A slender forked tail suddenly pokes through the surface of the shallow waters around Biscayne Bay, Florida, some 150 feet in front of where our small skiff is floating. The tail belongs to a bonefish, a skittish and elegant species with an elongated body roughly the length of an adult male’s forearm and so called because of its numerous little bones. The fish is busily using its slim snout to dig in the sediment and seagrass for crabs, shrimp, and other good things to eat. As it does so, the tip of its tail pops up, and Nicholas Castillo, a Ph.D. candidate at Florida International University, calls excitedly, “It’s tailing.”
Jennifer Rehage, a fish ecologist and Castillo’s Ph.D. supervisor, drops anchor near a mangrove island hosting a flock of snowy egrets, their snapping bills loudly clicking. Castillo, who is also an expert fisher, selects a colorful artificial fly from his kit. He’s got one shot at catching the fish. If he makes a wrong move, the fish will take off at high speed—bonefish can swim up to 40 kilometers per hour. We all climb out of the boat, and I’m instructed to stay nearby and not make a sound. Castillo stealthily wades toward where we saw the tail, then stops and waits. He whips the line back and forth using a fly-fishing cast, then lands the fly expertly on the surface, where it slowly sinks. The bonefish bites on the first cast but fights hard against Castillo’s pull, thrashing and squirming in the water. It takes a minute or so, but in the end Castillo reels the fish in.
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