DIY Bone Fishing Turks & Caicos

It's pretty easy to hand grab small crabs in grassy flats or the break and free line them to bonefish if you can see them. That's most of my bonefish experience.

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Elusiveporpi

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Honeymoon? Your future wife likes to fish so get a guide! Splurge because you (hopefully) only have one honeymoon.

Which island are you going to? I've never been but I have a couple of friends that have fished there a few times. There are some accessible looking areas on Middle Caicos that I'd check out.

Bottle Creek on north Caicos is a pretty well known area so I'd check that out too, but there is probably fishing pressure.

Are you fly fishing? I've spent the last several years making DIY bonefish trips and am actually leaving in 3 weeks to head to the Bahamas. If you are there for a limited time and you've never targeted the fish, it will be a better expense of your time to hire a guide for a day. Bones are pretty predictable but it takes awhile to figure out what to look for and how the tides affect the fish. If I were going once and wasn't sure if I'd go back any time soon, I'd hire a guide.

My first trip sucked. I think we caught like 5 fish the whole trip - which I considered to be a huge success at the time. If I knew then what I know now though, it would've been a really successful trip. The weather and fishing were good. We just didn't know what we were doing. There's only so far general fishing knowledge gets you when targeting a totally new fish in completely different geography.

If you are anything like me though, it will totally change your life. I can't get enough of the shite. Here are some photos from recent trips.

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Honeymoon?

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Mine begins May 20 at T&C

Probably won't fish though.

I would get a guide and just call it a day on the water. It is a great way to see a lot of the area without accidentally driving through the wrong spots. With the diversity of marine life around the islands, you are always a short boat ride from something fun, being it flat fishing, lobster diving, conch hunting, or deep sea bottom fishing/trolling.

When are you going? Sorry if I missed that.

Provo has some good looking stuff by the airport and on the eastern side of the island. I'm sure there are fish there.

If you are doing the DIY thing, you want to be fishing around a low tide. In flats settings, bones spread out at high tide and generally get off of the flat. Where there are mangroves, they push deep back into mangroves for protection. There's also the issue of not being able to physically fish when the water is high because of the tide.

In the Bahamas, I generally like to fish the first couple hours of the incoming tide. There are a couple of islands I've been to that, for whatever reason, have fish that seem to prefer a falling tide. If that's the case, I like to fish the last half of the falling tide. When you're figuring it out, it is imperative that you are on the flat at low tide. The fish will still probably be there, but they'll be more skittish and less likely to eat. It's also a great chance to see some pretty crazy tailing stuff. I have seen some Nat Geo level tailing events at sunset/sunrise low tides in the Bahamas. Like sit back and watch the show type stuff.

The bottom line with bonefish is there has to be some type of moving tide for you to have a decent chance of success. The fish will almost always feed against the tide/current, because they feed by feed by sucking mud through their mouths and out of their gills. They will feed against the tide and current so the mud is filtered behind them instead of in front of them. At dead low, you can tell you're in a good area because you'll see a bunch of little holes in the marl/sand where they've been feeding.

A bit of wind is better than no wind. They are easier to see when there is a little bit of ripple or chop on the water surface because you can see into the water. They are also a hell of a lot more skittish when it's slick calm and sunny. If you have clouds, watch birds fly across the flat. Anytime a bird flies over a group of bones, they lose their shite.

Walk slowly and try to avoid wearing wading boots if the ground allows. I almost always walk barefoot. If I have to wear shoes, I wear high top chuck taylors. Wading boots are clunky and make a ton of noise. Bones are scared of literally everything and sound reverberates a lot further under water than it does above water. You are also likely going to be fishing in crystal clear water and they see really well. Spend more time looking than you do moving.

I would also try to line up access to a paddle craft. It will multiply the areas you can reach on your own exponentially. My favorite island to fish in the Bahamas would be unfishable without a paddlecraft. We bring inflatable SUPs with us. I'd try to locate one to rent on the island. The inflatable ones are a lot easier to transport on or in a rental car than a hard SUP or a kayak. Bring ratchet straps in your suitcase.

I could talk for hours about the stuff. I'll try to remember to post a thread about our trip coming up with photos. If you want, I can post my email and we can link up closer to your trip and talk more. I'll also probably delete this post at some point if I remember because I had to learn all this stuff the hard way and I hate it being out there on the internet .

If this is your Honeymoon you should absolutely hire a guide IF you actually want to fish and keep the wife happy. It will give you a set time to go, she can go and enjoy it some too, and be a great learning experience. Do that early in your trip and you may be then able to go back out and do it again on your own and catch some by yourself.

Bonefish as said are generally particular, they aren't like largemouth where you may be able to throw a bunch of random lures in random places and catch them.

*Update*

Im back from by Vacation and ended up fishing for about a half a day at what is called Bonefish Point. I figured with a name like that, there had to be fish! I saw one, spooked it, and that was about it. I did hook onto a Barracuda but was quickly cut off.

The trip to bonefish point required a jeep ride down a 7 mile gravel, rocky road. We were the only person in sight. I dont know if I was actually in a "good" bonefish spot or not, but it did look like it was out of a magazine and "fishy". There were lots of starfish, turtles, crabs, and other small fish around. The water was pretty deep for the most part, I would say knee deep for the most part, so I may not have went back far enough in the pocket to find the fish. I also think the tide was high at the time, but not positive. Also, the bottom was not easy to walk on, it was moundy and pretty soft in some areas. I was not expecting that at all. The SUP that was recommended would have been great.( You live and you learn.)

Here are a few pictures from the area I was fishing.

I believe Bonefish Point is in a no-fishing area (nature preserve). Look on the SW corner of the maps below. I'm not sure how far the nature preserve extends offshore from the beach.

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It’s important to be aware of the protected areas on Providenciales and elsewhere in the Turks and Caicos when fishing. Fishing inside of a protected area can result in fines, and in rare cases, imprisonment.

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Fishing Page

Leaving for that Turtle Cove/Smith's Reef area in a couple of weeks.