Fish Stories

About 5 years ago we went up to Maine over the 4th of July holiday and rented cabins with several of our friends, went white water rafting, and had a great time. Unfortunately (my choice of adjectives, not Jason's), one of those friends brought along his fly fishing gear and spent some time introducing Jason and Chris to the sport (hobby?). They came home excited and addicted, and spent hours on their cell phones comparing notes and several lunch breaks at the Orvis store in downtown Boston spending lots of money on "necessary" equipment. At first they were limited to the Jamaica Plain pond and weekend trips to the lovely Oxbow in Western Mass. We had some good times with Moores, Jenkins, and Hansens...the boys fishing the bass hole or sitting on logs on the river at midnight drinking soda and talking, me hiking with Alyson and later, with our kids, the girls shopping at the Yankee Candle flagship store, and all of us eating brunch at Equinox in Vermont or just hanging out, even if the accomodations were a little...well...let's go with "rugged." These trips branched out to include boys-only overnight trips on the Green River in Utah when 2 of my siblings were nice enough to get married there during the summer (Jason is eternally grateful). Jason did attempt to get me involved, dragging me out to fish near his parents' house when Ethan was just a few weeks old, where I discovered that communing with nature by wading in a stream and tossing a hook covered in fuzz at a slimy fish was just not my idea of a good time. After a while, somehow, they got turned on to saltwater flyfishing for striped bass. This required even more gear and allowed them to spend their Saturday mornings wading off Castle Island or the North Shore, or even, in Chris's case, casting off Boston harbor during his lunch hour, surrounded by curious tourists.

In true Jason fashion, it's not enough just to fish a couple of streams during the summer or off the coast near home. He then had to get into saltwater flyfishing for bonefish, a small but feisty fish that hangs out on tidal flats in the Caribbean. His first attempt was on our trip to the Virgin Islands. He didn't get any bonefish, but he did have fun watching a curious sea turtle swim around him and eventually he caught a juvenile barracuda. And I got to sit on my own private section of beach on St. John and look at this:

Why don't we live there?? Anyway, his most successful attempts at bonefish have been in Grand Bahama, where he went with me in 2006 and then by himself last year, when he had an experience that is by far my favorite fish story. In the Caribbean, Jason hires a local guide to take him around the flats. The guide stands on a raised chair in the back of the boat and uses a pole to maneuver the boat around the flats, sights them and tells you when to cast, etc. On the morning he went last June, they hadn't had a lot of success. It was shark mating season, so there were hoards of sharks covering the flats. After a frustrating morning of casting, Jason finally hooked into a bonefish. It put up a huge fight but was never able to get off the hook. Just as Jason was sure it was tired out and was ready to reel it in, a shark grabbed on to it. At this point, the guide flipped out, for two reasons. First, he has a vested interest in making sure Jason is successful, since his tip and reputation depend on a happy client. Second, if the sharks learn, over time, to recognize a hooked, gimpy, fatigued fish as an easy meal and associate that with the boats, it will create a huge problem for the flyfishermen. Apparently the guide decided his best course of action was to jump out of the boat, grab the oar, and slosh quickly through the flats to the shark and the bonefish. Then he started wailing on the shark with the oar, at which point the shark realized the easy meal was not worth the cost, and took off. The guide picked up the now completely exhausted bonefish and started running back to the boat with it, screaming, "It's a monstah!!" in his Bahamian accent. He told Jason it was the biggest bonefish he had seen anyone land in the last 6 years. Jason got a great catch (which he then released, of course), the guide got a great tip, and both went home with a great story.

Besides the bahamas, the other prime place to bonefish is in the Florida keys, which was part of our reason for going there recently. April is supposed to be the best time, but the conditions (overcast, windy) were so bad the morning Jason went out that he didn't see a single bonefish the whole time. Instead, the guide had him try his hand at tarpon, which he was able to sight but not hook. He did, however land this:

It's a bonnethead shark, the smallest in the hammerhead family. Jason can't seem to have a fishing experience without getting a shark involved.