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Tippets
Tippets Short Takes on Important Topics
Photo: Pat Ford
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust’s 7th International Science Symposium and Flats Expo has been postponed until November 12-13, 2021. The two-day event at the Bonaventure Resort & Spa will bring together stakeholders from across the world of flats fishing—anglers, guides, industry leaders, government agencies, scientists, outdoor writers, authors and artists. The 2021 program will include presentations on major research findings by BTT along with spin and fly casting clinics, fly tying clinics, panel discussions with top anglers and guides, art and photography, and a special banquet honoring legendary anglers Sandy Moret and Chico Fernandez and BTT Research Fellow Dr. Andy Danylchuk for their contributions to flats fishery conservation. The Symposium will also feature an expanded Flats Fishing Expo, where sponsors will have a bright spotlight to share information about their products and corporate commitment to conservation. We look forward to seeing you there. Stay tuned to BTT social media for updates on this special event.
NC MAKES TARPON CATCH & RELEASE
The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission passed an amendment on February 20, 2020, that prohibits possession of tarpon and makes it illegal to gaff, spear, or puncture tarpon by any method other than hook and line. BTT supported the amendment throughout the process and applauds the NC Marine Fisheries Commission for taking this important step to improve the state’s management of the tarpon fishery, which will strengthen regional tarpon conservation. “Protecting this magnificent fish while it spends time in our North Carolina waters is a great move by the NC Division of Marine Fisheries Commission Board,” said Capt. Jot Owens, North Carolina fishing guide and BTT Conservation Captain. “Thank you to everyone who supported this amendment and a special thanks to the Commission board members who voted in favor of this ruling.”
CAYO ROSARIO PLAN ILL-CONCEIVED
Bonefish & Tarpon Trust supports the flats fishing community and Belizean citizens in their opposition to a proposed development at Cayo Rosario, and to the current construction-related activities taking place there. “The development plan for Cayo Rosario is ill-conceived, not appropriate for these habitats, and will damage Belize’s economically and culturally important flats fishery, which has an annual economic impact of more than $100 million Belize dollars,” said BTT President and CEO Jim McDuffie.
Cayo Rosario is privately owned, and lies within the Hol Chan Marine Reserve (HCMR). This area is part of HCMR to protect important flats fishing areas for the economic and cultural benefit of the surrounding communities. Thus, development may be permitted on the caye, but the surrounding waters and submerged bottom are protected. Of chief concern is the construction of overwater
bungalows (OWB) that extend onto the flats that surround the island. The proposed OWBs will negatively impact the flats habitat and the fishery as a whole. To learn more and take action visit: www.defendcayorosario.com.
BTT CLOSING IN ON LIKELY SPAWNING SITE
For a bonefish fishery to be productive, bonefish must be allowed to spawn undisturbed. Finding where bonefish spawn, and protecting those fish and the habitats that support them, is a core component of BTT’s conservation approach. With the help of guides and partners, BTT has identified multiple pre-spawning aggregation (PSA) sites in the Bahamas and along the Belize-Mexico border. Yet the locations of bonefish PSAs in the Florida Keys remain a mystery, one that must be solved if we are to ensure the future health of the Keys’ bonefish fishery and help it reclaim its former glory. To identify these sites, BTT is tagging bonefish with acoustic transmitters and tracking their movements and migrations by downloading data from receivers (listening stations) anchored to the bottom that detect those tagged fish when they swim by. When BTT scientists Dr. Ross Boucek and Ph.D. student Nick Castillo analyzed data from late last year, they made an exciting discovery. On the full moon in December 2019, a 24-inch female bonefish that was tagged near Big Pine Key was detected by a receiver over 30 miles away, near a location that BTT scientists think might be a PSA site. This discovery is a significant step in the right direction. “Detecting this fish on its migration doesn’t tell us exactly where she spawned or where the PSA is, but gets us closer,” explained Dr. Boucek. Stay tuned to BTT social media for more updates on BTT’s bonefish spawning research.
