Fly Fish Chick

After my 2008 trip to Exuma I published a blogpost titled, “Is That A Bonefish In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?”

Now if there actually were an FFC legal team looking over my shoulder (ha!) I am pretty sure they would counsel me sternly to state that that I do not, under any circumstance, endorse putting a bonefish in one’s pocket. You dumbass.

Okay, so I added the dumbass part myself, but hopefully we all know that it is, in fact, not a wise move to put a bonefish (ie, shark bait) in your pocket when you’re fishing out on the flats.

Unless…and I stress that this is a very unique circumstance….unless you are fishing with these super special Patagonia Shark Proof Pants! Now I rarely write gear reviews but this experience begs a glowing endorsement for some life saving pants.

You see on the very first morning of our recent Exuma fishing trip we dropped my dad out on a flat to wade on his own. We have the drill down to a science, leaving him with a walkie talkie in case he needs to reach us. Call me crazy, but don’t you think a shark attack seems like a fairly good excuse to pull out the radio and give us a Breaker Breaker 1-9?

We never heard from him so we decided to check in. All was fine, he was seeing lots of fish. An hour or so later we pull up to find my dad grinning ear-to-ear. Upon closer review we noticed that the pocket of his pants was torn and shredded. Our initial guess was he got tangled in the mangroves?

Oh no. Apparently a lemon shark pounced on him while he was trying to release a bonefish! The shark missed the fish by about a foot and somehow managed to get nothing but a mouthful of Patagonia pocket, barely scratching my dad’s leg.

Chalk it up to some good mojo pants or maybe just a young, puppy-like shark with bad aim, but either way he is pretty darn lucky.

Unfortunately the magical Patagonia Shark Proof pants are an old style and I don’t even think you can get them any longer. (See how lame I am at gear reviews?) So you might as well just heed the warning of my fake lawyers…No bonefish in the pockets, people. Got it?

For one scintillating week our coterie of characters shed the coat of everyday armor and peeled away the mask of regular routine to dive into a counterculture escapade that involved chasing bonefish all over Exuma and floating on water so blue that our dreams will forever be tinted a certain shade of Bahamian azure.

Our only job each day was to ride the tide of a waxing crescent moon and kiss each bonie bye-bye as we journeyed forth to meet the next one. Just to keep us on our toes there were stingrays and cudas and sharks– oh my! At night we would indulge in conch fritters and grilled grouper and dance to salty soul music before collapsing into slumber and waking to do it all over again.

It was so dreamlike and delicious that I feel a few Tom Robbins quotations coming on:

“To be or not to be isn’t the question. The question is how to prolong being.”

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

“Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.”

“I believe in nothing, everything is sacred. I believe in everything, nothing is sacred.”

“We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”

“Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef.”

On that note, let me put down my screwdriver…  

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

ex-hume — (verb) to revive or restore after neglect or a period of forgetting; to bring to light. (Oh yeah, and it also has that other creepy meaning…something about digging up a buried body.)

Another year has eeked along and now it is finally here: my annual trip to Exuma with my parents. Of course that makes it sound like I have been doing this trip for eons, when in reality it is my parents that have been doing this trip for eons, not me. I finally just wised up about two or three years ago and invited myself to tag along.

So it’s time to exhume the soul with some Exuma fishing. Time to scrape away the layers of sediment that have settled throughout the winter months and start digging for bones – hungry bones, big bones, schooling bones. Hopefully we can bring some of those grey ghosts to the surface and see if they show up on camera.

I head out tomorrow morning, so if it’s a little quiet in here for the next week or so, don’t panic. No need to go all CSI on me and call in the forensics team. I will be back with stories and pictures and at the very least an empty bottle of Kalik that you can dust for my prints. (Spoiler Alert: I bet you find ‘em there.)

So just to get us all in the Exuma mood I resurrected this montage that has been buried in the FFC archives since last year’s trip. Take care & I will catch you on the flipside!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

SIDE NOTE: For those of you deathgrind music fans who accidentally found this post while searching on Google for the band EXHUMED…Sorry!

Was cruising past the greatest music venue of all time, The Continental Club, and noticed The Meat Purveyors on the Thursday night marquis. Had to swing in and support my buddy, Pete, the mandolin player. Pete and I first met through our local TU chapter and in a weird twist we ran into each other back in September at another venerable Austin dive.

Once again we had fun drinking Lone Stars and swapping fishing stories. Then The Meat Purveyors took the stage and wowed the crowd with some edgy cowpunk-style bluegrass that was out of sight.

You have to love a guy who plays the hell out of a mandolin and a Texas redfish…

A purveyor of meat and fish. Cheers to Pete.

As I mentioned the other day I haven’t been fishing in awhile. The one exception? A couple of weeks ago I was in Alabama and got to venture out in the lower Mobile River Delta for speckled trout.

