05
Apr 18

Bahamas vs. Belize

Watching Buccaneers and Bones just now and they are having a Bahamas vs. Belize comparison.

I’ll be heading to Belize for the 4th time on Sunday. That’s going to be great.

Later this summer I’ll be heading to the Bahamas for trip #8.

They are just different places. It isn’t really fair to compare the two, but, let’s do that anyway.

Bonefish – The Bahamas wins this one. There may very well be 5 pound bones in Belize, but there are many, many more 1 pound bones. There are Bahamian islands with small average sized bones, but the Bahamas also features monsters, ten-plusers. The Bahamas is just such a pure bonefish fishery, it isn’t really a comparison. So many flats, so many islands and the bones are just THE species to chase.

fat backed bonefish

Tarpon – There ARE tarpon in the Bahamas, but you don’t head to the Bahamas to go tarpon fishing. Belize is going to win on that front. That’s where I caught my first tarpon and where I lost my first larger tarpon. Tarpon are what make Savannah Caye a well known spot and there are other known tarpon spots in Belize as well.

The final piece, the tarpon.

Permit – Ya know… I don’t know. I’ve heard some great stories of permit fishing in the Bahamas, but if you want to catch your first permit, you are more likely to go and have success in Belize, so, I’m going to say Belize. Belize is where I caught my first (only) permit, although I certainly have seen some in the Bahamas as well (big ones too).

Grand Slam – If you are looking for all three, you are going to head to Belize. I’m proof you can make that shite happen.

Beer – The beer of Belize, Belikin, isn’t even 12 ounces. Kalik and Sands take this one.

mmmmm

Guides – Toss up. I’ve had some amazing guides in Belize. I’ve had some amazing guides in the Bahamas. Generally, the Bahamas is known for bonefishing guides and Belize is known for permit guides.

Freddy, doing his thing at Abaco Lodge

DIY – There is just more area in the Bahamas. You can DIY in Belize, sure, but you just can’t beat the square miles in the Bahamas.

Snook – Belize… not many snook in the Bahamas. Sure, there are some, like this one from East End Lodge, but you are much, much more likely to get into a nice snook in Belize.

My Belize Snook

I love Belize. I love the Bahamas. This year is a very, very good year, as I’m going to visit both. The very best situation is when it isn’t either/or, but both.


03
Apr 18

Just a few days out – Belize Spring Break 2018

I’m at the point where I’m excited, but I also know high expectations are a killer.

Not great weather

As fantastic as last year’s Caye Caulker trip were, the day of fly fishing was mostly washed out. I got one nice snook to hand before the storm enveloped us in it’s dark and watery embrace. We spent at least an hour in a hut trying to stay out of the rain. It was not, in pure fishing terms, a super day, although it was still a wonderful day in terms of being on the water with my daughter.

This year should be easier with Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures making sure I’m in the right place at the right time and taking care of many of the getting-there logistics. With the airport on Caye Caulker out of service for repairs, they are making sure I’m getting met at the airport and taken to the water taxi and getting picked up at the dock. Nice service.

I have one day of fly fishing coming up in Belize. Other days will be ruin tours and snorkeling and hanging out. I have just the one day with a guide and we’ll have to keep my daughter happy at the same time.

It could rain hard again.

There could be thick cloud cover and the fish could be hard to see.

Wrong tides… that happens when you don’t have a week of fishing.

My daughter might not be feeling well.

I could get stung by something in the turtle grass and have agonizing nerve pain that keeps my from sleeping at all the night before (as happened during my honeymoon to Belize 5.5 years ago).

There are a million (ok, a few dozen) things that could go wrong.

So… I won’t get too excited.

Need to mentally slow play this.

But still. I’m excited. Jittery (and only on my first cup of coffee).

Can’t wait to get down there and I don’t have to wait long.

 


25
Feb 18

Always love the fly fishing show

Camille and my daughter at the Fly Fishing Show

I guess they are bigger out in NJ and the one in Atlanta? Maybe others too? We have one out here in Pleasanton, not too far away from where I call home. I have been to that show more often than not over the past decade. I have worked that show a few times… once for BTT, twice for Friends of the River, maybe once for Clearwater, back when it was Clearwater House.

I love the show. I see old friends and seem to have interesting conversations every year. I don’t really go to buy anything and I didn’t eve cast a rod this year (fewer and fewer ron makers seem to be showing up). But there are still lots of people I like at the show, people I generally only see there.

