Fox of the Flats

Big-game fishermen naturally think big, and they tend to sneer at anything under 20 Ibs. But there is one little fish found in the world's warm waters that sends saltwater anglers into shivering ecstasy and rates up with the monster marlin and tuna. The name is bonefish (Albula vulpes, literally white fox). The biggest ever caught on rod and reel weighed only 19 Ibs. A ten-pounder is worth mounting in the game room, and a 15-pounder is brags forever. Baseball's retired great, Ted Williams, fishes as passionately as he played. He once landed a 1,235-lb. black marlin off Peru. And what does he do now? He lives in Florida, poking around the Keys after bonefish. "The toughest saltwater fish there is," says he, adding with a slight ahem that he has caught more than 1,000 in his lifetime.

In Florida last week, so many fishermen were chasing bonefish that some guides were booked solid, seven days a week clear up to April--at $50 a crack. Yet a less spectacular target for such frenzied attack could hardly be imagined. The bonefish looks a little like a herring; in fact, it is a kind of herring--long, scaly cigar-shaped body and all. It does not pursue its food like a proper game fish but grubs around the shallows, gulping down evil-smelling worms and other tidbits. People who have sampled its flesh discreetly describe it as "gamy," and even the Japanese can think of nothing better to do with bonefish than grind them up for fish cakes.

Lights & Inner Tubes. But try to catch one. No fish has a greater ability to bewilder, bedevil, confuse and confound a fisherman, and none, pound for pound, fights harder. Because it inhabits exposed tidal flats, the bonefish is a nervous wreck--always on the lookout for enemies, spooking at the shadow of a bird overhead, fleeing in panic from the sound of a beer can being opened. Ever so stealthily, the bonefisherman tiptoes across the flats, taking care not to step on sting rays, his freshly baited hook (live shrimp is tasty) all ready, his eyes peeled for a waving tail, a moving shadow, anything that might suggest bonefish. Once in a while he sees the fish before it sees him. Not often.

Hawaiian sportsmen try to beat the game by jack-lighting bonefish at night with miners' head lamps. In Bermuda, they wade out to deeper water where the bonefish hopefully feels more secure--but that risks a dunking, and the shrewd Bermudian floats himself out in Junior's inner tube. The best way is in a flat-bottomed skiff with an expert guide like Florida's George Hommel to spot the fish and patiently explain the technique. "You cast ahead of the fish, in the direction he's moving," says Hommel. "You try to get six to ten feet in front of him. In the grass flats, you let the lure drift, and hope he'll pick it up. In the rocky bottoms, you twitch it a little to catch his attention, because he's going by sight rather than by smell. But if a bonefish wants the bait, he won't nose around much--he'll just strike."

Too Pooped to Swim. Anyone who has ever hooked into a bonefish will never forget that moment. The first touch of steel sends Albula vulpes racing away in water-spraying terror, ripping off 100 yds. or more of line, straightening hooks, breaking swivels, or maybe snarling the whole shebang around a clump of mangroves. A little six-pounder can snap an 8-lb.-test line, and a big one takes all the luck an angler can muster. Recalls Golfer Sam Snead, who set a class record that still stands by catching a 15-pounder in 1953: "I was using live shrimp. I overcast, and had to feed the line back to get it to him. God, did he take it! He took off and ran at least 130 yds. The guide poled the boat over, and I thought I had him. 'No,' said the guide. 'He'll go again.' The second time, the fish really let go. He went out and back and then under the boat, and I had to put the rod under, too." Continues Sam, modestly: "No one could have caught that fish unless he was an experienced fisherman. It took me 25 minutes to bring him in."

A fish like that commands respect, sir. Solicitude, even. "Bonefish fight so hard that they almost deserve to get away," says Pete Perinchief, 43, director of Bermuda's Fishing Information Bureau and a bonefish evangelist. He fishes only with artificial lures ("More sporting, y'know"), once caught a 13-pounder on 6-lb.-test line--and releases practically every fish he lands. He even has a technique for reviving a fish that has fought so long and hard that it no longer has the strength to swim. Gently cradling the fish in one hand, he wiggles its tail until it comes around. "Artificial respiration," he explains.

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