BTT FLATS ECOLOGY LESSON PLANS NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE
Our first round of education lesson plans for grades 2 through 12 are now available as part of the BTT Flats Ecology Curriculum. These lesson plans meet Florida education standards and have been certified by CPALMS, the State of Florida’s official source for standards information and course descriptions. The new curriculum uses bonefish, tarpon, permit, and snook to teach about coastal habitats, food webs, fish life cycles, and more. The lessons are dynamic and engaging, and encourage students to explore the coastal and marine environments to apply their new knowledge. The lesson plans can be accessed directly at:
www.btt.org/education-outreach.
WIN THE FLY-FISHING TRIP OF A LIFETIME
The winner of BTT’s annual members-only drawing and his/her guest will enjoy four nights at Red Bays Sunset Lodge on Andros’ famed northwest coast and three days of guided flats fishing with the lodge’s team of experienced guides. Located a few miles north of the historic sponge settlement of Red Bays, the lodge was built in 2018 by Benry Smith, son of legendary guide Charlie Smith, also known as Crazy Charlie. The six-person operation specializes not only in trophy bonefish anytime of year, but also tarpon and occasional large permit during the warmer months. If you prefer to wade for bones, the expansive, hard white sand flats of the Joulter’s Cays is only a short 15-minute boat ride from the lodge. All dues-paying BTT members who join or renew during 2020 will be automatically entered to win, with the drawing taking place on January 7, 2021.
Tom Davidson, Sr.
FEATURED CO-AUTHORS Chico Fernandez and Aaron Adams, PhD
CONTRIBUTING STORY AUTHORS Stu Apte, Don Bowers, Bill Curtis, Sandy Moret, Billy Pate, and Steve Venini
Contents: History of the sport, equipment choices, casting hints, bonefish lifecycle and behavior, comprehensive list of angling lodges, very entertaining short stories by the sports angling legends. About the Author Bonefish B.S. II
Expanded and Updated Edition
by BTT Founding Chairman Tom Davidson, Sr., with new contributions from Chico Fernandez and Aaron Adams, Ph.D. Inspired by a love for bone shing and a passion for protecting the ats shery, Bone sh B.S. II features bone sh science, short stories by angling legends, casting tips, a comprehensive list of lodges and more... ALL PROCEEDS from the sale of Tom Davidson, Sr. grew up in the Midwest and made his adult home in Toronto, Ontario, Canada – a long way from the nearest bonefish. Although a life long avid fisherman and hunter, he hadn’t had occasion to try shallow saltwater fishing until the 1970s. Well, it was an instant love affair and one that shaped Tom’s movements and choices in years to come. Having enjoyed reasonable business success as an entrepreneur and industrialist in Canada, United States and Europe, Tom was able to semi-retire early, spending increasing amounts of time at his winter home in Key Largo at Ocean Reef Club starting in the late 1970s. By the late 1980s he was spending most of the winter in the Florida Keys – and most of that time on a bonefish skiff. Bone sh B.S. II go to Bone sh & Tarpon Trust.Tom’s passion for fishing was distracted in 1992 by Hurricane
Andrew’s damage to the Ocean Reef area and by his involvement as Chairman of the residents buy-out of the Ocean Reef Club and as initial chairman of the new Club.
Get your copy at: Continued on back flap https://btt.shop-ivars.com
Ewoud de Groot (Dutch, b. 1969) Curlew | SOLD FOR $19,200
Accepting Quality Consignments for THE WINTER SALE FEBRUARY 2021
Florida Keys Bonefish Are Back!
BY T. EDWARD NICKENS
The reports have dribbled in over the last five years. During the past few seasons, around Key Largo and Biscayne Bay, BTT’s Vice Chairman Emeritus Russ Fisher started hooking double digits of bonefish in a single day—a feat he hadn’t enjoyed in decades. In the middle Keys, guide Doug Kilpatrick began encountering more small bonefish about 2015. Over the last few years, he says, large schools of 2- to 4-pound bones have mudded both the ocean and bay sides of the Keys. Although he typically guides more for tarpon than for bonefish, his anglers are consistently catching 4-pound bones, and a client landed a true 8-pounder in early June. and all the way out to the Marquesas, the venerated archipelago of mangrove clad islands 20 miles west of Duval Street, bonefish are on the upswing, in a region famous for the flats ghosts—and nearly as famous for what was their stunning decline.
