Category: Saltwater

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Hawaii

I’ve never really wanted to go to Hawaii. People tell me that if you get away from the crowds it’s a beautiful place. I’m sure it is, but it’s never much appealed to me. There are so many other places to see, places with deserts and rivers and such. But damn, Willie Nelson. Willie Nelson now lives in Hawaii. That’s tough to ignore.

The contact I’ve had with Hawaii has been pretty casual. My Dad’s first cousin, Houston O’Neil Thomas, U.S. Navy coxswain and son of Sam Houston Thomas, died on the Arizona at Pearl Harbor. I guess that isn’t exactly casual but it was 15 years before I was born, so it was remote. I’ve looked up his name in the Arizona’s dead, and my great-grandmother, Sam Houston’s grandmother, died ten days later, on December 27, 1941, the second family casualty of World War II. Maybe that run-in with Hawaii explains some of its lack of appeal.

Like a lot of bookish teenagers of a certain age I read James Michener’s Hawaii, and I’ve watched enough episodes of Hawaii Five-O to say “Book ’em Dano” with conviction. For years though I thought the lead actor was Darrin McGavin. I’m not much of an Elvis fan either.

I do like the music, or what I know of it. There’s a particular style of guitar in Hawaii, called slack-key.  The name comes from slacking the guitar’s standard tuning to an open tuning.  If the 1st and 6th strings are tuned down, slacked, from E to D, and the 5th string is slacked from A to G, the guitar is tuned to a G chord without the left hand–every beginning guitarists dream. The open tuning changes chording and scales, but there are some famous open tuning players–I always think of Joni Mitchell–and slack key guitar is lovely. This song by Keola Beamer is pretty perfect. 

But open tunings were never enough to make me want to go to Hawaii. I’m not a beach guy, and at least from what I can tell, all of Hawaii seems to be an enormous beach town. I suspect I’m too old to learn to surf, and always was. Or maybe just too pale to learn to surf, and always was. Or maybe just too dubious about my own athleticism.

So last year when I made my New Year’s resolution I was thinking I’ll have to go to Hawaii, and this is the only thing that would ever get me there. I’ve never wanted to go to Las Vegas either, though I did have a layover in the airport once. I wouldn’t mind a layover in Hawaii on my way to Christmas Island.

Maybe I’d think differently if Hawaii was a fishing destination, but it’s not. I think there’s some offshore fishing, but I get seasick, and I think it may be touristy stuff. Of course I guess I’m a tourist. There’s also  spear fishing, but it’s hard to catch and release with a spear. Anyway Hawaiian fishing was unregulated and subsistence or commercial for long enough to deplete much of the inshore fishery, and despite all that ocean there are apparently not a lot of fish. 

And it’s not really known to fly fishers, except as a layover for the Christmas Islands. There is some freshwater fishing in a freshwater supply reservoir near Honolulu, but the only report I’ve read was during a drought, and it wasn’t very appealing. Maybe in better years it’s like any other lake. There are also stocked trout at high elevations on Kauai. Trout fishing in America.

The last decade though there’s been some good press on Hawaii bonefish, o’io. They’re big. Bonefish are a destination fish, and the best places I know, Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, Los Rocques, Venezuela, parts of the Bahamas, the east coast of the Yucatan, Belize, and South Florida, are destination fisheries. Los Rocques and Christmas Island are supposed to be the best, if you can get past traveling to Venezuela, on the one hand, or the time and money investment of going to a place where there’s one plane a week. The plane! The plane! Book ’em Danno.

Belize and the Yucatan are really the same place separated by a border that the fish ignore. The fish there are smaller, mostly in the one to three pound range, but there are lots of them.  That’s where I’ve fished, Belize, with small, relatively easy-to-catch fish. Big fish are apparently a different fish: warier, faster, stronger . . . The Bahamas is a destination not because of quantity but because it has big fish.

Hawaii is supposed to have big fish, as big as the Bahamas, but the bonefish flats, the places where you fly fish for bonefish, are apparently small, scattered, and mostly on Oahu. Mountainous volcanic islands that pop up out of the ocean aren’t the best places to find flats. There must be something there though. There are lots of guides. Maybe there are lots of tourists? I suspect there are lots of tourists.

