Some recent research- and fishing-related travel renewed some thoughts on the effects of fishing pressure and boat traffic on gamefish behavior.  If you’ve fished in enough different places, you’ve experienced it – in locations that receive little human interaction, the fish tend to be eager to eat a fly.  In contrast, places with high fishing pressure or a lot of boat traffic tend to have very wary gamefish.  Species of gamefish react to different degrees, but all react to some extent.  Each fishery seems to have a particular level of pressure that gives the best to both worlds – anglers can enjoy good fishing and the gamefish remain willing to eat a fly.  Some places seem to have found that magic level, and in some of these locations people are working to stay in that safety zone. Other locations have passed the threshold and have seen the consequences of more wary (and often fewer) gamefish.

I’ve experienced the change in fish behavior in two ways. The mode of ‘infrequent angler’ is probably the toughest to take because it involves memories of how it used to be and unmet expectations. Although I’ve experienced this numerous times, the most frustrating was my return to the reservoir I fished as I grew up in Maryland. Granted, we often look back at those early fishing days with rose-colored glasses, but even keeping that in mind, the difference between then and now is astounding. There was always fishing pressure on the reservoir, but back then it was pretty easy to find a cove for fishing out of sight of other anglers. Finding the edge of a grass bed or a rocky ledge usually resulted in some action.  Now the question is whether the multiple boats in each cove will respect another boat’s fishing space.  And good fish are hard to come by, with most holding deep in areas far from the shallow grass beds they once roamed. Gamefish behavior has changed, the crowds make the fishing less enjoyable than it once was.

I also experienced this at an island in the Caribbean that will remain nameless to preserve the last of its better fishing. Friends and I used to travel to this island on a regular basis beginning in the early 1990s, to fly fish for bonefish. Although never a real secret, the spot wasn’t on most people’s radar screen, so the fishing pressure was rather light. On most trips we wouldn’t see another angler on the miles of flats we fished.  It was great because we camped, and each morning left camp with a day’s worth of food and drink to wade the flats and walk the shorelines.  The end of the day saw us ‘good’ tired.  Eventually, word started to get out, our trips began to become fewer and father between, and a couple of the local guys had become guides and purchased flats boats. And then we just stopped going for no particular reason but that life changes and we move on. I went back to this island a few years ago, and it only took a couple encounters with bonefish to realize that things had changed. The fish were more skeptical of the flies and not as forgiving of poor casts.  And, sadly, there were fewer bonefish – the result, if rumors were true, of some local harvest of the bonefish.

The ‘slow decline’ is an experience in frustration that the infrequent angler is spared.  As fishing and boating pressure increase gradually over time, gamefish behavior changes and fishing becomes more difficult. The change in fish behavior is gradual and imperceptible at first – the increased angler traffic is mostly an annoyance but fishing still remains relatively good – but then undergoes more dramatic changes in fits and starts.  Or maybe it’s that the change continues to be gradual, but to the angler it becomes increasingly more noticeable – a threshold is crossed, the angler has an epiphany, and the gamefish world has changed. 

My home waters for the past eight years, southwest Florida, receive a lot of fishing pressure and boat traffic, and have been undergoing a change in gamefish behavior. By the time I arrived, those anglers long in tooth had already seen a dramatic change from the good ol’ days, and fish could certainly be wary.  But even during my short tenure, both fishing pressure and boat traffic have increased tremendously, and the response of gamefish has not been positive.  In many areas, redfish no longer, or only rarely, tail at low tide.  Or an angler might find tailing redfish only during short windows of time, such as early or late in the day when there is typically little boat traffic, or in locations that see little boat traffic.  This is not just my experience, but that of longtime anglers as well.  Some longtime guides have even mentioned that in some areas it’s tough to catch adult snook without live bait, when not long ago lures or flies worked so well that catching live bait wasn’t worth the effort.