Unfortunately my trusty guide made the faulty assumption that I had previous experience with a spinning rod. Now why in the world would he think a girl with a tongue-in-cheek, self-penned moniker like “Fly Fish Chick” would know how to handle a spinning rod? We were a full hour into our adventure (setting up on some fish) when we mutually discovered this minor breakdown in communication.

From the look on his face I thought he was going to turn that boat right round baby right round and head for home.

But hey, what I lack in skill I try and make up for with a positive attitude. And it was gorgeous out there! I was channeling my Inner Meat-Fishing-Mamacita, catching shrimp from the live well with my bare hands and hurling them out there best I could. So fun. And the fishing was much more strategic than I expected. Searching for birds hitting the water, using the tides to set up at just the right angle, picking the perfect shrimp (a big delicious feisty one!) when you know you’re really into some good fish.

The highlight for a first-time tourist like me was spotting a monster alligator. Of course I begged for a closer look so we buzzed up for a photo shoot. Suddenly I felt like I was the one bobbing inside a live well while the alligator was sizing me up. I made every effort not to come across as either delicious or feisty.

Once we interrupted his afternoon nap in the sunshine, that prehistoric lug submerged himself into the water with the unexpected grace and vertical control of a synchronized swimmer. Part dinosaur, part Esther Williams. It was wild. And we were outta there.

It was a wonderful day out on the water — despite the fact I ended up with zero fish to show for my big meat-fishing adventure. Unfortunately, I was decidedly inconsistent and awkward with a spinning rod. The most excitement we had was along the edge of this grassy spot. Shrimp were jumping everywhere and I had a few good shots and a few good bites. But I couldn’t set the hook. Yikes. Luckily, my trusty guide was super patient and quite skilled at the pep talks and ego-stroking.

By sharp contrast to my debut performance, about a week or so later Big R, Little R, and Little R’s friend proved that experience does pay off and that there is no such thing as beginner’s luck for me. They put me to shame in the very same grassy spot.

Well done boys! But now I want another shot. Truthfully I don’t think it was my ineptitude with a spinning rod that was holding me back. I think it was mental. My super-chill, fly-fishing, girlie-girl zen attitude simply didn’t work for this type of fishing. Next time, “Fly Fish Chick” is going to become “Bait Fish Chick”, and I am going hunt down those fish like a half-crazed vigilante.

Oh yeah baby, it is on! Wanted: Speckled Trout. Dead or Alive.

Last night I was so cavalier, dare I say even a bit cocky. I falsely thought I was prepared to leave town tomorrow for seven days. Today is a much different story. I am crazed trying to get some last minute packing done, so I barely have a moment to spare, much less the brainpower to string two sentences together. Thank heavens faithful friends and readers were out fishing this weekend and sent me their pictures. Two saltwater adventures — both of which look like a hell of a good time. Enjoy.

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Friends in North Carolina who go by the online handles of Natural Fly and Fat Tire were tearing it up off the coast of North Carolina last weekend. They ventured to a wreck just about 10 miles from the beach and met up with a whole mess of Amber Jacks. Although given these hysterical pictures I think it best to refer to these brawny fish by their ’street’ name, Reef Donkeys. What do you think? I think I am dying to go fishing with these hotshot ne’er-do-wells.

Rumour has it their compadre Nacho Momma & crew were up in Virginia chasing cobia.

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Meanwhile just off the coast of Alabama, one of my most serious flyfishing mentors — who is way too serious an angler to have an online handle — was meatfishing for his supper.

Although early reports from the skillet reveal that frying fish on the grill doesn’t get the grease quite hot enough. I don’t know, still looks pretty tasty…

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These trips look just like the sort of good time that I should have been a part of — I mean, what the hell, boys? I have a blonde wig. I can work a skillet.

Okay, so only one of those statements is true. But we’ll talk more about that later. I just remembered one more thing I have to pack.

Last spring I went bonefishing in Exuma Bahamas and we had a big big time. Lots of fish. Some pretty big fish. We had one day on the water that was just out of sight, one bonefish right after the next. Toward the end of this gluttonous day, each time someone caught another, our guide Steve would sing out, “Momma told me there’d be days like this!”

I spent about six months looking at the pictures from that trip, smiling and singing that song in my mind. Somewhere around November or December I actually downloaded it onto my ipod, stopped looking at last year’s pictures, and starting daydreaming about this year’s trip.

No question, last year was going to be tough to beat. Really tough. But hot damn! You know what…I think we did it.

I spent last week in Exuma with my parents and some really close family friends — we laughed for a solid week. And our good friend Bonefish Stevie is still like a heat-seeking missile when it comes to finding those bonefish.

Seven days of sunny skies, salty breezes, friendly tides…bonefish and Kalik.

Uh yeah, what Steve said.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Am working my way home from the Bahamas. More scoop to come on the fishing in Exuma…