The Allure of Fish that Bite Back

The Allure of Fish that Bite Back 

Today, most trout are pretty wary, because we’ve made them that way.

I mean, if you were force-fed, gagged and pulled around by the face, over and over again, you’d probably think twice about running toward the dinner bell as well.

That’s not to say trout aren’t instinctively aggressive in some places. I remember fishing a spring creek on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russian East Asia, where we had flown in on an Mi-2 helicopter. The native rainbows likely hadn’t ever seen a fly, so we threw big mouse flies into the middle of the river, creating splashes and commotion, and watched as 5-pound rainbows shot off the bank like torpedoes, pushing wakes and thrashing the water as they attacked the flies. If the fish missed the mouse, all you had to do was give the line a strip to pop the fly, and the trout would wheel back and attack again. I hear that still happens in some places in Alaska, but not many.

I wonder if we let parts of certain rivers like the Madison, Colorado, or Delaware rest for a few years, whether the trout would get braver. Or would they still mostly eat the little morsels that bonk them in the head? That’ll never happen, so why bother hypothesizing? But if trout did ever get that aggressive in some of those most trafficked rivers, I’d hope for more mouse and streamer fishing, but what I’d really like is to see one swim up to a guide who does nothing but throw bobbers and weighted nymph rigs all day, every day, and bite them right in the hind waders.

You have to respect fish that can and will bite back. They don’t just eat flies, they attack them. Northern pike, muskies, sharks, barracudas…

I wonder why more people don’t fish for them primarily. I get that northern pike are considered nuisance species in some places, but they have moxie, and they do make for a good shore lunch. Muskies are the proverbial “fish of 10,000 casts,” but that one cast that connects will change your life forever.

I’ve long threatened to take a tropical trip where the focus would be mostly on catching barracudas. I’ve been bailed out by ‘cudas on several rainy, otherwise wasted bonefish days by trolling a deep-diving crankbait behind the boat. That actually made one trip for my then-teenage son, who was growing weary of that silly spot-and-stalk stuff for bottom-sucking bonefish. When a barracuda hits a fly, you know it, and the leaps are second to none.

Speaking of leaps, perhaps my favorite story I’ve ever written was about fly fishing with Conway Bowman off the coast of San Diego for shortfin mako sharks, which can swim over 60 m.p.h. and jump over twice their body length above the water surface. In other words, a six-foot-long mako can run the length of a football field three times faster than an N.F.L. player, and then jump over the crossbar of the goalposts.

The story was called “Flyfishing Gone Mad” and it ran in Field & Stream magazine. We started by dumpster diving behind a sushi restaurant looking for tuna bellies–“the Dom Perignon of chum”–and ended with Bowman tied into a large shark while seated on a kayak in the open ocean. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Fortunately, the shark ended up slicing the leader with its tail, and we all went home happy with a good story.

Several years ago, I visited Conway and Al Quattrocchi for a redux on makos and one of us (I forgot who) tied into one that we estimated to weigh 800 pounds. As it leapt high enough for us to be looking up at it, even from 100 yards away, the thought did cross my mind that I was getting too old for this shit.

But now, it seems, the older I get and the more my fishing tastes evolve, I’m spending considerably more time looking for fish that can and will bite back.

They often make life on the water a contact sport and decidedly more interesting. – Kirk Deeter

Tideline Profile: Conway Bowman

The last stop on the “Sanity Express” may well be “the 182,” a nondescript point on a GPS map twenty-some miles off the coast of San Diego. It is here, heaving through the swells in an 18-foot Parker skiff, with a burlap chum bag hanging off the side, waiting for mako sharks to arrive, where we start to think that, maybe, this whole fly-fishing adventure had gone a bit too far.

There is something profoundly disturbing about crossing the line from chasing “gamefish” to chasing apex predators that not only are capable of killing you, they may have strong interest in killing you. In many ways, fly fishing for sharks on the open Pacific is something of a professional and personal reckoning, one that will leave you questioning your physical limits and those of your tackle, your personal safety, and, finally, your own sanity. Although unlikely, there always is the possibility that you might not make it back from your first shark fishing trip.

Unfazed by these risks, Conway Bowman decided nearly ten years ago to specialize in catching sharks on fly rods, shortfin makos to be exact. The absurdity of this little hobby has earned him considerable coast-to-coast acclaim. While we half expected Conway to be the ultimate X-Games outcast with an adrenaline habit, within the first five minutes on his boat we found someone altogether different. Meticulously preparing his boat and tackle for the day’s fishing, Conway is a technician and surgeon. He also carries himself with a balance, confidence, and California coolness that never smacks of feigned bravery or bravado. His eyes are sharp and blue, and often look straight through you.

For Conway, his life among the sharks has legitimate cause. On the coast of Southern California, there aren’t hordes of trout, tarpon, or bonefish, but there are plenty of makos. As a young outdoorsman from San Diego with a genuine passion for fly fishing, Conway realized early on that, for better or worse, you fish for what’s in your backyard.

“We all have our own fish. Makos are my ultimate fish,” he says. “It means something when you tie into a fish that can fight back with something more than just a pull on your line. A mako can kill you, and that changes the whole game.”

Read the entire essay from Tideline: Captains, Fly-Fishing, and the American Coast (2004).

Product Buzz

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Fly-fishing News

Check out the BONEDALE FISHING REPORTS eleven and twelve, featuring legendary guide, Kea Hause, from Colorado’s Roaring Fork valley. California Fly Fisher, the iconic 31-year-old magazine, which many believed had seen its final issue last fall, is back and more inspiring than ever–a few stories worth checking out: Ten Tips for Striper Fishing in the Surf, Top Five Rivers to Fish in California This Fall. Captains For Clean Water provide volunteer, donation and assistance resources for Hurricane Helene Relief. Late summer water reportage from The Flyfish Journal’s Copi Vojta: Touché Blue Line, Touché. Rodrigo Salles, the co-owner of Untamed Angling and a Flylab Pro, provides fifteen tips for Catching Giant Peacock Bass. Guide, fishing lodge owner and Flylab Pro, Kyle Schaefer, sits down with the Sidechannels Podcast.

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