Flaming boots

During the holiday, most days were windy, however we did have several days where it was more like a gale, exceeded 35km/h, making it difficult to get a shot into it as the fish were generally up-wind of us. In these conditions, side casts were the preferred shots and often we had to move as carefully as possible to a better position to target the bones as such. It was noticeable that we could often get closer to the fish due to the waves making it harder for them to spot us.

The last week of the holiday was the best week for catching bones for both of us, with myself catching more than James on a couple of days. This is generally not the case when we go fishing as James is usually the fish-magnet, though on those days he appeared to have passed that title to me. I must admit, I loved it and couldn't believe how many shots I was getting to fish. Everywhere I went I tended to spot bones and generally in a good orientation to cast for and had lots of takes. I did have a number of losses too where either the fly came out whilst I was playing the fish or the leader broke on something in the water. I loved my new reel that James bought me for my birthday last year as I could now manage the drag – my previous reel that I have had for many years had deteriorated to only one drag setting. The reel and myself were sorely tested on the last day of fishing when almost every fish I hooked ran a long way and got line 'stuck' in sandhills. This is where the fish swims around the sand-hills in an undulating flat and then slightly back-tracks causing the line to embed itself in the sand-hill. This can be where the fish is lost as the leader can be cut or sometimes the fly can come out if the line tension drops. Thankfully on this day, neither happened and I managed to land the fish. The most stressful fish was a big one, I can only assume about 8lb, as I was on my own when I landed it and could only film it so that I could show James its length against my arm – it was almost as long as my arm. The landing of the fish was after several stressful moments where it 'roostered' the line through the water, then ran at least 5 times in different directions, spooking an array of other bones across the whole flat and then getting stuck on a sand-hill. At this point the line went solid and I thought that maybe the fly had dislodged from the fish into the sand-hill. I started wading slowly towards the sand-hill winding in the backing line, which was not easy due to the undulations and soft sand. When I had almost wound enough backing back onto the reel that I could now see the back of the fly-line, suddenly the fish started to move again and then went for another run. Thankfully it swam away from the soft undulating area and more into the deeper parts and eventually I managed to land it.

When I managed to catch up with James, he was stalking a tailing bone and when he hooked it, he radioed me to say it was a nice fish. I had watched him cast to it and then saw the bone tail on his fly, then speed away and heard his reel fly. It is always lovely to watch such a spectacle and I managed to get several photos of him playing the fish and holding it once he landed it. We estimated it was around 6lb and a great fish to finish the day, and also the holiday on. After 30 days of fishing, we were pretty knackered and personally besides my feet killing me, my shoulders and back needed a break too. As commented by James I had some problems with both pairs of fishing boots I had with me and we decided to ceremonially burn one pair on the water's edge before we left the flat in order to appease the bonefish gods. The other pair, the ones I wore on the last day, were left in the garden of the cottage we stayed in, as ornamental decoration, these smelt almost as bad as a pair of Paul's socks so will make an excellent addition to the aroma of the local flora.

We have already started discussing where our next salt-water trip maybe and have several destinations to consider. Perhaps with some other anglers, though they will need to be as mad as us about fishing. We do need to get a new suitcase though as one of ours must have been dropped from quite a height due to the resulting crack we found when we retrieved it from the carousel. Thankfully this was one with mainly 'dirty' clothing and not the fishing rods and reels, all of which have been found to be in a good condition when we unpacked. James has some maintenance to do now as all metalwork needs checking for 'rust' or damage, plus he needs to take my rod to Renee at Foxons to fix after it was damaged during the first week of the holiday – though thankfully with some tape, I managed to use it for the whole holiday without any further damage. The new Celestial #8 lines we used for the whole time handled brilliantly well and will need some cleaning ready for our future trips, though we may need to rethink the #10 lines we used.

Whatever you are doing this weekend, enjoy

Cheers

Tracy