Hello all and thanks for checking in at The O’Grady Fly
Fishing Adventures. Today’s blog may be a little long because I wanted to touch
on a few different subjects. To start, I wanted to give some final thoughts on
our Hawaii trip, and will then finish with an up to date report on our river
conditions. I wanted to start by thanking a few of the individuals that helped
to make our Hawaii trip not only possible but a few of the most enjoyable weeks
of our lives. Cody and Kim were amazing, they took us to see everything of interest
on the island and Kim’s Mom and Ron allowed us to stay with them the last
few days we were there. I also wanted to give a quick shout out to Kenny Karas
and Mike Hennesey from Hawaii On The Fly. As we were on our way back home we were
trying to figure out a way to describe how difficult Hawaiian bone fish are to
catch. The word that came to mind and everyone agreed was diabolical. I’m a
little stubborn when it comes to fishing and the first night when everyone else
was listening to Kenny, I made the poor decision to learn on my own. The first week we spent battling poor light and
the flu but still every evening, sitting around the table, I learned a little
more from Kenny. We got a few good light days the second week and that is when
things got really interesting. It’s one thing to not catch fish when you can’t
see them but when they're right there and you got nothing, it’s not like I had a
lot of hair to lose but I’m sure my head shines a little more now.
To give you an idea about the technique used to try and wrangle one of these fellows, it went a little like this: we would walk until we found
a place where bones seemed to be moving through or tailing. Then, we would crouch
down and try and make a cast leading the fish by 10 feet in the direction of where you think they were going to go. Now if
you screw up and cast 9 feet then they blow up and take every fish in the area
with them. Now more often than not, just as your fly hits the water at 10 feet
in front of the fish they normally change direction…ahhhhhhhhhhhh. I do believe there was more colorful language on those flats then at an NWA concert. Well
when you make that perfect cast, twitch the fly and watch the bone move over
and gnaw on your fly, it makes it all worthwhile. In all my years fishing for
trout, I have seen my backing once and when I hooked my first bone, before I
could even yelp, fifty yards of backing had flown through my guides. My last
fish landed had me around a hundred yards into my backing and as I reeled him
back and just got my line back into my guides he made another fifty yard run.
Now
I will have to admit that it is a little difficult to get super annoyed not
catching fish in Hawaii. Monday we spent the day at Hawaii Kai and after about
the first twenty minutes I lost focus and spent the next two hours watching the
kite surfers, WOW talk about amazing athletes. Our most difficult flat was in
K-bay, fish were huge and very difficult to see but the back drop was amazing.
My first fish of the trip was caught in K-bay on accident. I was clearing my
line and had just tossed out the fly and as I lifted I could see there was an 8
inch fish on it, I had no idea what it was so I just snapped a few pics and then
used my forceps to get him back in the water. Cody told me it was a lizard fish
and asked if I saw the teeth, sure was glad I used my forceps and then looked
at the pic and saw the teeth. We saw tons of puffer fish, and one day I heard
something behind me and I cast and caught a Goat fish, a pretty little thing
with the orange stripes. Our first night in K-bay we began seeing these worm like
creatures that I think may have been the inspiration for the movie Tremors. The
trip was amazing but I do have to say that we were ready to get home, the last
day on Triangle we kept watching the jets take off and we found ourselves
longing to be on one.
So my
final thought on Hawaii, if you are going on vacation definitely bring your rod
and book a trip. Kenny and Mike are
awesome and might just save half of your hair. If you are just looking for a
place to catch a bunch of saltwater fish then I would find a different
destination. If you are looking for that one 10 plus pound bonefish that will
make your fishing complete than go, but you better bring you’re A-game, remember
these fish are DIABOLICAL. There are tons of pics so hopefully you can get
through them all.
Now on
to our P-town river conditions, after two weeks in Hawaii I needed a little shot
of confidence, so Winston and I headed to the river. I don’t think I have ever seen
pooh-dog so happy and I actually watched him prance a little when he first
stepped into the river. I saw quite a few fish paired up today and several
empty reds. I checked different staging areas and didn’t see fish in them. I
started with my January rig and after about an hour of nothing I changed into
the super stealthy mode, 6x fluoro and really tiny flies. I caught about a
seven incher and then I hooked into a 18inch Pueblo-bonefish(lol...a sucker). My confidence
was a little shaken and then for about twenty minutes it just turned on. I
landed an 18 and a 20 incher and lost a few more that felt pretty strong. They
didn’t get me anywhere near my backing, but listening to my reel scream and
seeing my 4 weight “X” thrash around, I felt like I was home. Winston was
pleased to be back on his river. Fish today were fooled by a J-bombs, Ninjas
and Tube Wings. As always Connell, Cat, Winston, King Kamehameha, and the Drift
fly shop want to thank you for reading…
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