Locations

Locations — No Comments
02
Mar 16

The story of two trips

My recent Abaco adventures involved two very (VERY) different parts.

Part One – Abaco Lodge.

2016-02-19 06.49.41

This place is legendary and for good reason. It is a fishing lodge in the best tradition. The iconic red buildings greet every angler on the way back in after seeing what the Marls have had to offer (which, generally, is a huge number of bonefish). The meals are chef prepared and delicious. The rooms are comfortable, clean and resort-like. The staff, including new managers Matt and Valeska, are warm, welcoming and strive to give you the best stay possible. The guides are knowledgeable, most with over a decade of guiding experience. The boats are Hell’s Bay and ride smooth and float skinny. The dock even had dock lights and a resident swarm of grey snapper (and a few visiting bonefish). It draws anglers, real anglers, and you are likely to hear stories about Montauk, the Seychelles, Cuba and Yellowstone over drinks or dinner or drinks after dinner.

The place is just pure class.

2016-02-17 07.11.02

Shooting the breeze after a day on the water

I’d go back… I’d go back right this minute if it wouldn’t mean losing my job and getting a divorce (I love my wife and enjoy my job, so that would seem to be counter-productive). It is the kind of place that stays with you.

Part Two – Bahamian Fishing Village

We called this “The Real Bahamas.” We stayed at a small motel/guesthouse in a small fishing village (I’m not going to hotspot it for you). Everything in the town was owned by the same man and everyone seemed to work for him in some way or another. The room was simple, if a bit rough. The bathroom had a notable ant problem, but maybe that is what the lizard was there for. There were cockroaches at night if you were foolish enough to turn on the lights when you had to go pee. There was almost no discernible water pressure in the shower. There was trash all over the place, including in the water right below the room. The restaurant/bar (owned by the same guy) sold hard booze in pints that could be collected on the street the next morning drained of their soul crushing nectar. There was often loud shouting from up or down the street. Men carried sticks with them, I think to beat back the potcakes when they got too aggressive. We had six people tell us they were fishing guides and that we could hire them to take us out for $150 a day. No one had a boat though, or much of an idea about fly fishing.

The first comparisons to life at Abaco Lodge were a bit jarring, to say the least. Still, there was more about this little fishing village than cosmetics.

ablocx

Life seemed, and certainly was, hard. The sea provided what livelihood there was to be had. When the weather was good, there was fishing to be done, even on Sundays. Everyone seemed to help with everything. People got us ice or water or beer in the morning and I have no idea how they were connected to us or the owner, they just helped out. Everyone, even the most sour looking locals, said good morning to us, most of them even reaching out a hand and introducing themselves. Everyone shared their best ideas about where we should look for bonefish. Everyone was happy for our business and some even had business opportunities.

Where we stayed.

We brought school supplies for a local elementary school and got to meet some of the kids, who were drilled and trained to a T when asked “How are you doing today?” It was equal parts inspiring and terrifying.

ablocx store

ablocx main road

ablocx bar

ablocx nice house

The “Real Bahamas” was something I’m glad I got to see. You don’t see much of that with the Lodge experience. It is good to get out and talk to people and see how they live, see what their challenges are, as well as their joys. I got a real sense of the positives and negatives of life in the Out Islands here on this trip.

I have a new found respect for these people making a hard life in a beautiful place and pitching in to help their neighbors. That’s one of the things the DIY route offers, the chance to get a little closer to the people there in the place you are fishing, to see what life is actually like.

It is hard to beat the lodge experience for pure angling, for the comfort of it, for the ease of it, the quality guides, good night’s sleep and when you just want a solid vacation. If you want to put a little cultural understanding in your next trip, consider a day or two out in the “Real Bahamas” as well.

Locations — 2 Comments
29
Feb 16

Hope in the Bahamas

Good people

Well, look who I saw at the Pleasanton Fly Fishing Show. That is Cheryl Bastian from Swain’s Cay Lodge and Benjamin Pratt from the Ministry of Tourism. They were there from the Bahamas Outislands Promotion Board, doing their part to help convince people that the Bahamas is still the place to be, mon.

I had a good conversation about all that has gone on and I feel positive about the direction things are headed. There is a new draft of the legislation somewhere and it is foolishness-free. All the good stuff is in, all the bad stuff is out and I feel like this could turn into a real positive.