It’s also a place where apparently the wind blows hard much of the time, up to 25 knots (that’s a nautical mile, or 1.15 statute miles), and if you do hook a fish you have to keep them out of the coral or you’ll lose the fish. When we go it will also be the rainy season. It’s not ideal. 

But we’ll go, right after New Years.

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Working Water

This was our third trip to Maryland in roughly a year. Last August we visited Camden Yard to see the Astros play the Orioles, and caught rainbows on a side-trip to the Gunpowder River.  In May we fished the Chesapeake for one day. We got blown off the water and caught nothing.

We fished in May with Captain Tom Hughes.  It was terrible weather, but that’s what you get sometimes, particularly fishing with the Thomases, and allowing only one day for a place doesn’t always work, particularly in saltwater.  Captain Hughes told us to come back and fish a half-day for the cost of gas. We split the difference and booked a whole day.

Fishing once with a guide is kind of random. You don’t know the guide and the guide doesn’t know you. Fishing the second time with Captain Tom was fishing with a friend. First thing he said was we’re getting your fish. We started north up the bay, a big working waterway like our home Port of Galveston, to where the freighter UBC Sacramento was anchored under load. There were birds working and bait popping, and for the next three hours we fished, both of us with his 9-weight Orvis Helios rods, fine rods, but me with a 350-grain Orvis Depth-Charge line and weighted Clouser and Kris with a popper on a floating line. In 50-feet of water she was fishing poppers. It didn’t matter though what we were fishing: we both caught fish.

I had fished freighters once before, offshore from South Padre Island just north of Mexico, where freighters stacked up for the Port of Brownsville. We were fishing king mackerel, called kingfish in Texas, at 30 feet with 10-weights and for blue runners on the surface with a 6-weight. There were big rollers and I was seasick, really seasick, and the guide was annoyed that I didn’t know what I was doing with a sinking line, but who knows how to fish a freighter? Captain Tom knows. And unlike that South Texas guide Captain Tom knew how to tell us what to do.

Of course that South Padre guide may also have been annoyed that I kept throwing up over his boat’s gunnels. Mostly I made it over the gunnels anyway.

I was surprised how much I liked fishing the Depth Charge line. It was easier to cast than I thought it would be, and Captain Tom knows how to translate the screen of a fish finder into presentation of a fly at a depth. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it, and together with knowledge of structure (including the UBC Sacramento) and observation of birds may be the best way to consistently fish big water like the Chesapeake. Periodically he’d tell me fish were stacked around 20’ and 40’, and to let the line sink for a 12-count, about a foot a second with the heavy Clouser. I asked him why if the fish were at 20 feet he didn’t tell me to let the line go for a 20-count? These fish, he said, are aggressive. These aren’t lazy fish. They’ll come up to the fly if they’re feeding. If they won’t come up to the fly don’t bother.

Sometimes when we were in a flock of working birds and there were stripers crashing the surface I stripped in the Clouser as soon as it hit the water. I was fishing poppers too.

Captain Tom has to report to Maryland how many fish are caught out of his boat when he guides, and he somewhat conservatively came up with 56, all in the first four hours. All of us thought he under-counted a bit. It was hard to keep up, and and in addition to the fish landed Kris and I both missed plenty of strikes. The fish weren’t giants, the smallest few were not much more than a pound and the largest probably three, but there was nothing tentative about them. They were saltwater-bright and strong even at a pound, and whatever: I know I caught my fish. I caught my Chesapeake rockfish. That’s the right color of fish for Maryland.

When I go back to fish stripers again maybe I’ll want to hunt for larger fish. Or maybe not. 56 fish is anybody’s good day.

By the end of the day we covered 35 miles of water, and when the fish finally shut off Kris and I were worn out. We ate lunch drifting in the bay. Later I napped a bit while Captain Tom explored the bridge pilings, but there was nothing there, at least nothing worth breaking out the rods for. Kris said she never got to nap because I wouldn’t shut up. Later still Captain Tom gave us a water-side tour of the Naval Academy and the Annapolis waterfront. There are lots of sailboats in Annapolis.

