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Been absent for a few weeks, apologies, but decided to attempt the self-guided bonefish on fly experience. The venue? New Caledonia! Although there was a veritable dearth of information on bonefishing there, everything I had read screamed that it was no place for bonefish beginners, and I had never even seen one in my life. Also the websites insisted that it was all over by the end of September due to bad weather and bad tides, and our only available window was October, so with no real expectation of success (and no real understanding of French!) the wife and I embarked on an adventure.

Sensibly, we stayed away from Noumea except for a day right at the end to check out the markets, aquarium etc. Camped in the Mozzie-Dome every night up north, right on the beach most days, loved it.

Caught fish for “le mange” while touring around, best was a Goldie about 60cm off the oyster rocks that required a bit of brute force to secure! The others included “Aiguiellette” or black-barred garfish, which are huge for a gar, remain airborne for 90% of the fight on fly, and are delicious! Also red-throated snapper-thingies that ate bonefish flies, jungle perch (2 species) and small trevors, all on fly, supplemented our protein intake.

As to the “raison d’être” for the adventure, I intended to start with a couple of days bone-fishing at Boat-pass early in the trip, staying in the campground at Gite de Poingam, and just take it from there. What a fabulous place! Unfortunately the run-in tide was in the afternoon and the south-easterlies were insane, with fast-moving cu-nim overcast conditions every afternoon.

A rare moment of sunshine but the wind was insane!

Even so, saw a ripper bone about 12 lbs swim past within 4 to 5 metres in shin-deep water. Had a shot at the departing fish, not ideal, but it had already seen me clearly and was very suspicious, although it didn’t actually spook. Saw a couple of smaller ones, maybe (!), hard to be sure with whitecaps across the flats and no sun! Eventually got one to take, but it was swimming fast towards me and the hook-set was rubbish. It took off at high speed but dropped the fly after a few seconds. Damn!

So.... we went touring down the east coast, sight-seeing, swimming, snorkelling etc, pretty-much just relaxing. It was a holiday after all!

A week later we returned to Poingam, closer to the neaps, when the run-in tide on the flats was in the early morning and the weather hopefully sunny with light winds. Wishful thinking!

The wind was still pretty extreme, although there were occasional breaks in that huge plume of cloud that streams off the northern end of the island. Whenever the wind eased and the sun came out, so did the camera and I did get a few nice photos of the flats and fringing reef.

Looking back across the eastern edge of the flats at the northern tip of Grande Terre.

Looking west across the Boat-pass flats towards Île Yenghebane.

It seemed to have made little difference to the fishing however, and I didn’t see a single bone during the morning tides. There were plenty of big mullet and a few GTs moving over the flats to keep me interested, and a couple of small sharks that kept me on my toes. …but I had nothing to lose so soldiered on each afternoon regardless.
Finally hooked this big bugger late on the second day while casting at fleeting shadows in a shallow sea-grass drain with the run-out tide.

Check out this bad-ass New Caledonia Boat-pass bone! Not bad for a first-ever bonefish.

Holy sh!t those things go! Now I understand what all the fuss is about! Even with 300 metres of backing on the 9-weight I was getting rather worried on the initial run - and that’s stepping into it with 20lb tippet and a 1/0 Gamakatsu SL12 tie! When I finally got a few metres of flyline back on the reel, that fish did two full circles around me and took off again! It was quite a while before I had the leader in hand.

Couldn’t land the thing by myself out on the flats (found out Boga-grips don’t work too well on bonefish!) so decided to swim it all the way back to the beach (around 300 metres!) for Rebecca to get a photo. Of course that gave it a ‘second wind’, and it almost did me in the mangroves!

At just under 70cm fork length (couldn’t weigh it at the time), the on-line length/weight charts put it at 10.5 to 11 lbs. Top stuff! Still grinning like a fool...

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So of course the websites were correct, October in NC is a serious challenge for the flyrodder due to the increasing build-up of cloud and the strengthening south-easterlies, but local Kanaks say the bigger fish turn up in October, so perhaps its worth the risk?

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to chase up any Rusa deer hunting opportunities. Had the bonefish cooperated earlier I would have spent a bit of time trying to tee something up but that will have to wait till next time.

…and there will be a next time!

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