In my four years of intensively fishing Cape Cod, I saw a similar change in striped bass behavior, and friends who continue to fish there say it has become worse.  When I first fished the Cape, I was easily able to find flats and shallow shorelines with few anglers and aggressive fish.   As first started fishing on the Cape, and during my time there, the fishing magazines really started blanket coverage of the Cape striped bass fishery, particularly the flats. The increase in anglers was immediate and noticeable, as was the impact on striper behavior.  Within each year, the early season fishing was good, but by mid-summer, stripers became as picky as Keys bonefish, especially on weekends.  Increasing boat traffic also made things difficult. 

The way I combat these changes – now and when in Massachusetts – is to try to fish at different times and at different locations than boaters and other anglers.  I try to fish very early or very late in the day. This makes it tough to sight-fish because of the low light, but at these times the winds are usually down, and with calm waters and low tide wakes and tails often give the fish away.  These are also great times to use surface flies, which is reason enough to be on the water. If I can, I also try to fish on a weekday rather than a weekend. Wednesday, Thursday, and Tuesday are preferred, in that order. It’s nice to have a couple days for the fish to settle down after being run over on the weekend, and mid-week is typically when boating activity and fishing pressure are lowest. Lately, I’ve been less able to get out on weekdays, but when I can rearrange my schedule I do. I also fish in areas where others typically don’t. This often means a bit more effort to get to the fishing spots (backcountry areas that have to be poled or paddled to, or locations that require a hike in), but it’s usually worth it.
This is a lot easier to do in home waters, where knowledge of the territory is high resolution, and access is quick. It takes me only 15 minutes from my house to boat on plane, for example, which makes early or late-day trips easy.  But sometimes enough fishing memory survives that a little adaptability goes a long way even at less frequently fished locations. Fortunately I retained enough memory on location and tides for Cape Cod to sneak in some early and late day solo jaunts during return trips, with a much greater likelihood of tangling with stripers than with anglers.

The recent travel that brought this on was to Abaco, Bahamas and to Belize. In both places we fished for fish that obviously don’t see many anglers. In Abaco, the only skittish bonefish we encountered were unconcerned with us and wholly concerned with patrolling sharks.  The sharks, small lemons and blacktips, never really chased the bonefish but kept them in constant motion.  Here is an example of the type of fishing we enjoyed. A school of five bonefish was moving across the flat in the same direction we were being poled, and since we were all traveling at the same speed we really had no chance to catch up. The guide told my boat mate to make a cast, to which my buddy replied ‘but they’re facing the other way’. But in desperation he cast, the fly landed to the right and just behind the school of fish, a fish turned around and ate the fly. Fishing pressure? Not much. The fishable area there is so large, the present level of fishing pressure is fine. And refusals were rare – on only one morning did I get more than one refusal, and switching to a lightly weighted fly fixed that problem.
The behavior of the bonefish, snook, tarpon, and permit in Belize was equally as refreshing.  There are certainly some days in Florida where the snook are on their game and readily eat flies. But more often than not they are skeptical participants.  A reasonable cast to a Belizean snook was sure to get a close follow, and in most instances the fish would eat the fly.  And the bonefish were as eager as those in Abaco.  The weather was so poor that tarpon fishing was tough, but we hooked three and landed one large fish in close quarters.  The permit? Well, they were permit.  We saw only the disappearing tails of large permit as they vacated the flats, but the smaller fish were extremely patient and hungry.  It was nice to know that if we did everything right the fish probably would too.

So what does this mean in the end? I could be an old curmudgeon and lament the loss of the good old days, and sometimes I do. But more frequently I adjust my fishing habits to find those places and times that are like the old days. But what does drag me down is the knowledge that in many places the changes don’t have to be so severe.  It’s too often, and increasingly often, that the number of anglers isn’t the real problem, but their behavior. In the rush to find the fish first, too many are forgetting what fishing is all about.

All material copyright Aaron Adams 2007, 2008, and beyond, unless otherwise noted.