Thank you for allowing me to put my “two cents” in about the fishing frontiers of Vieques and say something positive about our precious island.

  My most recent trip was to a little flat on the south side of the island. My girlfriend and I went to spend the night on the boat, and fish that afternoon and the next morning.

  When we got there that afternoon there were Bonefish feeding all over the flat. We could see them from the boat! I rowed in and five minutes after stepping on the flat, I had my first bonefish! A few seconds later he spit the hook out. It hurt.

  I kept walking and a few minutes later I was stalking another fish. He was a single and from the size of his tail it seemed to have shoulders the size of mine. I put the fly in his face and he chased but did not take. I picked the line back up and placed a second cast. The same thing happened.

  On the third cast, I hit him on the head with the fly and instead of being spooked away, he jumped on it. The next thing I know, I am clearing my fly line and once I had him on the reel he took of with about 100 yards of baking which quickly became 175 when he decided to stop. This began our tug of war. I would bring him close until he would turn and run and take 50 yards; this went on for about 15 minutes. When he finally came to my hands and I picked him up, he was about 9-10 pounds of spectacular bonefish. After letting him catch his breath for a few moments I released him to fight another day. By this time it was almost dark and after wiping the tears from my face, I decided to call it a day.

  That night fishing of the boat my lovely girlfriend caught a few snappers, including a big mutton snapper in the 6-7 pound range. She also released a small lemon shark.

  The next morning we walked the flat and saw some bonefish, but they were not in casting range. After about three hours, the tide started going out and I thought it was all over until I saw a big patch of muddy water. (Bonefish are known for creating these patches when feeding in deeper waters.) In doing this, they stir up the bottom digging for food. This is known as “mudding”. Once I spotted this, I ventured out to about 3 feet of water and began to cast.
On my second cast, they let me know they were thereby breaking me off in a second. Again it hurt, but I wasted no time and tied another fly – a leaded “Brown Crazy Charlie”.

  After I dropped it in the muddy water, let it sink and gave it a few short strips, he took it. Line sped through my fingers until I got him to the reel. All I could hear was the sound of the screaming reel, and what a lovely sound it is.
In true bonefish form, he sped out in seconds with about 130 yards of my baking. This fish gave me three good runs, all of them having him at my feet and he would suddenly head for the horizon.

 To my surprise when I landed him, he was a bit smaller than the one the day before, yet he still had 6-7 pounds on him. Before release, we took a few pictures for the archives and I held on to him until he fully recovered, so the bull shark in the perimeter would not get him. He kicked hard out of my hands and I sent him on his way.

  It was a great overnight trip filled with fish and good company. To end this fishing report I will just say that there are plenty of bonefish in Vieques and their size is nothing to be taken lightly.

Keep ‘em tight!!!
Capt. Franco González