I finally bought in a three pound bonefish, jack netted it, and after a proud look, I smiled and eased the blue and silver speedster back overboard. Pound for pound, it beat anything I had ever caught. Jimmy Carter from “An Outdoor Journal.” 1988. Sometimes, it would seem that if you breathe too hard the whole flat erupts in fleeing schools. J. Mclean, New Standard Fishing Encyclopaedia. “ Any bonefish stalked on a thin flat is a spooky, hair triggered bundle of nerves and explosive energy. He must be hunted with care.” Frank Woolner 1972 In a body of water the colour of fine gem stones, the bonefish swims like a rolling pearl over the shallow flats. From The Longest Cast 2001.
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