It was a good day. Every angler should fish the Chesapeake, it’s quintessential American water, and anybody who’s interested in fly fishing big water should fish the Chesapeake with Captain Tom. It’s pretty great fly fishing, fish or no fish.

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Biloxi Marsh

I caught my Louisiana red.  It was three or four pounds, a decent fish for Texas but nothing special for Louisiana where redfish are larger.  It’s caught though, and Louisiana is done.

We fished the Biloxi Marsh Wildlife Management Area, a  36,644 acre estuary 40 miles east of New Orleans, owned by the Biloxi Marsh Lands Corporation and leased to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, subject to mineral rights. The Biloxi Marsh Lands Corporation was founded in the 30s to own the marsh and lease land for oil and gas exploration.  I suspect it was a transfer of public lands to private parties for the benefit of Huey P. Long, his friends, and his family. It was probably formed after oil had been discovered but before state lands were leased.  If that’s not the case, if the land was always private and it was all on the up and up, I’d be pleasantly surprised, but it wouldn’t change my opinion of Huey P. Long. If he didn’t run that scam in the Biloxi Marsh he ran it somewhere.

On a Saturday in August the Marsh was mostly empty.

The marsh looks like how a marsh is supposed to look: flat and watery and grassy. It’s shallow, but it’s no Caribbean flat, and it’s too far north for mangroves. There’s no clear water or sandy bottom.  It’s muck, mostly, muck and oysters, and not a  place for wading. When the pole went deep in the mud black ooze came up with the pole.

We launched out of Campo’s Marina in Yscloskey.  Yscloskey was originally settled by Spanish Canary Islanders in the late 18th century, and in 1900 was still a Canary Islander descendent fishing village. That Campo surname probably isn’t random.

Yscloskey was destroyed by Katrina–the New York Times reported there was nothing left intact but a single light bulb and a garden hose–but it looks well enough now.  It was busy on Saturday for the blessing of the fleet at the start of the shrimp season. The shrimp boats as often as not flew Confederate battle flags, along with plenty of pennants, the Louisiana state flag, the American flag, and some other flags I didn’t recognize. There was lots of red, white, and blue and purple and gold.

*  *  *

You’re never very far from a discussion about Katrina in New Orleans. It’s not the same city, literally. What held people in New Orleans before Katrina was extended family networks and the Ignatius J. Reilly state of being: if you were born in New Orleans and lived in New Orleans you as likely as not never went anyplace else unless it was 90 miles to LSU.  Katrina forced people to leave, and after Katrina the family networks were damaged.  Cousins who left for Houston or Dallas or Atlanta got new jobs and better houses and schools and never came back. Twelve years later in the Treme near Willie Mae’s Scotch House there are still boarded houses.

*  *  *

Kris caught two reds. She hooked a big red, at least 20 pounds, but got distracted and the fish broke off.  You can’t multi-task when landing a 20 pound fish. Lesson learned. I learned a lesson too.  Fishing the second day with a New Orleans hangover isn’t that much fun. I really didn’t need that final Sazerac even if it was the Sazerac Bar, and I didn’t need the Abita with the oysters at Felix Oyster House to start the evening, and I certainly didn’t need what came in between. Lesson learned. Also, take insect repellent, and use the insect repellent you take.

Our guide, Bailey Short, used big heavy flies, 10 weight rods, and 20-pound leaders.  It was big stuff, much bigger than I’d expected.

He polled slow. There was no hurry to get anyplace because we were already there. Thorough, he said, you gotta get to the spot and be thorough. There were fish where we were, and we needed to take our time and spot them. Sooner or later we did, even if we didn’t catch them.

