Dave N.
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Might want to call up OS Systems. They make a bombproof wader and can put extra large booties on them. I had a pair of their non-breathable waders for electrofishing and got several years of VERY heavy use out of them.
My wife and I spent Christmas there this year doing the same thing. The SUP mostly got used for accessing creeks where soft bottoms made it difficult to wade, or tooling out to the reef for a couple snapper/grouper for dinner. Bonefish in such areas haven’t been pounded like the easier to access flats, and tend to be much happier. A SUP also allows you to chase fish between the tides, rather than waiting for your particular flat to flood or the high to drop out of the mangroves…
Fighting wind on a SUP is hard work, and trips like this are supposed to be vacation — so don’t. Pick your battles. Sit and paddle kayak style, or find pockets out of the wind to stand and fish, or drive to the other side of the island to get into the lee.
Jack, I don’t know if the message system is being wonky (I get a “no matches found” on you), but can you drop me a PM if you happen to see this? I’m headed that way in a couple months, and have a couple questions that Google hasn’t adequately addressed…
Man, that water looks clear! I thought most of the westside rivers were more tannic? My wife and I have been thinking about a trip over — and even without fish those photos may have clinched the deal!
Hey Wayne,
No experience with the Drift, but I’ve got a few inflatable SUPs (including a Bote Breeze, a Badfish MCIT, and a NRS Mayra) that get used regularly for everything from trout to bonefish to muskies. There’s a couple previous posts on here regarding these if you poke around… All are easy to travel with, and make great flyfishing platforms. I wouldn’t want to paddle two people very far on any of them — but if you need to, you’ll make better time sitting down on the deck and using a kayak paddle. Standing on the deck and casting shouldn’t be a problem assuming you have a halfway-developed sense of balance. If it is flat calm you might be able to get away with standing on a cooler, but I wouldn’t say its something you’re likely to want to do a lot of, and I sure wouldn’t do it over hard or sharp structures. I’m not sure you really need to, either — these are quiet boats, with little or no hull slap, and you can get surprisingly close to fish on them.
I haven’t been terribly impressed with any of the pumps that I’ve tried, and one issue with all of these boards is they need to be inflated to high pressure (14-15 psi) to handle well. This takes a bit of effort. Some of the pumps that manufacturers provide are nearly worthless (I broke the Bote pump within 2 weeks).
The NRS board has actually been the biggest surprise. My wife bought it thinking it would be more agile and faster than the Bote (which it is), but I think it’s nearly as stable as well — and it’s lighter. Doesn’t handle whitewater like the Badfish, but doesn’t do bad.
One thing I’ve been thinking about for my next flats trip is rigging up a breakdown push pole, maybe 10′ or so, that would fit in the carry duffel with the board…
cheers,
DaveI spent the week of Christmas on a well-known Bahamian DIY locale, and should probably add a couple more suggestions to my previous list. These may or may not prove helpful.
While our TSA folks wig out over hooks, their Bahamian counterparts aren’t as worried. Carrying your rods & reels but having all of your flies packed in a checked bag doesn’t help when your bag isn’t on the same flight as you. I would recommend transferring a small box or zip-loc of flies into your carry-on when you transfer to domestic in the Bahamas. I spent an unhappy first evening drinking Kalik, staring at tailing fish, and hoping our bags would show up (they did on the first flight the next morning). I’d rather risk having a dozen flies confiscated than do that again…
I didn’t take enough unweighted flies. Cuda attrition made me remove a lot of bead chain eyes with a Leatherman tool.
Use Google Earth, yes, but don’t forget to also use the historical imagery tool to compare multiple images across time — this can let you distinguish between 6″ deep flats and 4′ deep flats, particularly when you cross-reference to a tide chart. Bare sand can be problematic, but mangroves make a good marker for the high — and if you can find and ID grass flats, you have a marker for the low. Oh, and don’t forget to take a tide chart with you.
Check on kayak or skiff availability before you go. The house we rented this time had a flotilla of several kayaks and three SUPs available. I lugged an inflatable SUP along, and while we used it, it wasn’t necessary.
It’s worth hitting a couple different liquor stores if possible, as you might be surprised at variation in pricing and stock, and might stumble onto some gems.
You may have read about long leaders being necessary for spooky bonefish that have been around the block a couple times. Adding tippet to get the length (like you might do for trout) is going to fail miserably when the wind picks up. I had brought some #60 and #80 hard mono for bite guards, and wound up using it to tie up some long-butt leaders, 12-14′ or so — they worked very well even into heavy wind.
