How to Catch Spooky Bonefish

To catch spooky bonefish, you need to adjust your tactics, your gear, and your presentations. Photo: Dan Favato

For many fly fishers, bonefish are an addiction. Whether it’s your first time or your fiftieth, every time you see bonefish tails fluttering tantalizingly above the water or a school of gray shadows gliding across shallow sand, it triggers something deep in the recesses of your mind. It’s a fishy itch that just needs to be scratched. Yet, actually hooking a bonefish isn’t always as easy as it seems because quite frankly, the “ghosts of the flats” can be spooky as hell.

Most bonefish anglers know that pain of seeing a school of bones scatter at the merest hint of a back cast. Often, you can’t even get within casting range of the fish without the bones completely bugging out and leaving you holding your fly in your hand. However, all your bonefish hope should never be lost because with the right gear and the right approach, you can get the hookup you need almost every time you cruise the flats.

Light Tackle is The Right Tackle

The right lines, leaders, tippet and flies are vital to spooky-bonefish success. With the fish heading for the hills at the slightest splash, your presentation needs to be delicate, yet still accurate enough that you can make long casts on moving targets. It can be a challenge to find the proper balance, but with a little bit of tweaking and experimenting, you can find the right setup for even the most nervous of bonefish.

Stalking bones on a shallow flat requires stealth and planning. Photo: Kubie Brown

Although a 9-foot leader is considered standard, for casting to spooky bonefish you’re better off with a 12-foot or even a 14-foot leader. Longer leaders create space between your fly line and your fly, helping your presentations become less conspicuous, especially for heavily pressured fish. On very windy days, you can usually get away with a 10- or 11-foot leader. Start with a 16-pound-test fluorocarbon tippet. While this may seem a bit heavy for bonefish, even the spookiest specimens are rarely leader shy, and low-visibility fluorocarbon should be invisible to them anyway.

Using lighter tippets may seem like a better idea, but the fact is that bonefish are fierce fighters that will often scrap until they’re completely exhausted. This makes them harder to revive after a long fight on light line, so make sure you stick to the heavy stuff so you can bring bonefish to hand quickly and release them safely. That said, if the fish do refuse your presentations, you might have to go as low as 10- or 8-pound test.

In deeper water, between 2 and 4 feet, use small, lightly weighted flies, so they won’t make a big splash when they hit the water and scare the fish. Choose or tie patterns with bead-chain eyes—rather than dumbbells—such as the Itchy Scratchy, Crazy Charlie, or the Gotcha. In skinny water that’s 1 foot deep or less, unweighted or barely weighted shrimp and crab flies are best, with patterns like the Ultra Shrimp, Dimepiece Crab, Bonefish Bitters, and Snapping Shrimp all being great options. In The Bahamas, you can get away with flies tied on size 2 and size 4 hooks, but in places like Belize, you may have to go as small as size 8.

Clockwise from upper left: Crazy Charlie, Itchy Scratchy, Bonefish Bitters, and Gotcha. Photos courtesy Fulling Mill

Stalking Your Quarry

Getting within casting range of a spooky bonefish is probably one of the greatest challenges in fly fishing. The fish are sensitive to any vibrations caused by movements in the water, especially those created by your footsteps or your push pole. Living in shallow water, bonefish are also constantly hunted from above by seabirds and other predators, making them extremely wary of any shadows or movement they see above the water.To be successful, you often have to channel your inner hunter by being patient and/or sneaking up on them.

On days when the wind is still and the water calm, even if you wade so slowly that you’re just creeping across the flat, you often still can’t get close. This means you’ll have to make longer casts. Instead of getting frustrated and calling it a day when this happens, sometimes it’s better to set up an ambush and let the fish come to you. Like an early-rising duck hunter setting out their decoys before dawn, if you can wade onto flats, inlets, and points where bonefish are likely to show up, you can make all the noise you want and then freeze when you spot incoming bones. It’s often a good idea to wear muted, natural-color clothing when fishing like this and to crouch or kneel when you see fish approaching, so try and practice casting in these positions beforehand so you’ll be ready for the game. Try casting sidearm when possible, so the movement of your rod tip doesn’t spook the bones.

If you can move in on tailing bonefish by wading or by boat, you still need to be as stealthy as possible. When you’re wading, move slowly: take a step and then stop and wait for the sand or mud around your feet to settle before taking another one. Try to lift your feet free of the bottom and then lower them with each step instead of shuffling, as you’ll cause less commotion. While this can be a mind-numbing, tooth-grinding, agonizing experience, if you remain patient and stick to your slow approach, you’ll usually be rewarded.

When you’re fishing to a school of bones from a boat, every shot counts because it’s possible to spook them all with one bad cast. Photo: Kubie Brown

If you’re fishing for bones from a boat, use any structure around you, such as islands or even shallow rocks or reefs to block your approach until you get close to the fish. Then once you’re within range of your boney quarry, make your first cast as quickly and efficiently as possible. Try to haul back and shoot your line with as little back casting as possible so that the extra movements won’t spook the fish and above all—take a good lead.

Leading Your Target

Even the most brazen bonefish are likely to spook away from a fly that’s dropped right on their heads. So, instead of casting directly at the feeding fish, anticipate their movements and then cast out ahead of them, getting your fly in position to intercept the fish when they arrive. This can be a tricky, as the fish often change course before they get to your bug, but if you stick with it and don’t get impatient, you’ll eventually end up with a bent rod and a screaming drag.

While many bonefish anglers like to lead the fish by 5 to 15 feet, in skinny water or for extremely spooky fish, you may need to get your fly as far as 20 feet to 40 feet ahead of the school. Land your fly where you think the fish are going to end up, and then let it sink to the bottom. Start your retrieve when the fish are close enough to see the movement, roughly within 10 feet, and keep your strips slow and even as you can.

Often it may only be a single fish that breaks away and comes over to look, but schools of bonefish often play follow the leader. So if you can get interest from the fish in front of the pack, the whole school may follow suit. Usually, the largest bonefish will be in the lead to get the first chance at food, with smaller fish following along and eating anything that gets past the front runners. These beta fish will often give you a second chance if your first attempt doesn’t produce a strike. So even if the school turns off, it’s worth firing another cast towards the edge of the school as they’re passing, to see if you can tempt a fish at the back of the pack.

The author with a Belize bonefish that required a delicate presentation and a long lead. Photo: Kubie Brown

Although visual sets are ideal, you can’t always see the fish take the fly. Use short, sharp strips to get the fishes’ attention, followed by longer strips to maintain contact with your fly and feel the bite. Once you feel weight, make an accelerating, strong strip set. Often, you will just see a wake near your fly, in which case give it a couple strips, then pause for a second or two so the fish can eat. Then make a long, slow strip with a set at the end.

Down in Your Bones

I think that the reason bonefish are so addictive is that they appeal to our deep-seated love for the underdog. Living in the vastness of the sea, bonefish are little fish in a big world full of predators. Yet despite their size, they are still powerhouses. Even a small bonefish can double-over your rod and rip the line off your reel like a tiny aquatic juggernaut, and all that explosiveness in such a small package stirs something deep down inside of us. Knowing how to target the spookiest bonefish means you’ll get more chances to tap into that depth.