Blue marlin!
May 16th: Club member David Rainford from England caught his (and the Club’s) first ever blue marlin earlier today. Weighing in at around 130 pounds, the fish gave an acrobatic account of itself for some 20 minutes before succumbing and then being safely released after a brief photocall.
Fishing from Steve Lockard’s large Boston Whaler out of nearby Little Harbour, David and his wife Marion, as well as Mark Shortt from Ireland, also got among the mahi-mahi (otherwise known as dolphin or dorado). To the delight of the Club’s kitchen, the party boated four of these colourful and delicious fish weighing between 18 and 35 pounds.
Marion Rainford with dazzling dorado
NYAC Anglers’ flyfishing flourish
May 12th: The New York Athletic Club’s Anglers have just spent a lively and fruitful few days at the Club. With many of the group fly-fishing for the first time, they ended up catching 102 bonefish in quite difficult conditions (How many times have we had to bemoan the weather this year!) Seven group members – Sam Lentini, Charlie Vadala, Andy Ceriello, Richard Ribilotti, Jim Ellis, Tom Ammirati and Paul Hundt – boated their first ever bonefish on fly. Celebrating with good cognac and large cigars, the party of sixteen, including non-fishing wives, laughed off the tricky weather and went home beaming. Some of the group were seasoned fly-fishers and the top rods for the week were Bill & Lisa Haldane, John LaSalle and Ricky Young.
While we await pictures from the group, here are photos of Mark Price’s two large barracuda from the previous week:
Normal service resumed: fish & fun in the sun
May 6th: After a horrible 5-day spell of cloud, strong wind and frequent heavy rain, the sun has re-emerged and bonefishers are back in business with some great catches.
Not that the gloomy spell deterred all angling effort. Both the Bonefish Bonnies, a group of thirteen determined lady anglers from Florida (pictured above), and Toby Thacher’s party from New York carried on fishing regardless and were rewarded with the occasional bonefish taken aganst the odds.
From the Bonnies, Jennifer Saia, Jane Ferger-White and Alicia Spenlinhauer all caught their first ever bonefish. Mona Brewer managed to get four fish from the challenging Cherokee Sound, taking advantage of the white sand flats to spot fish in the murky conditions.
Similar tactics were employed by the Thacher party on their first day, but conditions were horrendous, with pouring rain and 30mph winds; just one fish was taken. Then, as the front eventually passed through, catches accelerated dramatically. Karl Sporer had a solo day with 19 bonefish, while Erick Volp boated 14. Toby Thacher shared catches of 14 with Randy Goodhue, 13 with Joe DeLuca (who caught his first ever bonefish) and 16 with his brother Hugh.
Randy Goodhue had a great day on the Marls with his son Sam; between them they boated 23. Randy also had the best bonefish of the week at around six pounds, while Mark Price bagged a brace of 20lb barracuda and a 4.5-foot shark. Mark also shared a bag of 16 bones with Karl.
Conditions are set fair for the coming week, which bodes well for the new arrivals from the angling division of the New York Athletic Club, where, coincidentally, the son of Delphi Club member Ken McMillan from Northern Ireland is now a coach of the all-conquering rugby team after an illustrious playing career with Ulster, Harlequins & Sale in the UK.
Reservations open for 2012/13
May 1st: It’s time to start planning your next bonefishing trip.
May is the month when we begin to take reservations for the next season, which runs from October 2012 to June 2013.
The Club is getting busier and busier, so we genuinely recommend early consideration and reservation of your preferred dates.
Prices for the 2012/13 season are little changed. The weekly package price for seven nights with six days of fishing stays the same at $4,995. Prices for shorter stays and for whole-lodge house parties have been tweaked a bit. All the new prices are posted on the website.
Note that the very popular June Special Offer has been retained. And fans of Irish flyfishing guru, Peter O’Reilly, should note that there are still a couple of places left in the special week which he is leading (December 1st to 8th; $4,495pp).
With its stunning building, spectacular location, exceptional food & wine and brilliant bonefishing, the Delphi Cub can fairly lay claim to being one of the finest saltwater fishing lodges in the world. But we are also determined to offer great value for money and our prices remain very much in line with those of many more pedestrian competitors.
Beastly Beatitudes: Boyd’s Big Day
April 2nd: Club member Alan Boyd from Northern Ireland had a red letter day this week, taking 25 bonefish in a session, guided by Ishi. His boat-partner, fellow Ulsterman John Herron, also boated five fish, despite being a complete newcomer to fishing.
The weather has returned to its delicious normal – light breezes and brilliant sunshine for the most part, i.e. perfect bonefishing conditions. Although the fish have sometimes been skittish or hard to find, there have been some very good bags of bonefish. Father and son team Michael and Tim Pettigrew (from Ireland) had 17 in a day. Bill Brown (Northern Ireland) and Vaughan Ruckley (Scotland) bettered that with 21 in a day. Tom De Moss (Florida) and George Woodward (Philadelphia) boated ten in a day, as did Eddi Di Biaggio (Sweden) and John Gunnell (England). Brian Shaw and Ken McMillan (both Northern Ireland) had 15 in a day. The best fish of recent weeks remains Chris Dick’s 8-or-so-pounder.
We hope we have seen the back of the very windy weather that prevailed for much of March.
In a rare encounter with tarpon, Alan Musgrove and Chris Dickinson (England) had several shots at a group of four fish in the twenty-to-thirty pound range, but had no time to switch over to proper tarpon flies and therefore, to use a cricketing expression, failed to trouble the scorer.
The gorgeous weather seems to have ennervated all the local wildlife, not just the parrots. Sightings of dolphins, turtles, eagle rays and ospreys in the Marls are now almost commonplace. Countless butterflies of different hues flit through the Club gardens. The woodpeckers are nesting again in the box just outside the office and the hummingbirds are constantly feeding just feet from my desk. It’s the time of year that dreams are made of.
The week was rounded off by your blogger-in-chief setting a new Club record – for the smallest ever bonefish, a brute of half a pound, taken off the Club beach on a Delphi Daddy after a titanic struggle lasting all of 30 seconds, with a large lemon shark looking on in expectation of an assisted snack.
