Oio (Bonefish) Recipes

[Tony Buzolich]

What a great sporting fish this is. They're spread throughout the warm tropics of both the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean.
We see and read and watch all the videos about wading the flats and fly fishing for them, and everything is catch and release. Take a picture and put them back in the water ASAP.

Except lately. I've been watching a lot of YOUTUBE videos and there seems to be more and more Hawaiian locals keeping and eating these wonderful fish. I'm sure this has gone on wherever the fish thrive and people need to eat, but it saddens me to think that by doing so they take away the fish we so long to go chase.

Bonefish Poke, Bonefish Patties, Oio this and that with everyones favorite seasoning, hummph?

Are there that many bonefish everywhere that this is taken with disregard. I would think places like Hawaii would better protect this fish as source of revenue for sportsmen and a tourist draw to encourage fly fishermen to come visit the islands and spend more tourist dollars in their economy.

Fly fishing for bonefish in Hawaii is not the easiet place to catch them, I've tried. Stories talk about them being large there but few and far between. I've only taken a couple of juveniles in around the native ponds and would love to get a few larger ones too.

I'm sure there are large and small ones everywhere, but some places just seem to have more than others. Places like Belize have lots and lots of small bones, but then you also have places like Aitutaki where they have a fish print on a wall there with one over twenty #20 pounds. I'm sure they ate him too.
Tony