by
Bob Newman
We
had been trolling teasers for sailfish and marlin for almost
seven hours with only two billfish showing up in the spread,
and neither the sail nor the marlin showed much interest in
what we had to offer. Now the cruel Central American sun was
beating down on us with a vengeance. I reached into the cooler
for another bottle of water.
"Dorado! Dorado!" the mate yelled. The captain turned
the boat toward where the mate was pointing.
"Where are they?" I asked the captain.
"Over there," he nodded.
"He saw two of them jumping," he replied, his eyes
scanning the surface of the tropical Pacific.
Then we saw it: a 2-foot log with a diameter of less than
10 inches floating on the surface. Slowly motoring up to the
seemingly innocuous piece of surface structure, we peered
into the water and saw them. "Them" were about 300
triggerfish. Then a flash of gold and green sped by, then
another, and another; they had deeply forked tails and tapered
bodies. They were dorado, also known as mahi mahi and dolphinfish.
Swimming nearby were hundreds of skipjack tuna, yellowfin
tuna, bonito, tripletail and assorted baitfish. And hanging
almost motionless below the mob of fish was a big black marlin,
30 feet down and looking to weigh between 400 and 500 pounds.
This one little piece of wood had become a floating city of
the sea. It looked as though every fish for 10 miles had gathered
below and around that small chunk of tree.
Grabbing my St. Croix Tidemaster spinning rod, I sent a yellow
bucktail jig on its way. It landed with a ploosh and quickly
was attacked by a small female dorado of about 7 pounds, which
I cranked back to the boat as fast as I could. I tightened
the drag down and placed the rod in a rod holder, the dorado
circling in the water 10 feet below.
This is
an old trick; a hooked dorado left in the water near the boat
acts like a magnet to other dorado, which swarm around the
area looking for food and staying within casting range. Now
the real fun would start. I picked up an Abel 8-weight fly
rod and delivered a 2/0 chartreuse-and-white Clouser 60 feet,
which was in the water no more than three seconds when another
dorado hit, this one running about 8 pounds. As I fought the
jumping, spinning fish, I kept looking into the water and
seeing numerous gold-and-green flashes of like-sized dorado.
A few minutes later, the dorado on ice, I was in the middle
of a double haul when I saw a much larger gold-and-green flash
hurtle by the boat, immediately followed by another.
I
stopped the cast, reeled in, set the rod down and picked up
a Fly Logic FLO+ 10-weight, which is a more powerful rod but
one that casts like a 7-weight rod. I double hauled and sent
the fly out in the general direction those two big flashes
were headed.
The fly hit the water and vanished amid a tremendous boil.
My rod bent wildly and line fled the Ross Gunnison reel like
Iraqi soldiers from a Marine bayonet charge, which is to say
the line was really moving out. Fifteen minutes later the
big bull dolphin was at the transom after a glorious fight
that involved many crazy jumps and several blistering runs.
I was somewhat pleased. As I admired the beautiful dorado,
I couldn't help but think of how that little ol' log was responsible
for all this. I looked around; both the mate and captain were
both tied into tuna. The surface was a frenzy of feeding fish.
I had forgotten all about the broiling sun and the last seven
hours. Two thoughts occurred to me then: I was glad that I
had the more powerful rod and excellent reel along, and I
was pleased for having written a good book all about structure
("Flyfishing Structure: The Flyfisher's Guide to Reading
and Understanding the Water" -- yes, a blatant plug !)
so that others could better understand how and why fish relate
to any object in or on the water ("structure"),
and how they can use that knowledge to catch more of them.
This all happened on a trip to Crocodile Bay Lodge
on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. On another day while fishing
inshore, the radio was buzzing with word of a boat finding
a large section of bamboo 25 miles offshore. It was holding
hundreds of dorado, and the anglers were having a grand time
catching them one after the other. Tuna were there, too, and
that night we had delicious, fresh-as-can-be sashimi with
wasabi sauce. Later in the week I got into some fine snapper
and roosterfish that were hanging around an awash rock. Some
anglers were battling tripletail near a plastic jug they found
floating, while others fought sailfish and marlin that were
found cruising near a scum line containing palm fronds and
coconuts. It is all structure.
The next time you are out on the water, any water, look for
anything floating on the surface. Approach it slowly and have
a look. What you find might just make your day.