This year I brought my 11 year old daughter and she didn’t want to leave. I heard her on the phone with a friend later say “I spent the day at a fly fishing show… it was actually pretty fun.”

I’m going to put that in the parenting win column.

I got to introduce my daughter to Camille Egdorf, of Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures and from the movie Providence. It was funny because my daughter kind of fan-girled her, although I’m not sure she knew who she was. I made her watch Providence when we got home. Now she knows.

 


21
Feb 18

Looking back and forward… Belize

I was recently looking through the blog for something about my trip to Belize last year and I was surprised that I had written so little about my time on Caye Caulker. It was a great trip, although maybe it could have been better from a fly-fishing perspective… I only had one day to really fish and that was the worst weather of the week, but the trip… the trip was fantastic.

It was so good, so perfect, even with all the imperfections, that we are doing it again this year. Indeed, that trip stands every chance of being my first saltwater trip of the year (not counting wading for stripers here in the SF Bay).

There certainly was good fishing. I caught bonefish almost at will in the early morning and every night from the dock at Sea Dreams. On my one day of fly fishing I caught my best snook and my first on a popper. That was fun.

What really made the trip special was my companion on the trip… my then 10 year old daughter. This was a daddy-daughter trip. She stays with her mom and hour away about, oh, 63% of the time, so we have to make the most of our time together and this trip was a big part of that last year.

We snorkled, we threw bait for snappers, we hung out around Caye Caulker. Basically, we had a great time. My daughter lost her flip flops on the first day and we didn’t find out until we were leaving because she didn’t need to put shoes on pretty much the entire time. That pretty much summed up the trip.

I’ve had better fishing in Belize. I’ve had much better fishing in lots of places, but fishing wasn’t really the point of that trip. I didn’t fish enough to really have an opinion about the quality of the fishing anyway. I’m positive the fishing is great when you aren’t in a thunderstorm.

I usually hear someone say “Oh, it is just about getting out, I don’t mind if I catch anything” and I think someone is lying through their teeth, but, ya know… it kind of was just about getting out there, with my girl, and not caring about much else.

It was, in so many ways, perfect.

Prime example… the snorkeling. Now… I heard someone say the snorkeling is no good if you are going to the places everyone else goes and we certainly went to the places everyone else goes. I can, 100% tell you that is bullshit. The snorkeling was amazing. We saw a manatee (I had no idea they were in Belize), we saw permit, a moray eel, huge schools of fish, cudas, sharks, rays, bright corals, sea turtles, jacks… I loved it… she loved it too and the day was one I’ll cherish for a long, long time.

I thought she had been snorkeling with her mom, but no, she hadn’t. That meant her first snorkeling trip was with me, in Belize, on a sailboat for a full day. The sail back they let her steer the boat. As the sun was getting low in the horizon she stood there, tiller in her hand, the lighting perfect and I took the picture below, pretty much sure at that moment I was the best parent on the planet… even if just for that moment.

One of the highlights from Spring Break 2017.

I’m looking for more of these kinds of moments this year when we go back.

I can’t wait.

This year I’ll write more about it.


16
Dec 17

2017 – A review

What an odd year it’s been.

I got out, I went some new places, I had some different experiences, I caught some new species, I met some new people.

It was another year where my days fishing for trout diminished. I think I fished for trout exactly three days… all with my daughter and a bit with my son (who landed his first trout), and for fewer combined hours than I’d normally fish in a single day. It just gets harder and harder to get away and make the drive North or East to find trout water. Kids. Work. Wife. It just isn’t fitting into an increasingly full life. I can’t really even complain about that, it’s just an observation.

I continued to find some time around the edges to get to the Bay and fish for stripers. I didn’t do this as much as I would have liked to, but I caught some, even the odd halibut. I saw plenty of seals and pelicans and very few other anglers.

My first trip of the year was to Ft. Lauderdale/Miami. It is a trip I’ll look back on with sadness, given the later actions of my fishing partner, but the fishing itself was pretty interesting. I caught my first Peacock Bass, which was pretty fun, as well as my first Mayan. I went night tarpon fishing in Biscayne Bay (remember, my son’s middle name is Biscayne) on a night of high winds and low expectations. We didn’t catch anything more than a single jack, but we did have tarpon rolling on the shadow line of the bridge and it is something I really want to do again. I got to fish with David as well, who showed me one of his spots.