There is going to be a training program (there actually already is, but it is going to get better), certification of guides and a daily license fee in-line with Florida prices. And, key point, none of this will be controlled by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

On my recent Abaco trip we had no fewer than six people tell us they could guide us for bonefish. Each of those people knew something about bonefish, but not enough to take money for a day on the water. None of those people was “professional guide level.” None of those people had apprenticed under any bonefishing guide. If we had been going after snapper or grouper, they would have been great, but for bonefish… not so much. Training and certification is needed.

I’ve known all along that there were good people out there who are in our corner, fighting the good fight and it was good to meet a couple of them face-to-face and to shake their hands and offer my support as well.

I feel more confident than ever that none of the destructive aspects of the first proposed legislation are going to see the light of day.

Your trip is safe.

Get ye to the Bahamas.

Locations — 2 Comments
26
Feb 16

When the wind is up

The flat was loaded with fish. Wave after wave. It was the most fish any boat out of Abaco Lodge would see that day and likely more fish than we saw for the next 4 days on our own.

The problem, as is often the case, was the wind. The wind was blowing the water off the flat and not even the skinny riding Hell’s Bay could get us any further after the fish. Luckily, the fish were frequently coming to us.

Fishing in a 25 mile an hour wind is a challenge. Maybe it is a cinch for Lefty, but most of us mortals have a hard time casting into 25. Things go really wrong. Every shortcoming is magnified and your cast becomes defined by that shortcoming. In a 10 mph wind you can get away with a lot. In 25, you can get away with very, very little.

damn fly line is everywhere

This day was the opposite of my first day. That day I saw the fish early. Every cast I needed, I had. It felt like almost every fish I threw at ate.

This day, however, I never saw the fish first. There were some I didn’t see at all. Casts asked for often didn’t pan out as asked for or envisioned.

They say when you feel like you need to speed up, that is exactly when you need to slow down and while I know that, deep down, in my gut somewhere, my animal brain was calling the shots, extolling me for blowing shots and telling me what I really needed was just a little more pepper in the cast. The animal brain is an idiot and a liar and a fool and its casts were “poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

As the tide kept falling, water kept getting pushed off the flat, the fish became even more spooky. From 60′ one fish spooked when the guide pointed at it. Fish seemed to be able to tell when we were looking at them and they’d run, panicked, darting this way and that until they were out from under our gaze.

Amazingly, we caught fish. Against the odds and in spite of the wind, we actually won a few of those contests.

One of my most rewarding fish followed about 20 minutes of fish spooking at every motion. Motion of the boat, the fly line, the fly itself, everything seemed to sew terror. And then there was a string of fish just getting up on the flat and they weren’t bothered and the first fish in that string to see my fly charged it down and ate it with relish.

Nice to be vindicated. Nice to do it in the face of a 25 mph wind too.

Redemption

Locations — 4 Comments
26
Feb 16

A perfect moment, Abaco style

On our first day of DIY on Big Huge Bonefish Flat the wind was up. Way up. The water off the flats was full of good size swells and the lee we found didn’t have the fish we were looking for. Someone forgot to tell the wind it was supposed to be coming from North East, not East. Silly wind.

We saw fish as soon as we got to the flat. Big fish. Bigger than seemed likely, really. Moving away. Moving 70 feet away in a 20-25 mph blow. This was going to be hard.

We walked up the flat toward the creek system. It was a long, slow walk. There were no targets to cast at.

The flat looked like a place bonefish would be and there were plenty of signs they had been there recently. That was promising, but still, they remained elusive.

In the creek, and close to the end of what would seem like a good college try of finding fish here I actually found some. Two, to be exact. These were nice fish, backs out of the water on the extreme edge of the tide who had not gotten the “fish leave the flat on the outgoing tide.” They were going in and I was following them.

I didn’t think I’d get a shot. They were going in, I was behind them and I never have been a fan of the “over the top and back toward the fish” presentation. Fish, generally, dislike that… a lot.

Then, they turned and were now heading back toward me, backs still out of the water in about 4″ of outgoing tide at about 35-40 feet.

I put the cast in ahead of the fish and waited. I twitched the fly as the fish swam almost on top of it. It pounced, pinning the fly to the mud. I striped slowly, only to feel the fly pull free, gently, of the fish’s grasp. The fish, determined to eat that damn shrimp, spun in circles looking for the prey. I twitched the fly again, but he didn’t see it. The fly was traveling further from the fish at this point and he was unlikely to pick it up again.