These aren’t the huge fish of yesteryear, marked by 10-pound or more bones. At least, not yet. But over the last five years, guides and anglers throughout the Florida Keys have reported more bonefish, in more places, than most observers had seen in decades.
Now the whispered hopes have become a cautious chorus: Bonefish in the Florida Keys are back. Guides and avid anglers are positively breathless about the revival. And the timing is propitious, to say the least. While the COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the travel and guiding business, the return of bonefish has emerged as
a stunning piece of stellar news for both guides and anglers. Long considered the birthplace of flats fly-fishing, courtesy of the gray ghost, the Keys seem to be turning the page on a long dark fishing chapter. And the future for the fish looks brighter than it has for a long time.
“It’s more than a comeback,” said Sandy Moret, a BTT board member, owner of Florida Keys Outfitters, and founder of the 31-year-old Florida Keys Fly Fishing School. “It’s crazy. It’s like a landslide of bonefish sometimes. We’re not finding the 12-pounders with their fins out of the water and slithering all about. But there are lots of 4- and 5-pound-fish when a couple of years ago they were mostly 2 and 3 pounds. And they’re only going to get bigger.”
A Florida Keys bonefish. Photo: Ian Wilson
Scientists who study bonefish agree that it’s a new day in the Keys. “No one is jumping the gun with this enthusiasm,” said Dr. Aaron Adams, Director of Science and Conservation for BTT. “The bonefish are coming back, and it’s fantastic to see a lot more fish and know that those fish could all get a lot bigger.” Adams was a part of a 2017 study that posited three separate periods of bonefish fishing success in Florida Bay since 1990, when guides began reporting whether bonefish were targeted on a fishing charter. From 1990 to 1998, guides reported catching bonefish on 60 percent of their trips. Between 1999 and 2009, that figure had fallen to 48 percent. Between 2011 and 2014, success bottomed out at only 37 percent. To see angler success rise again is exciting.
Still, there’s a cautious note to the optimism: Why did the Keys’ bonefish populations fall off so dramatically? And what are the mechanisms supporting a rebound?
Capt. Doug Kilpatrick and BTT Florida Keys Initiative Manager Dr. Ross Boucek fishing for bonefish near Key West. Photo: Ian Wilson
Research by BTT scientists suggests that numerous factors commingled to kick off the bonefish tailspin. Water quality issues, of course, have long plagued South Florida. It’s possible that ocean currents shifted somewhat, disrupting routes of bonefish larvae drift throughout their range. A major freeze in the Keys in 2010 definitely impacted bonefish. “I had dead bonefish belly-up in the canal by my house,” recalled Kilpatrick, who lives on Summerland Key. Other ills could be reflected in the discovery of prescription medicines in bonefish. A BTT-supported study at Florida International University in 2016 found that 14 different pharmaceuticals were present in bonefish, including antihypertensive agents, psychoactive compounds, antihistamines, and muscle relaxants.
“There’s been a lot of time and effort spent trying to figure out what caused the decline,” reported Adams. “As with most ecological issues, there’s rarely a single driver. We have a number of possibilities, not a single smoking gun.” Since juvenile bonefish largely disappeared from the Keys for a number of years, why are they back? The fact that the Keys switched largely from septic systems to sewer treatment in the late 2010s had to help, many say. Net restrictions in some Caribbean countries, especially Belize, Cuba and Mexico, are likely a factor. And many guides report a sea change in attitudes and actions regarding fish handling. “The culture is much better in terms of fish handling,” said Kilpatrick. “Most people in this sport have caught a bonefish, so they don’t need another photo. You rarely see anyone pull a fish out of the water. I try not to touch the fish at all.” than ever to conserve the spawning and nursery sites that support bonefish populations. But that effort has proven particularly confounding for scientists. Bonefish are famously known as flats dwellers, but when it comes time to spawn, thousands of bonefish will migrate and gather in pre-spawning areas, then head to deepwater spawning sites at dusk. One study in the Bahamas revealed spawning aggregations at an astonishing depth of 450 feet.