When you get into soft bottom marl and grass flats, look for feeding marks (think of a conical pit the size and shape of a bonefish snout), you’ll know you’re in the right spot. If you find a bunch of these and wait for the tide to drop out, the fish will likely show eventually.
A new pair of polarized glasses got delivered to my house the day <after> we left the US (Thanks, FedEx!). I should have picked up a new pair at a shop before we left– it’s hard enough seeing bonefish without trying to do it through scratched glasses.
On gray, overcast days when you don’t have any contrast and fish aren’t throwing shadows, seeing fish over grass or marl is a royal PIA. This is when a guide is worth his weight in gold. There’s no substitute for experience when trying to spot fish under these conditions. On your own, stick to the light bottom areas, or find good habitat and watch & listen. Not just for obvious fins & tails or bait skittering, not just nervous water, but anything, well, different. If in doubt, stalk or wait for it to get in range and throw at it. Worst case scenario, you’ll lose another fly to a cuda, or put one across the bow of a mullet, or spook a bone. The subtle differences may eventually become more clear.
They sure weren’t easy… but it made success that much sweeter.
By far the worst part of the trip was coming back to 26 F. Blah.
Good luck.
The easy suggestion would be to say “google it.”
You’d get this: http://diybonefishing.com/
You might even consider buying his book!
(Which, for the record, are pretty dang good places to start, but I suspect not exactly what you’re looking for. )
The fun suggestions would be more along the lines of:
–Study Google Earth religiously for months before your trip. You need to burn this into memory, since you’ll never be able to get a decent map of the island ON the island, and you will leave the packet of maps you printed off at home. This will result in you driving around the island looking for fishy water for days, burning gas at $6 a gallon, and stumbling onto a beautiful flat on the last day of your trip.
–Don’t get a place on the water. You’ll be tempted to fish after one too many rum drinks, and while you might have been practicing your casting at home (off-hand, into the wind, cross-wind, etc.), you probably haven’t been practicing your casting into-the-wind while you’re gob-smacked, and you’ll have to try to find someone to rip a Gotcha (Ha! Gotcha!) out of your scalp with a pair of rusty pliers.
–Don’t get all rum-buggered up and try to ride your rental scooter home. You’ll forget THEY DRIVE ON THE LEFT (!) and you’ll be picking gravel out of your elbows and knees for the next twenty years.
–When Pineapple Air loses your bags (I mean it’s an eight seater for #$&^’s sake, how can they LOSE a bag!), slip the guy behind the counter (the one in the dark sunglasses flashing his gold teeth — Maurice) a $20. He’ll fix it. (Maybe. Or maybe not. Hopefully Maurice will not be the same person that previously tried to remove the Gotcha from your scalp).
–Ignore any packing lists you might encounter or make up. After all, what’s more fun than discovering that you left your reels at home, and having to Tenkara your bonefish (This is how real men fish, anyway. Reels are for sissies…).
–At all costs, make sure you remember a buff. If you get hit with explosive diarrhea after some questionable grouper at Mama Cay’s, you’ll find out just how useful they can be (Leaves on most of the islands are not an option, as they all have thorns, sharp edges, or sap that’ll blister the skin off your…). Besides, if you are buff-less, nobody will think you are serious about your bonefish-spooking.
–Pick touristy islands, you know, the ones with swimsuit models cavorting about and such. The other islands all have flyfishermen on them, who are invariably stinky and not particularly attractive. Even if you don’t catch any bonefish, the scenery will be much better.
Good luck, and let us know how it goes.
p.s. Did I mention that http://diybonefishing.com/ is a very good place to start?
To preface this, I’ve tried a lot of SUPs. Earlier this spring, my wife and I realized we had seven SUPs in the stable (a glass beater board, two glass racing, two rotomolded poly whitewater, two inflatables). Excessive? They each get used in rotation, and contra the Karczynski position, there’s a LOT of differences in boards, and the board that he chose to profile/promote would not work for most of what I like to do.
