The picture above was taken on my honeymoon in Mexico, and is another example of how cool it is to have a wife that fly fishes. We spent most of the week in the Sian Kaan Biosphere, a national preserve in Mexico. It's hard to describe how fishy it is there, and how many bonefish there are, a wonderful place to fish totally unguided. Suffice it to say we caught bonefish when we were trying and when we weren't. We caught them cruising over white sand, we caught them working in rocky surf, and we caught them rapidly stripping flies for barracuda. They were fun, and they were strong pullers on the seven weight. But somehow the bonefishing got derailed by the unlikliest of candidates, the checkered puffer. Yep, I said, the checkered puffer. On any flat, you never had to wait very long before one of these unusual critters swam by. In the water, they were a lovely yellowish color, with an attractive pattern of spots, and sightly demonic red eyes. They were very bold, in fact, I was bitten by several puffers that thought the gaps in my sandals were open invitations to nip my feet. But I couldn't catch them on typical bonefish flies, because they couldn't fit them in their mouths. My wife, Terri, and I spent hours casting to them. It became a bit of an obsession. Finally, we found the right flat (where we could see them) and the right fly (one they could fit in their little beaks) I played spotter, and told Terri where to cast, she led one just right, and we won the puffer lottery. I few minutes later, I had one of my own. They weren't fierce fighters, in fact, they barely fought at all. But somehow, while all the bonefish blurred together, I remember everything about that little puffer. Because all fish are fascinating, and every once in awhile, it good to veer off the program and experience something different!
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| Checkered puffer |
Here's another example. I love smallmouth bass. One of the strongest fish in freshwater, they crush flies, pull hard, jump, everything you want in a gamefish. Although many people wouldn't think of Iowa as fishing mecca, we have some pretty good smallmouth fishing. In fact, I've got a small stream, not fifteen minutes from my house that is loaded with smallmouth. 15-18 inch fish are fairly common, and I even was fortunate enough to land a 20 inch bomber from this water several years ago. I spend about 90 percent of the time working the water with a popper. It's very productive, it seems to call up the biggest fish, and watching a smallmouth come up and absolutely annihilate a popper like it hates it, makes me laugh aloud. It's just everything that fishing should be. Sheer, unadulterated fun. However, smallmouth aren't the only thing swimming in these waters. Last summer, I had an interesting experience there. I worked upstream with poppers, and the large fish were looking up. I managed three gorgeous fish between 18 and 19 inches, and a gar on a popper, a first. Working back down, I chose to work through the same water subsurface, and I had a fish absolutely blast a Clouser minnow. A big fish, pushing five pounds, but not a smallmouth, in fact when I landed it, I wasn't exactly sure what it was. It looked a little like a carp, but it wasn't a carp. It looked a little like a sucker, but it wasn't a sucker. It had a dorsal fin that resembled a quillback, but it wasn't a quillback. A little research revealed it to be a river carpsucker, perhaps a fish you've never heard of. Although I didn't know exactly what they were, I'd sure seen them. In any of the larger pools, there were dozens of them laying on the bottom. They didn't respond to most smallmouth flies, in a decade of fishing this water, the one I landed was the first one I had ever hooked. I began to wonder, could you target them?
The next time I came out I didn't have a six weight and a chest pack full of poppers. I had a four weight, and few tiny nymphs. I carefully crept into position, at the head of a pool where dozens of carpsuckers were working the bottom. I made painstaking drifts, dragging the beadheads slowly directly in front of the fish. And amazingly enough, in two hours of fishing, I hooked five of them and landed three. They weren't half the gamefish that the smallmouth were. The method of fishing them was frankly boring, nowhere near as rewarding as ripping a popper across the surface. I'll probably never do it again. And yet it was still one of most rewarding trips of the year. I'd figured it out!
So, I'm not saying that you should quit fishing
for your own favorites, whatever those are. But chances are, in any water, there are some other species that may be very much worth some of your time. For me, it's been grass carp, while I was largemouth fishing, a quest that ultimately resulted in landing a 56lb 11ounce fish on a dry fly, taking time out from beach snook to cast to squadrons of jacks, giant ladyfish in the surf in Costa Rica. Observe, make a plan, and catch some of these "alternatives" and I promise you, you'll be a better angler for it. And more importantly, you will have fun! |
| My first intentional river carpsucker! |
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