Guide says cool weather shouldn’t stop anyone from fishing for bonefish

Most flats anglers will tell you that the water temperatures are too cold to catch bonefish in January, but captain Jorge Valverde knows better.

During the past 30-plus years of pursuing bonefish in South Florida, Valverde has learned that not everything you read and hear about bonefish is true. And the Cooper City resident has made a name for himself as a guide who does things a little differently. Like catching bonefish on chilly winter days that have most anglers sitting at home.

The common belief is that water temperatures have to be in the 70s to catch bonefish on the flats. Anglers who pursue bonefish when temperatures are cool typically fish in channels where the deeper water is warmer.

But Valverde said winter cold fronts won’t keep you from catching bonefish on the flats. He has caught tailing bonefish — fish that are feeding on flats so shallow that their tails and dorsal fins come out of the water when they dig in the bottom for food with their mouths — in 63 degree water. As he explained, even when it’s cold, the fish still have to eat. The coldest water Valverde ever caught bonefish in was 57 degrees.

The key is for the bonefish to get acclimated to the cooler temperatures. When temperatures drop, bonefish initially will go to deeper water and feed there, and Valverde will fish for them in channels.

“Then they go back to what they were doing before it got cold,” he said.

His choice of fishing grounds is also unconventional. In addition to Biscayne Bay, Valverde (www.lowplacesguideservice.com, 954-822-0647) fishes out of Flamingo at the southern tip of Everglades National Park, which is not a traditional bonefishing hot spot. Most anglers prefer to fish the backcountry flats close to Key Largo and Islamorada. As a result, Valverde usually has his bonefish flats to himself.

Although casting a shrimp, jig or fly to bonefish feeding on the flats is exciting, it can be frustrating. There’s no guarantee of a hookup, even if you make a perfect cast.

“Just because bonefish are tailing doesn’t mean they’re going to eat what you throw at them,” Valverde said. “The way they’re moving tells you what they want.

“If they’re doing what I call ‘mowing the lawn,’ moving five feet and eating, moving five feet and eating, they’re digging in the mud for something you can’t cast to them: coquina clams.”

Valverde said the clams are about the size of the nail on your pinkie. When bonefish are mowing the lawn for the clams, casting a shrimp to them usually won’t change their minds.

“They know exactly what they’re looking for,” Valverde said, adding that bonefish typically feed on the clams during the summer when shrimp are scarce on the flats. “If you throw them a shrimp, they run because they know it’s not supposed to be there. It’s worth a try, but in my experience, it’s not going to happen.”

If you cast a live shrimp to a bonefish and a needlefish picks up the bait, don’t rip the shrimp out of the fish’s mouth. Valverde tells his anglers to let the needlefish take the bait because that gets the attention of the bonefish.

“When the needlefish starts to run, the bonefish figures, ‘Ah, he’s got something,’ and goes after the needlefish,” Valverde said. “The needlefish freaks and drops the bait, and the bonefish gets it.”

And don’t be concerned if you make a bad cast or your boat motor sends a school of bonefish scurrying away.

“People think that once you spook bonefish, they’re gone,” Valverde said. “I say, ‘Don’t worry. I’m just going to sit here and wait for them to come back.’ How can a fish live in Biscayne Bay and Florida Bay and not have heard a boat? When bonefish want to be somewhere, you can’t chase them off.”

Sometimes spooked fish can’t leave even if they want to, which Valverde learned by experience. He was running his boat on a flat and ran over a school of fish that he didn’t know was there. He stopped the boat and watched the fish swim to the edge of the flat and then come right back.

Poking around the flat, he discovered the water was so shallow that the fish had only one way to get off the flat, so they had to come back.

“I fish a lot of falling tides,” said Valverde, who knows every nuance of the bonefish flats he fishes. “And often as the water falls