I picked up and re-cast closer to the fish. Again, he pounced with a sudden charge and then stillness meaning the fly was being crushed in the mouth of this bone. I strip set and the fish exploded.

Two long runs confirmed this as a 2X backing fish. Aaron actually thought I had lost the first fish and was landing a second, but it was all one fight and one very nice bonefish.

When landed the fish looked huge, although the measurements I got put the fish more toward 7 pounds than the 8 I first thought. It was my second largest bonefish ever, but the way it was hooked, the closeness, the intimacy I had in the whole affair, makes it one of my favorite bones of all time.

Purdy.

It was a perfect moment.

It was the only fish we caught between us all day and it was worth it.

Conservation / Locations — 1 Comment
25
Feb 16

Clip it… Clip it really good… for SCIENCE!

BTT is running a Fin Clip Challenge, sponsored by YETI from March 1st to March 23rd. Collect as many fin clips as you can from South Florida to support YETI’s Bonefish Genetics Program. You get the most and you get the YETI Hopper Cooler with art by Jorge Martinez. Looks pretty dope.

More details about the contest on the BTT blog.

I doubt I’d be much help since I live in California and my only bonefish was caught accidentally and was likely the smallest fly-caught bonefish in Florida in that year.

The bonefish

Locations — 3 Comments
24
Feb 16

Freddy, Mike and Me

The weather on our first day at Abaco Lodge wasn’t ideal with a dash too much wind and a bit overkill on the cloud cover. It would also be the best weather we saw all week. Breakfast was good and filling, the coffee was hot, the rods were all strung up, initial bonefish flies had been selected and our fishing partners for the day were set.

This day I would share a boat with Mike Sepelak, who can also pen a pretty fine description of a day on the water. It was a lucky stroke Mike was going to be there when I was, as we’ve written plenty of facebook messages back and forth, but had never met in person.

As I got down to the dock I met our guide for the day, Freddy. I thought he looked familiar and when he broke out with a bit of song I knew I had met Freddy before back at FIBFEST II down at Andros South.

This was that Freddy.

Freddy, doing his thing at Abaco Lodge

Freddy had been my favorite guide down in Andros South because he was the most relaxed and fastest to laugh. He sang, often, from the poling platform and nothing seemed capable of beating back his enthusiasm or his sense of humor. He’s just good people. He’s the same Freddy now that he was then. Abaco Lodge has picked up a bit of an all-star.

Mike and Freddy and I got to work in the Marls and while Freddy hasn’t been over here from Andros for too long, he demonstrated that a life’s work spent finding bonefish in Andros translates very well to finding fish in Abaco. He put us on fish, pretty consistently, most of the day.

This was a good day for me, fishing wise. Every cast Freddy called for I served up. I saw most of the fish either before Freddy said anything or just as he did. I was seeing the fish, making the casts and wasn’t screwing things up. It felt like I knew what I was doing. I was on my A Game and it felt really good. I had a couple of fish taken on relatively long casts, maybe 60-65 feet and even dropped one fly about 6 inches in front of a bonefish that ate it immediately.

Mike with a bonefish hooked and playing in a rare moment of fantastic visibility.

I love it when things work out.

Mike was into fish, but was getting in his own way a bit, finding new and inventive ways of screwing things up (probably because he didn’t want to use my flies), which we dealt with using humor. Mike is a fine angler and it wasn’t a skill issue, just an off day. I’d have my own version of that kind of day on my next angling day. It happens to us all.

Good times were had. It was a day I’d repeat a hundred times and enjoy every one.

Locations — 8 Comments
22
Feb 16

Starting with the cuda

I’m starting off posts about my recent trip to Abaco with a barracuda I caught on a spinning rod. Maybe that’s an odd choice, but that’s what I’m doing.

This was the second day in Abaco and our last day at Abaco Lodge. My fishing partner Aaron and I were fishing with Trevor and the morning was proving tough. Wind (at one point blowing maybe 25 mph). Clouds. Cooler temps on the flats. There are a million reasons why the beautiful flats we were looking at didn’t seem to have any bonefish on them and what few chances we were getting in the AM we were not making the most of. The fish seemed morally opposed to flies.