[And pfft, Karczynski wants to be the first to catch a muskie on the fly off a SUP?! You’re years too late, buddy. In fact, our illustrious Travis has a 50 on the fly off a SUP to his credit…]
The Superfishal is a solid boat that in my opinion would serve you well. A friend has one and has put it through its paces. If you’re on a SUP, you’re taking a minimalist approach almost by default. I’m not sure I see the point of multiple accessory plates, attachment points, etc., etc. when the beauty of a SUP is that it provides a big, flat, uncluttered casting platform. I’ve considered a Supernatural, but it’s not sufficiently different from my old Rapidfire for me to justify the upgrade… though maybe next year. I hit too many rocks to use a glass board for most of my fishing, and rotomolded poly SUPs designed for whitewater use (wide, stable, super maneuverable) are the ticket. The difference between a 32″ wide board like the Bote HD and a 35″ or 36″ board like the Rapidfire or Superfishal is night and day for stability. No, you’re not going to want to do long flatwater slogs on the wider boards (see opening statement above). If you know you have that coming up, lash a kayak paddle to the back deck, sit down, and make time. Or even better, fire up an outboard. 😉
I picked up the two inflatable boards this winter for a Bahamian bonefish trip with my wife; a Bote Breeze and a Badfish MCIT. I’ve been impressed with both, although they need to be at full pressure (>14psi) to be stable. It was awfully nice to check a pair of boards in duffles as checked baggage, and not have to rely on a boat to get out to the nice flats.
It was even nicer to float over thick sticky marl without sinking to my crotch wading, and with the extra angle from standing up, being able to see fish coming from a good ways off. They pole surprisingly well. I’ve since used the MCIT for chasing tarpon off the beach in the Florida panhandle, scraped over oyster bars in the SC lowcountry, run whitewater in western NC, gotten a couple decent river stripers off of it, and caught a mess of smallmouth and river muskies here closer to at home. I’ve been surprised so far at how it’s handled rough handling and rough water.
In short, inflatable boards might be another good route for you to consider.
Inflatables might be fine on some lazy slow river somewhere or on a bigger boat. If you have any sort of current or any possibility of going in more than once, you want a real PFD. Low-profile kayaking PFDs are pretty comfortable and allow a full range of casting motion. They’re fine over most chest waders (as long as your waders don’t have buckles in weird places), and the sizing is as straightforward as your waders — most of them are semi-adjustable, anyway.
Stream fish, even those things that we think of as being relatively sedentary like darters and sculpins, have an amazing ability to move when they get the opportunity. This isn’t just larval drift or downstream dispersal of juveniles — this is active movement upstream as well. I actually just ran some numbers on post-glacial dispersal rates for mottled scupin, largescale stonerollers, and central stonerollers — fish for which I have some genetic data available and can track dispersal patterns from refugia. For all three, the minimum post-glacial dispersal rate over the last 18,000 years is around 30km/yr. This is probably on the low side, as the initial conditions were probably highly turbid with fine glacial silts, which isn’t particularly great habitat for most fishes. For sculpins, which are often said to move <50m in their lifetime, this is remarkable! Keep in mind, however, that this is northward dispersal into previously glaciated areas as the glacial front receded, so there’s no fish fauna there to have to compete with. Interestingly, if you look at dispersal rates for introduced populations of a couple species of darters in the mid-Atlantic region, both exhibit dispersal rates ~35km/yr downstream and ~30km/yr upstream. This is a situation where there’s no similar darter species occupying that niche, allowing rapid (unfettered?) colonization. If this is the case, why do so many fishes down here in the southeast have such small geographic ranges? It’s not all isolation by geographic, habitat, or thermal barriers… I suspect that invasion rates are tied to structure and ecological interactions with the existing fauna, and that it’s more difficult for new species to establish and disperse in communities that already are packed with similar species — unless they have some novel trick or otherwise minimize niche overlap. This is actually something I’m looking at in a bit more detail…
Long story short, if populations of cutthroats can be maintained at a relatively high density, it may reduce the frequency of rainbows migrating up into the system. If you combine that with a mandatory kill policy and high angler effort, it might be enough to keep rainbows at a very low level. The big question is whether this will be enough to compromise reproduction? Recruitment? Will the lower frequency of rainbows actually increase incidence of hybridization with cutts (as seen elsewhere where one species is present at very low densities)? I don’t know, but the alternative strategy of doing nothing will almost certainly lead to near-replacement of cutts by rainbows in the system.
The bigger issue is with brook trout. I’m not sure there’s enough angler pressure on tiny headwater trickles to knock them down low enough to either reduce recruitment or allow cutts to reestablish… but it will sure be interesting to watch!
Hi Tim,
Sorry for the delayed response. It’s been a crazy couple weeks.
The regulation has only been in place for a year, so probably not long enough to have much of an effect. It’s going to be nearly impossible to eliminate non-natives (particularly while trying to retain natural connectivity among Yellowstone cutthroat populations), but reducing them in that watershed is a reasonable goal — and at least for rainbows, may be achievable. Hopefully most anglers will actually follow the regulations and not just go fish elsewhere. There certainly could have been more outreach on the part of the Park justifying the change, but there’s likely a subset of anglers who aren’t going to be happy no matter what management actions are taken! It will certainly be interesting to watch over the next few years…
Dr. Dave Neely is the Indiana Jones of fish…
Except uglier, with no lasso, and with a hat that’s way less cool.
