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Updated: May 25, 2025
But he was running in. Frantically I wound the reel, but could not get in the slack. I saw my line coming, heard it hiss in the water, then made out the dark shape of a bonefish. He ran right at me almost hit my feet. When he saw me he darted off with incredible speed, making my reel scream. I feared the strain on the line, and I plunged through the water as fast as I could after him.
This may have been caused by the heavy sinker catching in the weeds. We must do more planning to get a suitable rig for these bonefish. Day before yesterday R. C. and I went up to the Long Key point, and rowed in on the mangrove shoal where once before I saw so many bonefish. The tide was about one-quarter in, and there was a foot of water all over the flats.
We found the boat hard and fast in the mud. Sam rowed me ashore. I walked back to camp, and he stayed all night, and all the next day, waiting for the tide to float the boat. After that on several days we went up to the flat to fish for bonefish. But we could not hit the right tide or the fish were not there. At any rate, we did not see any or get any bites.
The water was about a foot deep, and the bottom clean white marl, with little patches of vegetation. Crabs and crab-holes were numerous. I saw a small shark and a couple of rays. When we got to the middle of a big flat I saw the big, white, glistening tails of bonefish sticking out of the water. We dropped anchor and, much excited, were about to make casts, when R. C. lost his hat. He swore.
One man with heavy tackle yanked some bonefish out of the tide right in front of my cabin, quite as I used to haul out suckers. Other men tried it for days without success, though it appeared bonefish were passing every tide. Then there was a loquacious boatman named Jimmy, who, when he had spare time, was always fishing for bonefish. He would tell the most remarkable tales about these fish.
If you feel a tug, it is when the bonefish is ejecting the hook. Then it is too late. The bonefish noses around the bait and sucks it in without any apparent movement of the line. And that can be detected first by a little sagging of the line or by a little strain upon it. That is the time to strike.
That is a broad statement and I hope I can prove it. I am prepared to state that I feel almost certain, if I spent another month bonefishing, I would become obsessed and perhaps lose my enthusiasm for other kinds of fish. Why? There is a multiplicity of reasons. My reasons range from the exceedingly graceful beauty of a bonefish to the fact that he is the best food fish I ever ate.
I made ready to lift him into the boat, when, lo and behold! he made a wonderful run of fully three hundred feet before R. C. could stop him. Finally he was led to the boat, and turned out to be a fish of three and a half pounds. It simply made R. C. and me gasp to speak of what a really large bonefish might be able to do.
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