We talked to Bailey about the fall and winter months, the supposedly best months, but he said that the fish were just as big in the summer and that everybody now had heard about the big winter reds. There was so much winter pressure with interloper guides rolling in from Florida and Texas that July and August were in some ways better. He showed us lots of fish and we got lots of shots. Bailey did great, and was great company, but the fish didn’t cooperate. It certainly wasn’t my hungover casting. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

When we left Yskloskey for the airport Kris said she wanted a burger but I said po’boy and at the turn on to the highway Yelp! told us that the Last Stop Grocery and Deli sold po’boys. We sat out under the awning in the Gulf breeze and listened to the insect sounds and watched the jungle green on the side of the road. It was the perfect last moment in Louisiana.  Good fried shrimp po’boys too.

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Transgender Redfish Romance

Stevenson, Charles Hugh, Report on the Coast Fisheries of Texas, Report of the Commissioner (United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries), 1889-1891. From Wikimedia Commons.

The fishiest class warfare in Texas was fought in the 80s over redfish. Redfish had gone from trash fish to prom queen, and wild redfish were depleted. The war was fought in the Texas Legislature, which has since moved on to crucial issues like transgender bathroom use. Unlike, say, global warming or education or medicaid expansion, transgender bathroom use in Texas is a big problem.  We’ll fix it though. After the legislature gets done those transgender folk will just have to cross their legs and wiggle. No more peeing for them.

The Redfish Bill was H.B. 1000, and proponents of a commercial fishing ban were portrayed as wealthy sport fishers, which in fact they kinda were. The opponents were portrayed as working class commercial fishermen who were losing their livelihood, which if that includes seafood distributers and restaurant owners they also probably were. Texas passed the Redfish Bill and banned commercial harvesting of redfish and speckled trout.  There were other reasons for the redfish decline in Texas and around the Coast:  no size and take limits, loss of habitat, and damage to water quality certainly had as much or more to do with stock declines as inshore commercial fishers. Really, what happened on the Gulf Coast in the 70s was pretty much what happened to stripers in the Chesapeake in the 70s.

Notwithstanding predictions, after passage of the Redfish Bill redfish didn’t disappear from restaurants.  Farming has boosted supply, and if anything table redfish are more popular now than ever.  My favorite way to cook redfish is on the half shell. Filet the fish but leave the scales so the skin and scales hold the filet together. Season and then throw the filets on a medium grill for 12 minutes or so.  The scales aren’t much fun if you accidentally eat one, but at their best it’s like eating the ocean, better even than oysters.

The Commerce Department finally imposed a gill net ban in federal Gulf waters in 1986 after the annual redfish harvest had risen 800% in five years. States in addition to Texas imposed reasonable size and take limits on sport fishers. Water quality and habitat also improved. It’s now a healthy fish population, and in 2015 redfish were rated of least concern on the IUCN Red List.

Redfish live inshore and near-shore, in both brackish and saltwater, and range in largish numbers south from the Chesapeake, around Florida, through the Gulf, and south into Mexico. Redfish get romantic when the water temperature hits about 65°. They spawn in deeper water, 50 to 100 feet, on incoming tides, and it’s the bulls, at least +30-inches, that move offshore to spawn. They spawn off and on for months, with a female dropping millions of eggs in a season.

Good guides won’t target spawning redfish. Bringing the fish up from deep water causes problems, they’re shallow water fish, and for meat fishers the big reds are poor quality.

Bulls, as in Bull Reds, is a generic term that covers any redfish, male or female, that’s reached 30+ inches. Apparently the lady redfish are also bulls, so I guess that makes them transgender, so the Texas Legislature should take note. After release, fertilized eggs hatch in a day or so and like tarpon the larvae are carried inshore, The fry feed first on plankton, then move on to crab and shrimp and baitfish.  Their first year they reach 14 inches.  By year four or five they’re mature. They can live longer than 30 years, and reach 70 pounds and 50 inches.

I can think of few things lovelier than a slot-sized juvenile red sitting in seagrass in clear bay water.  I must think they’re pretty because I spend so much time looking for them. I also think their elders are kinda ugly, but that’s also a problem for me as I age.

The most important thing I was ever told about redfish, other than strip-set, was don’t grab them in the mouth like bass. Reds eat crabs. Fish that eat crabs crush fingers. It’s probably wise not to stick fingers in their mouths.