Some of my earliest memories as a kid in water starved West Texas, were of watching The American Sportsman with my dad on a black and white tv, in the early 60's. I was only 6 or 7 years old but had already caught the fishing bug. Of all the episodes we watched, the one of Ted Williams fishing the Florida Keys was the one that intrigued me the most. I'm not sure if it was the beauty of seeing so much water or the speed of the bonefish that intrigued me the most. Whatever it was, it has stuck in my mind to this day.
Fast forward 30 years to 1990 and I found myself living in south Florida and admiring my first bonefish... my first four bonefish to be exact. I was on Anglin Pier, in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, trying to catch live bait with a 6 hook sabiki rig when I nailed my first four bone fish in the surf on that one cast. I laughed to myself, thinking back to what I had imagined a bonefish fight would be like. The four bones wouldn't have totaled 16 inches all together. I will now admit feeling guilty for using one of them for snook bait. It would be about 15 more years before I caught a real bone.
I was a snook fisherman (the closest thing to bass fishing in the salt water) and for 10 years that is what I chased most of the time. I knew bone fish were all around me in that part of south Florida but I was happy just catching snook and sometimes tarpon. Can't remember exactly what year I began to chase bones, but it was definitely by accident. I was fishing Biscayne Bay in Miami, exploring new waters and looking for snook and spotted sea trout when I hooked something good on a jig and Saltwater Assassin. I knew immediately it was a bone fish as my line screamed off my baitcaster like nothing I'd ever hooked before in three feet of water. I swear I thought my reel was about to explode and held it as far away from my face as possible. Luckily I got the fish turned around before nearly getting spooled on 15 lb test. Two more long runs after nearly getting fish to my net and I was hooked.
The rest of that summer I would rarely fish for anything except bones.
My first real bonefish, about 8 or 9 lbs.
I fished the same area for the next two weeks (6 trips) before I even saw my first tailing bone fish. I was so excited I just watched them work back and forth across the flat for over half an hour. I wanted to learn as much as possible by watching rather than rushing in and blowing the whole deal up on my first attempt. And because I had spent so much time even locating them, I'd ditched my artificials and gone to the more guaranteed route of using a live crab and a easier casting spinning rig. Decided my best chance was to paddle up wind to them and then let them come to me as they repeatedly worked back and forth. It was windy and as I waited until they were in casting range, I finally whipped my spinning rod with crab. Believe when I say that crab spun worse than using the Bombshell Turtle plastic bait of bass fishing fame. Luckily between the fish coming directly at me and the chop on the water, I immediately got hit and bone fish number two was in the books. Another big one, about the same as my accidental first.
The bone fish grounds at dusk.
Everything came together after that... I had confidence the fish were in the area, I noted the tide stage and wind direction, I had confidence in the bait. I couldn't tell you how many I caught that year, it wasn't a huge number. What was huge was the average size of them. All about the size of my first. What I learned was that the area I fished had a window of about one hour several times a month. Ideally I was looking for the start of the incoming tide at either first light or near dusk. The fish didn't seem to tail for long in that area after the sun was up and boat traffic increased.
Sometimes I would get out of my kayak and wade, especially on windy days. Late one evening I had a bone fish nearly feeding between my legs as I waited for bigger fish that were coming my way. The fish actually rooted around my feet for several seconds before slowly moving on up current.
The best thrill came later on that summer when I began to only fish at night under the right conditions of tide and cloud cover. On nights when there was low cloud cover, the city lights of downtown Miami would reflect off the clouds and light up the whole flat. I was astonished at all the big bone fish that tailed at night. Never saw any big schools at night just ones and two scattered. Rarely caught more than one a night as when you hooked one the rest would make a fast exit to deeper water. To see the zig zag humps of water speeding off the flat at night was thrilling. Many times you would actually hear the fish coming as they thrashed around before you would see them. That and the constant drone of mosquitoes.
Perfect bonefishing conditions for nightime in Miami
It was on such a night that I caught my biggest bone fish, one that I carefully measured both length and girth.. 33 1/2 inches to fork in tail, and 18.25 girth, estimated between 13 to 14 lbs by most equations for bone fish. I caught it on a live crab, the size most anglers use for tarpon fishing. I never caught a small bone fish using them and they quickly became my bait of choice over a shrimp tipped jig or live jumbo shrimp. If I got a bite it was either a big bone fish or a bonnet head shark which I have seen many times fighting over the same bait. In between catching my first and one of my last and biggest I had some very memorable catches and hook ups. Once hooked a big one that made a long run off ocean side flat that turned around on a dime and I couldn't catch up to it. Saw from a distance a big shark chasing it all the way back, underneath my kayak and then gone as shark was right on its tail. Once passed a big bone headed down current as I was paddling up current. Made an over the shoulder cast with spinning rod using a DOA shrimp, directly behind me as far as I could, counted the number of seconds I thought it would take for bone to get there and made one twitch..Boom. Another big one.
I forget what year we had the big freeze that affected many southern parts of the U.S. but it put a hurting on the bone fishing in south florida for few years in the Miami area. It was back to snook and tarpon for me. For anyone reading this that has never caught a bonefish, read about them, watch some video of them, and then find a good guide that can put you on them. Biscayne Bay in Miami is one of the best fisheries in the WORLD for large bonefish.