Fifty Feet

In salt water fly fishing, a lot of folks will tell you that you need to make at least an eighty-foot cast in order to catch anything on the flats. You’ll read this in the magazines and hear it from a lot of saltwater guides. That’s a very demanding and discouraging requirement at the same time, but in my experience it’s simply not the case.

Probably ninety percent of the bonefish, tarpon, and permit I’ve caught over the years were hooked within forty feet of my boat. This is a cast that anyone can make. Even if you’ve never touched a fly rod before, a decent guide or instructor can get you casting out to forty feet within an hour. The trick is to do it quickly and accurately, and this is the part that takes a fair amount of practice.

In most bonefishing situations, from the time your guide first spots the fish until the moment the you’ll start your cast, the average time frame is around ten seconds. You’ll have the first five seconds to spot the target and the next five to get the fly in the water and in front of your fish. This is a really narrow window.

Here’s an exercise I want you to try if you’re thinking of coming down to Vieques or any other saltwater destination with the hopes of catching a bonefish on a fly rod. To do this exercise properly you’ll need a partner, a measuring tape, two paper plates, and a stopwatch.

First, take the paper plates and find an open space, preferably outside, and measure a straight line of fifty feet, placing one plate at each end of this line. String up your 7, 8, or 9 weight fly rod with a small bonefish pattern and stand on one plate. If you’re actually outside, start with the upwind plate and aim downwind.

Next, strip out at least eighty feet of fly line from your reel. Leave a rod’s length fly line, or about nine feet, hanging from the rod tip and hold just the fly in your opposite hand by the eye of its hook.

Have your partner hit the stopwatch and start counting out loud. At the same moment you’ll start your cast, aiming for the downwind plate. When the count hits “Five“ stop your false casting and present your fly.

So how close are you to your downwind target?

If you realistically want to catch a bonefish on a fly, in the conditions you’re going to find in the Caribbean this time of year, you should be within one foot of the plate. If you‘ve reached the plate then you‘re well ahead of the crowd. If not, you’re going to be seriously handicapped when it comes to bonefishing.

So what happens if you’ve been flailing away for hours and still can’t get to the plate in those five seconds? Well then it’s time to stop what you’re doing and get some instruction. This can be as simple as going to your nearest fly shop and asking someone to take a quick look at your cast out in the parking lot.

I’ve seen a lot of self taught anglers who’ve taught themselves some seriously bad habits. If you’re one of these folks you may be totally effective with a light rod on a small trout stream but it just won’t happen on the saltwater flats. After too many years, a weak backcast becomes part of your muscle memory and this is an amazingly hard habit to break. One quick hour of being taught the proper hauling technique, in a field or parking lot, will get you punching forty feet in no time.

This is not saying that saltwater anglers are better fly fishermen. I went out to the high mountain streams of Montana last summer and was a total disaster. Fifteen years on the salt turned me into a strip-striking brute and I broke off all but three fish I hooked that week. Different locations call for different disciplines. I spent a good deal of time that week on trout fishing and came up short. Don’t make the same mistake when you come down here after bonefish. Trust me, they’re much less forgiving. Learn that forty foot/five second cast and you’ll get more than your money’s worth from any Caribbean fly fishing vacation.