Efforts to uncover the pre-spawning areas and spawning sites across the range of bonefish have been exhaustive. In one study, 2,600 “virtual larvae” were released into a massive database model based on known oceanic circulation patterns, then tracked for 53 days to reveal the connectivity between bonefish larvae from widely varying sites. A four-year study of bonefish genetics that wrapped up in 2018 supports the findings of the larval transport study, and shows a significant portion of Florida Keys bonefish are spawned in Belize,
Cuba, and Mexico. In another study, Justin Lewis, BTT’s Bahamas Initiative Manager, and his collaborators captured more than 7,000 bonefish using seine nets and marked each fish with a dart tag. Fishing guides and anglers through Abaco, Grand Bahama, and Andros reported recaptures to present a picture of strong site fidelity: 60 percent of the bonefish were caught within five kilometers of where they were tagged. At the same time, however, the study underscored knowledge about how far bonefish travel to spawn. Recaptures at pre-spawning areas included migrations from home range to the spawning site as far as 75 kilometers.
spawning sites on the islands of Abaco, Grand Bahama, and Andros. Other specific sites have been uncovered in Belize, Mexico, and Cuba. It’s a massive step forward in bonefish conservation—based on these studies alone, five new national parks have been established in the Bahamas. But in the Florida Keys, one giant missing link in the bonefish puzzle is, simply, where do the fish spawn?
That remains a mystery. It could be that numbers have been so low that finding spawning fish was doubly difficult. But as part of an ongoing study to find where Keys bonefish spawn, BTT has placed 100 acoustic receivers throughout the Keys to track bonefish movements and pin down the important pre-spawning grounds where the fish aggregate before migrating offshore to spawn. Minimizing disturbances from boat traffic or poor water quality inflows are critical to protect these areas.
It’s one of the last pieces of the conservation puzzle for bonefish. “And we’re getting closer,” Adams reported. During the full moon of December 2019, a 24-inch female bonefish outfitted with an acoustic tag the previous September on Big Pine Key was detected by a receiver more than 30 miles away. That fish, dubbed “5905” for her acoustic tag number, was almost definitely headed for one of the Keys’ mysterious spawning areas.
“We’re taking what we learned in the Bahamas about preferred habitat characteristics for spawning, and we’re getting closer to discovery of specific locations in the Lower Keys,” said Adams. “These are pretty specific areas—a bay that might be a quarter-mile wide. But once we find them, the work will begin to protect them.”
The bonefish comeback couldn’t come at a more needed moment. The COVID-19 pandemic nearly shuttered the Florida Keys guiding industry, and few regions in the United States can point to how a single recreational fishery influences both culture and economy so deeply. Pre-COVID, the flats fishery in south Florida was worth $465 million a year. That’s a lot of boat gas and tippet material. But it’s also a lot of groceries, daycare, and school supplies for guides, outfitters, hotel clerks, and bartenders and their families. Any good news will help relaunch a business that is as important for guides and their families as it is beloved by anglers.
These fish might be smaller than in days gone by. But they are back where they ought to be. For older guides, it’s a glimpse of déjà vu. And for younger guides and anglers who’ve wondered if there could be a way to rewind the clock, the Keys’ bonefish comeback is particularly exciting.
Count Augie Moss among them. The 38-year-old guide grew up visiting Key Largo with his parents, attended the University of Miami before law school, and moved to Islamorada in 2012 after four years as a Chicago lawyer. For his first few years he guided offshore fishing trips, but soon fell under the same flats fishing spell that lured the first wave of bonefish anglers to the Florida flats after World War II. Except the bonefish weren’t there. Moss had a mentor in Duane Baker, a renowned Upper Keys guide known for his bonefish chops. They fished weekly throughout 2013, 2014, and 2015. “As far as bonefish goes,” recalled Moss, “it was brutal, and if anybody was going to find them, he was the guy. I don’t know how many days we’d go without seeing a single bonefish.”
Thankfully, there are plenty of other Keys fish to hunt, and Moss is now a full-time flats guide, splitting time between his home waters in Islamorada and Biscayne Bay. But over the last couple of years, he says, he’s caught glimpses of the famed bonefish fishery of the past. “I’ve had those days when it was epic,” he said. “Now I can understand what all the old-timers talk about. I’d love to see that happen again, and I’m hopeful that what’s going on today is a precursor to going back to what it used to be.”
An award-winning author and journalist, T. Edward Nickens is editor-at-large of Field & Stream and a contributing editor for Garden & Gun and Audubon magazine.
