Species Guide: Bonito
Experienced saltwater flyfishermen know that the bonito they seek in the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean may sometimes be 15 to 20 miles offshore. They go anyway.Why? The "sporting qualities" of bonito are outstanding. They often feed on the surface, in frenzies. Dropping a minnow imitation into these boiling waters tends to excite most flyfishers. Bonito leap and skip across the water when they're feeding and get real agitated when they feel the steel point of a hook in their jaw. It's fun, the best reason for flyfishing for any species.Bonito are not large fish. Fish weighing eight to ten pounds are considered big. Generally they are two to three feet long and weigh 10 pounds or less.But they are beautiful. That's what the word bonito means in Spanish. Their backs are steel blue or blue-green, and the lower sides and flanks are silvery.But the upper sides, above the lateral line, have dark stripes running up at an angle until they reach the dark coloration of the back. On most species the stripes are a little wavy, and sometimes irregular. A few have relatively straight, solid lines.These "longitudinal oblique" lines on the upper side of bonito provide a simple means of distinguishing them from close relatives like the skipjack tuna, which has stripes only on the bottom half of its body, and grows considerably larger. There are three relatively well known species of little tuny which are similar in appearance to bonito, but they all have a high first dorsal fin, and are usually somewhat smaller in overall size than bonito.The Atlantic bonito is found throughout the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean and Black Seas. It apparently is not found in the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean. No one knows why. It's in waters just of the South American Coast, so there's a definite gap in its territory there in the middle.Bonito are in most temperate or tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean, with the Pacific bonito dividing its territory with a northern beat stretching from British Colombia to southern Baja California and a South American territory ranging from Peru to Chile.The striped bonito fills in the Pacific bonito's territory by inhabiting waters from Baja California to Peru. Again, no one knows why. That's just the way it is, and that does provide enough water for any fisherman to search for these beautiful fish.Since the fish are small, the patterns flyfishers cast to bonito are smaller than those presented to many other saltwater species. And, they should be sparsley dressed. Too much tying material and the fly becomes unweildlly, and you don't want that casting into a bonito feeding frenzy. Make sure there's some silver or otherwise flashy material on the body and in the overwing, with a little bit of white and dark to high light the color and metallic gleam. Once hooked up, be prepared for a start. A six pound bonito is solid as a rock and moves through the water at phenomenal speeds. As exciting as siting that initial boiling mass of feeding fish may be, the rod and reel fight is just as exciting.And remember, it's bonito, with an "o" at the end, not an "a". And it means pretty in Spanish and real life.
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