I misspoke — the fifth taimen is in the Tumen River drainage, which forms the border between <China> and North Korea (which is still pretty heavily militarized!). My bad. Maybe I shouldn’t have cracked that second IPA during the interview…
Also, if I would have realized that you’d already done a podcast with Joe Tomelleri, I would have given him full props — none of the Mexican work would have happened without him and the rest of the gang!
Zach, sorry for the delayed response. Yes. Late-1990s RFLP data and more recent mtDNA and microsat datasets suggested that southern pops are more distinct than would be expected from a ~18Kya colonization event. There’s some evidence that there’s been several independent waves of fish moving into the area, but all of them were more closely related to Mississippi/Ohio Basin fish than fish from the mid-Atlantic Slope drainages (and northward) or some nearby watersheds. Recent microsatellite work generally supports long periods of isolation between populations inhabiting major drainages in the Smokies, with individual watersheds often having fish with unique haplotypes. This is the major impetus for the watershed-scale augmentation/restoration work (nano-hatcheries!) that the Forest Service, TWRA, TU, TN Aquarium, et al. are pursuing.
If you want some papers on this I can provide a few PDFs (a guaranteed cure for insomnia!)… drop me a PM.
As for southern muskies, some of the state folks are convinced that their stocking programs have obliterated any of our native fish. I’ve been slowly accumulating fin clips from TN and KY. We’ll see…
Great article on some really cool fish!
One comment though — our southern App brookies aren’t just relicts of this last glacial cycle — they’ve been doing their own thing and genetically separated from their kin to the north for hundreds of thousands of years. There’s a decent argument to be made for recognizing the southern populations as a distinct species (and there’s a surprising amount of variation between river drainages down here as well).
Billy, check your PMs.
Most of the ag ditches are pretty small for a boat, but the main channel ditches and the creek a bit downstream might not be bad… The specimen in the photo above was from a ditch immediately adjacent to Greenlee, so you’re on the right track.
Hey Zach, they weren’t stocked by the state, but the story depends on who you believe. The official story is that a catfish farmer in the lower White River drainage (just outside of Brinkley) decided to diversify to target Asian-American markets. When told that he needed to destroy them, he drained his ponds without realizing that they would just slither over the berm into an adjacent ditch. An unofficial rumor suggests a bit more nefarious motives. I don’t think they’re going to compete with gator gar, but they might make a good prey item for the adults! There’s some cool work being done on gator gar in Arkansas right now — turns out they’re a bit more widespread than believed, and they sometimes spawn in much smaller streams than anyone suspected (essentially running up into flooded fields). There’s also an active restocking program (including a public lake right in the center of the northern snakehead introduction area) that’s showing great growth rates. The district biologist told me they’ve already seen some gargantuan fish, and they’ve only been in there a few years.
“Hideous, slimy creatures”? It’s not like they’re politicians or something. Their only sin is being somewhere they don’t belong, though no fault of their own. They’re spectacular predators… and yeah, they do taste good.
I think only the northerns are in aquaculture, or at least in wide use. Across much of rural SE Asia you can find locally-caught snakeheads in the markets, often including the pygmy snakehead and similar species. These things are cool fish with beautiful colors. Pygmies are stream-dwellers, behaving rather like our redeye bass do here in the southeast, and are very fun to fish for.
The Potomac fish are here to stay, and I’ve heard that the floods of the past couple of years may have allowed them to colonize some other Chesapeake tributaries. The Arkansas population is expanding pretty rapidly despite an expensive and largely ineffective eradication effort. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up in MS and west TN soon.
The ditches that they were introduced into in eastern Arkansas actually offer some pretty amazing flyfishing opportunities. They’re shallow, mud-bottomed and without much cover. When the rice paddies aren’t pumping you can have clear enough water to sight fish. If you walk the levees and drop a fly near any overhanging grass or brush you’re likely to get blasted. There’s a few bowfin in some of the ditches, too. If you’re driving through or have an afternoon free after a morning duck hunt, it’s well worth a stop.
(photo above is of an Arkansas fish from a couple years back)
John,
Please cut the holier-than-thou act. Non-confrontational manner, polite, logical manner? I don’t mind that at all. However, there’s a <lot> in your posts that comes across as condescending if not directly offensive, and I have little interest in a pissing match over this.
I’m glad you like your Hobie and that you think everyone else who cares anything about safety and efficiency and peace on Earth should own one. That said, opinions are like… well, you know.
