I have written here a few times about my Christmas Island adventure. I had not been in that environment before and may never again. It was bizarre dozens of times over. I cannot put into words the images and spatial adjustments your vision and mind have to try to adjust to. It is, by virtue of never ending horizons, a tilting, catawhompus world.
The above picture by no means is related to a salt flat, but it made me think of standing with a guide facing outward toward the edge of the flat, as the light sand gave way to the blue abyss. I saw nothing. The guide stared out seeing or sensing something through those copper colored lens. And, then they were there. A dozen pointy tails lined across my path some fifty feet out. The tails were sticking up out of the water ever so slightly and the bonefish were nose down feeding… A surreal scene of contrasts, wind, shimmer and life.
I was instructed to carefully cast before the fish and not on top of the fish. As much as you can judge distance so easily on a stream or lake and plop that fly down where you want, on the flat I was never sure if that was really fifty feet, one hundred feet or shorter. This time, I fought the wind and succeeded in placing the fly before the approaching, feeding bones. The take was immediate and the run was beyond description for speed and power. I have tried to explain what that is like compared to my freshwater experiences, but nothing compares for speed or power (by size). The bonefish screamed out so quickly toward the deep and then down and down until the leader was cut from the coral.
My lasting memory from that moment was the fish yes, but really those bobbing tails out of the water just enough to excite and bring the stealth mode out, always enter my mind. It was like casting to the rising trout or the stillwater fish up in the shallows picking off damsels from the reeds. The stalking is the same.
SwittersB & Exploring 