With a full moon tonight, the tides have been extremely exaggerated at both high and low. One might think to just walk further out to find the bones during extreme low tide; however, that is not the case. The bones I have been seeing are all in ankle deep water, and these are in the 7-10lb class. Sometimes, if you are looking into the glare, all you will see is a “torpedo” wake coming at you. The low tides have also allowed me to see more trails of mud from feeding bonefish. Today, I successfully followed several mud trails to tailing bonefish.

My first attempt to a tailing fish was refused.  So was my second.  I decided that my size 6 bonefish scampi was not doing the trick today.  The night before I had tied up a fly designed for large and highly pressured bonefish, Doc Hall’s Tailing Shrimp.  It’s a very simple pattern I tied in size 6.  I decide to give it a go.  I found another large tailing fish, and it took three separate presentations before the tailing bonefish noticed my fly.  I saw him finally turn towards my twitching shrimp pattern, I dropped it, and the fish’s nose went into the turtle grass. I felt the tug, and a quick strip strike sent the bonefish off into a panic.  The fish had 3 nice runs ranging from 50-100 yards.  I knew this was bigger then my fist bonefish just by how long it took to land.  After about 7 minutes, a nice 7-8lb bonefish was at hand.  After I released the fish, it was only about 30 minutes until dead low tied and I didn’t see any more mud trails or tails poking through the surface.  It was a great morning of stalking the flats and I can’t wait to do it tomorrow!

Good luck to the rest of the MKFF crew going down to Sanibel Island!