Just a fun, fun fish to catch on a fly rod.

A Mayan on David’s water

My second trip of the year was to Belize for Spring Break with my girl. We went to Caye Caulker and stayed at Sea Dreams. It was a pretty awesome trip, full of bonefish caught from the dock and very little time wearing shoes of any kind. The day of fly fishing resulted in one nice snook and a really good soaking from the rain. Lots of great memories from that trip.

My Belize Snook

One of the highlights from Spring Break 2017.

Awesome

Nice cuda.

My third trip of the year was to Oahu for a family vacation. I had a day to fish and I managed to break my O’io curse, landing three, hooking seven and seeing my first adult Giant Trevally and my first ever milkfish. It was a pretty good day on the water… opened my eyes a bit to the Hawaii bonefish game.

My fourth trip was to Mexico, Mahahual, with my dad in July. I think it was maybe a bit too late in the year as it was HOT. This was, in retrospect, not the best trip for my dad. The heat and unsteady footing were not his friends. Still, he caught his first tarpon (baby) and had his first grabs from adult tarpon. I caught some babies, had more than one eat from the big guys and caught my first trigger fish. It was a good trip that would have been made better by maybe 8 degrees less heat.

Nick with my trigger

Dad’s First Sabalito

My fifth trip was down to the marshes of Louisiana, DIY kayaking for redfish with a group largely from Alabama. This was a great experience. I had never fished out of a kayak like that and was a bit shaky, but managed to catch three reds and my first speckled trout. I met James, another blog reader, and enjoyed our day on the water.

My first DIY redfish

Don’t you love the hazey GoPro pictures?

That rounded out my fishing for the year. It is now approaching mid-December and I might, might get another day or two of throwing for stripers in the Bay, but beyond that, my fishing is pretty much wrapped up for 2017.

New species: Peacock Bass, Trigger Fish, Speckled Trout
New guides fished with:
New fishing friends made:

 


22
Nov 17

Seven Years Ago – I got lucky

Oh thanks Facebook Memories. I saw a pic today from seven years ago of me holding a tarpon from Belize.

There it is. Amazing.

That fish capped of a really wild day of fishing out of El Pescador with my friend Shane from The Fly Shop in Redding.

That tarpon was the final piece of my grand slam, made even more special because it was with my first (and only) permit and my first tarpon.

What a wild day that was. I know, looking back, and I knew at the time, that the biggest factor in all of that coming together was my tremendous skill luck. Really, I had no business tying into a grand slam. My friend Shane certainly did have a claim to one as he’s one of the best anglers I know. He actually hooked both a permit and a tarpon that day (as well a mess of bonefish… it is Belize after all). He already had a grand slam to his name and he is good enough to catch a grand slam on skill.

The permit. Not a big permit, but a permit.

Me? I needed luck.

Now I’m a much better angler than I was back then. I’ve put the time in. My casting is better. My understanding is deeper. I’ve now been spurned by a few permit and understand on a better level than, basically, permit are jerks. I’d be more likely to catch a grand slam on skill now, but back then, it was luck.

I’m OK with that.

Bone


08
Aug 17

Franklin plows into Mexico & Belize

I JUST left there and Tropical Storm Franklin comes barging on through. By the time this gets posted we’ll know how things are looking, but a named storm is right on top of Mahahual and Punta Allen as I write this. It looks like the brunt of the storm is likely passing north of San Pedro, but the eye is going to go right over Espiritu Santo Bay.

The area has needed rain, so this storm might be a good thing for them, assuming it doesn’t do too much damage. It isn’t expected to be a full hurricane until it passes through Yucatan and emerges into the Gulf to strengthen.

Wishing everyone well down there.


29
Apr 17

My Spring Break Snook – Belize – 2017

I open the door and look up and my heart sinks, just a bit. There are clouds… thick clouds, and a bit of wind and it is only 6:30 in the morning. I’m heading out to the dock to look for bonefish on this day, when we’ll be going out with a guide to fish the waters near Caye Caulker.

As I get out to the street and look in the direction of the reef I see a dark wall of weather coming this way.

Not great weather

Damn.

The dock is in the lee and the bonefish are there, because they seem to always be there when people or boats don’t drive them off… and even sometimes when it seems like they really should be scarce.

One comes to hand. Not a big one, but a bonefish. I’m on the board so the rest of the day is gravy.

