Thanks to my brother-in-law’s current overseas assignment, I got to try my hand at fly fishing for Bonefish in the shallow waters surrounding Grand Bahama Island. The vast and varied flats are teeming with small crabs, clams, worms, snails, and small fish. The near shore fish that dine on these creatures are plentiful and well fed. With the family in tow, we fished 8 or 9 different regions and had legit shots at trophy Bones at every spot.

There were lots of small(8-20 fish) schools of the 3 to 6 pounders, quite a few pods of fish that held individuals in the 8 pound range, and it seemed like where ever we went, if we hung in long enough a big old 10 pound plus Bone would cruise in to see who was making all the noise.

The Bonefish pretty much kept me humbled, but they did make mistakes, and at times flat out chased down, even fought over my offerings. The cool thing is, when I did cross paths with the one truly giant Bonefish of my 3 week stay, there was no hesitation.

The fish was coming head on in about 32″ of very lightly chopped water. The instant the #2 fly hit the water the fish accelerated and ate it mid water first strip. BOINK! Shit! No hook up. Strip strip chase. Big strip, strip, strip chase. Strip, strip, chase. Strip, big strip. Strip strip. Fish accelerates. Strip, strip, strip. Slow strip, strip… On! Right in front of the rod tip. What an experience!