I love the McCloud... love it. Didn't get to fish it this year and didn't get to fish it last year. That part is killing me. However, I have new water around me that doesn't take hours to get to... so I'm in the plus column when the final math is added up.
I WAS going to try and head to the Bahamas. Found some not too expenisve places, including a guide that would have dropped me off on a little island by myself and come back for me a few days later. That appealed, although I doubt I have enough camping gear to actually survive those kinds of conditions. Read a story a couple of editions back in
www.thisisfly.com that sounded pretty good (except the waterspout and bugs). The killer is the airfare. Seems everything is $700-$900 to get where you want to go and that kind of killed it. Cheapest actual lodging was $150 a night and I was trying to do the whole trip for under $1,000, which just was not possible when all was said and done.
I had originally thought of going to Florida, down the Keys, flying into Maimi, renting a car, camping and splitting everything with some other anglers... but when I read more about bones in FL it was all very discouraging. I have no idea if this is true or not, but folks were saying that the fish are big, but kind of like in HI, they are often solitary and you need to know the spot they are going to be in... can't just go out by yourself and expect to run into fish. The Bahamas sounds like you can expect to find fish, even as a novice and even unguided.
There are a few other options I looked at...
- Mexico, down south of Cancun was one, but I don't speak Spanish (and French doesn't help)
- Going back to Kauai, but the fishing is similar, it sounds, to FL, in that the fish are massive, but difficult to find, solitary and spooky. No schoolies. I fished in Kauai back in the Spring. I didn't even HOOK a bonefish, but just seeing them and casting to them kind of got the image/feeling/desire stuck in my head. That's what started this whole thing.
So, I'm left with the gear... got a new 9 wt reel for big pigs, in addition to my 7's... have a bunch of flies from my Kauia trip, have nice flats boots (although the guide we used in Kauai wore Crocs)... just need the right trip to line up with the right windfall of unassigned money. Darn you property taxes!
Oh well... I'll keep looking for the right opportunity... probably won't be until 2010 though, at the earliest.
B-
Favoured: 0
