It was one of those moments we live for as anglers, when the weather breaks and it’s just you and the fish. No other boats in sight, your damp clothes drying, the air smells sweet and you feel like you’ve got eyes like an osprey.
Minutes after the storm departed, we spotted fish marching up the line. In discrete bunches, spiky fins vibrated through an otherwise unbroken slick of glossy, reflected green. Each pod of fish moved as a tight unit, weaving with the tide through tenacious mangrove shoots. The water rippled around them.
At the moment I counted six pods, each spaced about 100 yards apart. They were obviously bonefish. Poling in, we’d seen some suspiciously permit-like wakes farther offshore, but up this skinny, it’s usually bones. We stayed quiet. The click of pushpole against lower unit, the clack of a hatch, the thump of a nervous heart: Any sound would be telegraphed instantly to these fish, with predictable results.
It was Dan’s turn at the rod, John’s at the poling platform. John Reilly and I had already each landed a fish, sharing the timeless, gentleman’s symmetry of guide and caster. One bonefish, one Biscayne Bay bonefish, is enough to make a day for a fly fisherman. Dan Mottern would make it a third for us. These are discerning fish, notorious for refusals and spooking at bad intentions.
With minimal false-casting, Dan deftly laid a No. 6 Snapping Shrimp about six feet in front of a foursome of big bones. The tiny fly landed without a sound, settling in less than a foot of water.
“Perfect,” I whispered. “Now strip, strip, strip.”
A football-size dome of water humped up behind his fly and accelerated. Often when this happens, the fish already has the fly. You don’t feel it, because it’s running straight for you.
“Set the hook!” I croaked, louder than I expected.
The trick is to strip-strike—pulling the line farther and with more authority than a usual strip. You don’t want to raise the rodtip suddenly, but for many folks that’s automatic, and a lot of times it works out just fine. Like now.
Number 8 flyline ripped through the water, roaring like a jet. Dan pivoted in the bow, and struggled to get his line flowing through the guides.
“Oh no, he’s going for it!” John shouted. Dan groaned in response. The fish took aim for a mangrove shoot that looked big enough to finish the fight. I winced. Flame-yellow flyline arced to deep water, and somehow the fish missed its opportunity.
Three glorious runs later, Dan landed his prize.
Trips like this get me reflecting on the yin and yang of summer weather—and how rainfall in moderate doses can be a flats angler’s ally.
We ran into those aggressive bones right in the heat of late summer, when midday water temps in South Florida shallows—particularly those farthest from ocean tides—can climb into the 90s. Bonefish and many other flats feeders go into a funk in these sultry conditions. They’ll sulk in channels, avoiding tailing depths. The ones you do manage to hook are vulnerable to potentially lethal exhaustion, due to the low oxygen content of the warm water.
We actually hadn’t planned to chase bonefish that day—or even fish Biscayne Bay, for that matter. Permit were our original target, permit some 100 miles down the line in the Lower Keys. But when a brooding storm cell chased us from our Bahia Honda campsite, we sought lodging in a Turnpike hotel a little closer to home. That put us within a half hour of the Bay, with a dry roof over our heads and a television set to get a fix on the weather. We saw a window of opportunity, and we went for it. Perserverence paid off. We even managed to get a 22-pound permit later in the day.
It’s amazing what a little rainfall can do on the flats. It takes the edge off, cooling and reoxygenating the water, signaling fish to resume foraging with a vengeance. Rain also scrubs the water free of casual boaters. Only the most dedicated anglers are willing to give it a second shot. You can have spots all to yourself, under optimal conditions.
One of the best days I ever had on north Biscayne Bay seatrout occurred amid a soggy low-pressure cell. All morning, we’d been running for cover beneath pretty much every bridge from MacArthur to Broad Causeway, in that order. Rain would come, rain would go. The good thing was, the trout seemed to have been heading in the same direction. When the staccato deluges finally let up, they started feeding like crazy around a spoil island grassflat—one that’s usually buzzed by a steady stream of boat traffic. North Bay isn’t known for big trout in the way that Mosquito Lagoon or Pine Island Sound are, but these were nice fish by any standard: 18 to 24 inches. My buddy and I squeezed down the barbs on our jigs and shook off dozens of fat trout at boatside, enjoying the strike and a few runs, then releasing our fish without further handling. The water was undisturbed by windchop or boatwake. A veneer of clouds stayed with us, shading the flats. Silence prevailed. Perfect trout weather.
Biscayne Bay isn’t the only waterway where this sort of thing happens.
“I consider summer the best time of the year,” says Capt. Rich Tudor, a tournament-winning Islamorada flats guide. “Some of the best bonefishing and redfishing days I’ve ever had were in July, August and September, when it was totally overcast from storm conditions.”
“In midday I’ve read water temps up to 97, 99 degrees. That’s too warm on the flats. But a shower around noon or 1 o’clock may cool the water fairly quickly, especially on flats only 12 inches deep.
“Also, when it’s overcast, fish are very aggressive, not as spooky as when it’s sunny.”
A biologist with Bonefish Tarpon Unlimited (BTU) offered something of a scientific explanation: “High temperature makes the partial pressure of oxygen reduced—there’s less per unit of volume, so there are fewer oxygen molecules available. On the other side, the metabolic rate of the animal doubles with every 10 degrees Celsius in water temperature.”
© 2011 InterMedia Outdoors