We weren’t down, just eager and a bit frustrated that what light we had didn’t include the illumination of the bones we were looking for.

Then we saw the cuda.

It was a nice cuda, for sure, but not a record breaker. We saw a lot of cuda on our trip, both in the Marls and where we fished later. They were everywhere, including many places bonefish were not… like this flat, at this moment.

I grabbed the spinning rod with the well-worn cuda plug and launched it fish-ward. It really is amazing how far those things cast. I had just replaced my spinning rod and this was the first cuda the rod would see.

The cuda at first seemed startled, then it seemed pissed as it ran down the plug as I reeled it in as fast as I could. It lunged and missed and lunged and missed again and was nearing the boat when it slashed again, this time grabbing one of the two treble hooks, the water exploding followed an instant later by that brand new spinning rod snapping in (more or less) half.

Things can go two ways at this point. You can either be mad/angry/upset about it, or you can think this turn of events is awesome. We went with the latter option. There I was fighting a 25 pound cuda with half a rod and Aaron and I both started laughing. Smiles, all around. As Aaron said later, “There is just something cool about breaking a rod on a fish.”

A big fish and a broken rod.

That’s striking the right tone. It was a trip highlight, among many. It was a ray of light on a mostly cloudy and very windy day.

Travis went on to find us fish… a lot of them, more than we saw the rest of the trip. We even managed to catch a few, but the day was mostly made with that cuda.

It was a story for the dock when we got back, where we learned we weren’t the only one to break a rod on the day. Another angler broke his 11 weight on a tarpon (yes, a tarpon in the Marls).

Bonefishing is fun. Fly fishing is the way I want to catch them. However, barracuda are also fun and watching one try to murder a 7″ plug is downright exhilarating. I love bonefishing, or course, but I love the whole package with its ups and down and expansiveness.

I’ll be thinking of this trip for a long time.

Locations — 3 Comments
14
Feb 16

I had a dream

Oddly, the dream was about tarpon and not about bonefish, but the salt has clearly seeped into my head. Good thing I get on a flight tomorrow night and head off to the Bahamas where I’ll get a good soaking.

In the dream I got an eat from a nice tarpon in shallow water, but the hook didn’t find purchase, which is mostly how I tarpon fish anyway.

Next week it will be about bonefish and exploring and having an adventure. I can’t tell you what it will be beyond that, as the experiences are yet to be lived.

What I can tell you is having a trip on the books makes me feel alive.

I’m ready.

There are the flies I’m bringing. I’m not tying anything else.

A little something for our host at Abaco Lodge.

El Dorado 12

The only thing I don’t have is a sat phone. Wish I would have thought to look into renting a week or so earlier.

Something for the next adventure, maybe.

Conservation / Locations — 1 Comment
12
Feb 16

Emerging Disasters

There are two things happening in the world of flats fishing right now that are just major bummers.

First is Florida. Billions of gallons of nutrient rich polluted water are pouring out of Lake Okeechobee and the impact to inland fishing in Florida is likely to be fairly disastrous. The Indian River Lagoon and St. Lucie River are taking the main brunt of this and their estuaries are going to have a hard time surviving. A sad situation with deep roots.

Next is Belize. Leonardo DiCaprio (DeCrapio??) is getting attention for his environmental actions and not the positive kind. Blackadore Cay, bought by DiCaprio a few years back, is the site he plans to build some real BS eco-resort that disregards local laws and the importance of the area to the people who live there now and make their living from the waters just off the shore of Blackadore.

Now, just because you’ve had to mentally go through those two total BS stories… here’s some eye candy in the form of some pretty bad-ass looking fish.

I kind of always thought Milkfish looked ugly… but I’m changing my mind on that.

Locations — No Comments
24
Jan 16

The plan is coming together

The destination is Abaco. The dates are February. The quarry is bonefish. My travel companion is Aaron.

We are getting a handle on where we are going to be when and I’m getting excited.

I’m looking forward to getting a little more time at Abaco Lodge, to meeting Oliver White in person, and to exploring more of the Island (which looks more and more interesting the longer I look).

I know which rods I’m bringing and I’m going through my flies, looking at what I might need to tie up for the trip.

Is there anything better than having a trip on the books to look forward to?

Bonefish on the Brain Bonefish and all that relates (maybe a bit about tarpon too).