Anna wakes up, or I wake her up, and we get breakfast up on the rooftop bar and she gets all kitted out in flats fishing gear. She’s wearing the uniform.

The guide pulls up at the hotel’s dock, a panga, no poling platform, but the pole is there, so I’m pretty sure we are in good hands. Purnell, I think he says his name is, isn’t optimistic about the weather but he tells me we’ll do what we can do and I tell him I understand he doesn’t control the weather.

The game plan, in my head, my aspirational game plan before we got here was tarpon. That plan is out the window with the weather. Instead, we run North. Crab Caye. This is a series of mangrove islands and lagoons somewhere in-between San Pedro and Caye Caulker. This seems to be the place the guides run to when something wicked is coming up from the South, and something wicked is certainly on the way. As we run north the storm is moving faster than we are. The panga’s twin 40’s are having a hard time with the sargassum, which was everywhere and in great amounts. Every 100 or 200 yards we have to stop, reverse and commence our forward progress again. It makes for slow going, but we wouldn’t beat this storm no matter what we had on the back of the panga. It is a fast mover.

As we get to the spot the guide wants us I get up on deck. While I want my girl to get into some fish, this isn’t really a spot that will work for her. She needs a mud to get a bone and I don’t think that is in the cards today. So, I am up on deck and as we turn the corner we see another boat with another guide who is trying just like we are to find a little bit of fishable water before the storm steals the day.

Another corner turned and another boat… two actually.

The guide has one more spot to check. We head into a mangrove lined channel. I love places like this.

As we emerge from the mangrove channel I see before us a picture perfect lagoon and, just as we cut the engines on the other side of the lagoon we see… another boat. They aren’t going to leave us to it. They are going to fish the lagoon as well. We go one way, they go the other. We’ll share.

We tuck over to the left where there is a little corner to the lagoon, a little tongue heading back in and on the fringes of that opening we see something move. First thought from me is bonefish, because that’s what I have seen in places like this before, but the guide tells me it is a snook.

A snook, eh? I’ve caught few of them. I’ve fished for few of them. They aren’t a game fish I know well, but, hell, I’m game.

We set up, waiting to see if the fish comes back and… it does.

Along the inside of the corner I see a fish moving towards us.

“Put it right in front of the fish. Close.” says Purnell.

I make the cast and the gurgler lands somewhere around a foot from the snout of the snook. One pop and the snook has keyed on it.

“Slow strips, not to fast” says the guide.

This is advice I need because I don’t magically know how to present a gurgler to a snook. I haven’t done it before.

I strip slowly and the snook comes casually up to the fly and then eats it like a trout taking a dry fly. It is an awesome take. Is this how snook eat? I have no idea but I do know I can’t let this fish have any line or I’ll lose him in the mangroves. Luckily, this in my tarpon rod, a 10 weight with 40# fluorocarbon and I hold the fish out of the mangroves, manhandling it to the boat in short order.

My Belize Snook

It is a nice snook. I’m sure there are nicer snook out there, but this is probably my nicest snook to date. A fine fish. The leader is worn, substantially, from the rough mouth of the snook. It looks and feels like a tarpon was caught on this fly. I don’t remember that from the few snook I’ve caught before, but maybe the smaller ones don’t wear so much on the leader? What I do know is that this was a great moment.

My daughter gets to touch the fish, gets to look at it.

“Cool” she says.

“Thank you,” I tell the guide. I always thank the guide, for every fish.

And that is pretty much it. I get one cast in at a pair of snook just a couple of minutes later and it is a good cast/presentation, but the fish don’t show any interest. I spot three bonefish nearby, but they are turning away, presenting their tails as targets, never promising.

The weather is coming on fast now. We’ll be in a deluge if we don’t make a move quickly. The fly rod gets put away. I tell the guide that the next fish we get should be my daughters, no matter how we have to do it.

With that, my fly fishing is pretty much done for the day. The weather comes. It rains hard, but we find shelter in a one-room shack built out over the water, probably for this very purpose.

Just the one snook, but it was a good fish. It was a good take. Memorable. I’ll savor that experience.


27
Apr 17

The trip to Belize

I had been preparing my daughter for a couple months for the trip to Caye Caulker. We’d have to get up early… like, 4.30 AM early, to start the journey. I knew it was going to be trying, on everyone. This isn’t a girl who deals well with a lack of sleep, or mornings.

We start off just fine. We getup. I get coffee, even, and we make our flight, no complications. Oakland to Denver to Belize City.

A couple hours into the second flight the questions start…

“When are we going to get there?”

“How much longer until we land?”

“How many more hours are we going to be in the air?”

Despite the questions, we land, eventually. She only goes to the bathroom 3 times during the 4.5 hour flight. Landing, we emerged into a heat and humidity very foreign to those of us from California. I dig it though, because it means I’m somewhere awesome. I know there are plenty of hot and humid places that aren’t awesome, but I don’t go to those places, so I associate heat and humidity with awesomeness.

This is the first time I’ve left the airport. Previously I’ve taken the puddle jumper, but not this time. This time we are going to take the Water Taxi from Belize City to Caye Caulker. It will be a new experience. I’ll see a little more of Belize and, let’s be honest, it is way cheaper.

The taxi is clean and has AC and is relatively fast. Waiting for the boat it is hot and there is no AC and it seems to take forever. People keep trying to sell me beer. I think getting tanked before we even get to the island and in front of my 10 year old isn’t a good idea. I decline.

At the entrance to the terminal area they take our bags and I am not totally sure I’ll see them again. It is all rather abrupt. They tell us they are with the company and they take our bags and give us claim tickets and away our bags go. I need those bags to show up on the other end of this little boat ride.

There is a long line to get on the boat, but there is room for everyone and the crossing is fairly peaceful. We sit at the back of the boat. It is easier to ride in the back… easier on the stomach and the back. I read that before we left and it seems to be paying dividends. Maybe I should have put on sun screen before we left though?

We pull up to the dock in Caye Caulker and it is pretty much paradise. Palm trees and beaches and golf carts, no cars. The streets are all sand. This is how I want to roll. Aspirational.

We go to pick up our bags and there is my daughter’s, but… where is mine? It isn’t there and now all my worst suspicious seem validated. Someone has walked off with my bag! They tell me that doesn’t happen and I should just relax, which is weird, because I’m rather relaxed, generally, but I’m maybe not so relaxed cataloging all the really important stuff in that bag. Medicine. Underwear. Sun Screen. Wading boots. Ugh.

There is a bar nearby, because, of course there is. I have a Belekin, because, of course I do. The girl has a Sprite, which she doesn’t finish, because ordering drinks she isn’t going to drink is one of her hobbies.

I go back to check on the bag. It isn’t there. Maybe they found it. Maybe. It will be here, they say. And I wait.

It isn’t on the next boat. Or the one after that. But they tell me it is on the next one… the last one of the day.

A taxi driver has been waiting for two hours for our bag. I try to give him some money for his time. He doesn’t take it. I’ll tip him well.

I’m stewing. I’m worried, but my girl… my girl doesn’t care. She’s in Belize with her dad. She’s playing in the water. She’s finding fish and chasing them. She’s calf deep in the Caribbean and loving it and even if this goes badly with the bag I have to think this is the right trip, the right place to be with her, this victim of divorce who doesn’t get to see her dad as much as she’d like.

The last boat pulls in. It is getting dark and this one came all the way from Chetumal, but it gets in before all sunlight has drained from the sky and and on that boat is my bag. Relax, man… it will show up. And it does and everything is perfect.

 


24
Apr 17

Dock fish

Oh dock fish… I could never be mad at you.

The Sea Dreams dock was kind of money for me. Every evening and every morning there were bonefish there. Not only that, but they were, well, cooperative. They went out and came back and went out and came back and just kept on giving me shots.

Maybe they would have been there later in the day, but the boat traffic and people traffic likely would be enough to even discourage these compliant fish.

These were the only bonefish I caught in Belize. I did get one shot when on the guided day, but that was at fish going away, and you know how bonefish love the going away shot. No, the dock fish were the fish that really made it happen for me.

One of those fish was maybe the second smallest bonefish I’ve ever caught. One of those bonefish was 3-4 pounds (a pretty good Belize bonefish). Pretty darn cool.

My daughter would be pursuing puffer fish in the shallows as I cast to the bones. I did give her the rod once with a good bonefish on, but I neglected to warn her about the knuckle smashing speed at which the reel handle can spin around. What followed was a pretty good whack and three solid swear words I let her get away with. She was done with the bonefish from there, but the puffer fish were never safe. She also found one of the biggest hermit crabs I’ve ever seen.

Thank you dock. I miss you.