The follow up to Pirates of the Flats, Buccaneers and Bones moves channels and locations and looks to be every bit as interesting. One of the sites this year is… you guessed it, El Pescador Lodge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agNKykgJFpM?fs=1&hl=en_US
The new show starts DECEMBER 26! Set your DVR!
I was on Blanton’s Board, looking around and I saw “Belize Report” from Lee Haskin. Good stuff about permit and tarpon and a little about bones. The pictures though… well… the “Shrimp Neutralizer” pattern… well… what?!?! FOAM?! I certainly hadn’t seen that before. Really creative and it looks as if it caught fish. Now that would have been handy to see before my Belize trip.
The Shrimp Neutralizer was very effective on bonefish and even had an “eat” from a big permit!
Great to use a fly that suspends and doesn’t hang up in the grass or coral!
via Trips, Flies and Fish: Belize-Rumble in the Jungle!.
Lee's bone and FOAM fly. Cool.
Lee... that's innovation. Well done.
Check out the trip report… you’ll see that Lee’s permit and tarpon were a littttttle bit bigger than mine… like… A LOT bigger. That’s what Belize has to offer.
I was reading a paper by Dr. Alan Friedlander (out in Hawaii, has been studying bonefish around the Pacific, has a tagging program in Hawaii) about the bonefish in Palmyra and this sentence caught my attention…
The remainder of the prey items consisted of various crustaceans (e.g., shrimp, isopods) and polychaete worms, with a few small fishes and one terrestrial beetle.
Let that thought sink in for a bit. Bonefish. Beetle.
The odds are not with you. It is a one in a million shot. Still… marinate on it for a while.
It would be cool.
Hmmm...
We set our alarm for 5:00 AM so that we would be totally ready by the time Katchu, our guide, got to El Pescador with the boat. All showered and fed and ready to go, we were looking forward to a day of more productive fishing than the previous day’s tarpon hunting.
We were going to be headed up along the Mexican/Belizean boarder where we hoped to stay north of the clouds. The day looked promising as we headed out. There were no other boats headed our direction as we made the 45 minute ride up the interior of the bay. A good sign.
We got up to the park and paid our $5 USD entrance fee and in 5 more minutes we were set up, drifting along near the shore, looking for permit. Katchu told us that the fishing for bonefish would be better in a couple hours and that at this time in the morning (about 7:50 or so) we should try to find some permit. I was on deck again first and had the Sage Xi3 10 wt. rigged for permit, which in this case meant 15 pound tippet and a lightly weighted Christmas Island Special.
Along the shore were cruising a couple nice bonefish and Katchu positioned me to cast to them. I was maybe too keenly aware that I had a 10 weight in my hand and I tried to have a delicate presentation and ended up totally under-powering a couple of casts. It was such shocking casting that even Shane had to say “Those are probably the two worst casts I’ve ever seen you make.” It was objectively true, so I couldn’t argue. It was a case of dramatic over-thinking.
Luckily, things changed quickly when nervous water was spotted coming towards us… a school of permit. I made the cast, right in the middle of the school, and just like their cousins, the Jacks, the permit parted and quickly regrouped. I stripped fast and one fish became hell bent on eating. He chased the fly with reckless abandon. Just like with Shane’s Jack the day before, I could see the fish, water sheeting over it’s head as it chased down the fly to eat. It did. I set the hook. It was off to the races.
Permit. Not a world record, but a frigging permit!
Now, fishing for permit presents some interesting gear choices. The fish I ended up landing was not really a fish you’d throw a 10 weight for… maybe it went 2-3 pounds, but out there on that same flat were permit going 20+. The Orvis Helios 8 wt. probably would have been better, but, ya know… probably better to be over-gunned than under.
The permit was my first. A milestone in its own right.
I'm ready for my close-up!
Shane was up and after being out of position for most of the other permit we saw, we headed to a little Caye riiiiiiiiight up against the Mexican boarder to look for bonefish. It must be said that while we struggled with light and clouds, we could see the Mexican side bright and sunny all day. It will give me extra reasons to root for the US when next we play soccer.
The fishing along this little caye was just fantastic. There were about a million bonefish there, but also jacks, barracuda, snappers and permit. We fished one little school of bonefish and if I missed the fish the drill was to cast out to line the school so they would retreat. This they would do, totally according to the script, and then they’d come back in a couple minutes. We could have sat on that school of bonefish all day. We traded fish for a good amount of time and fun was had.
Point, cast, catch... Shane at work.
When Shane was on deck we saw, right mixed in with the bones, permit. There were actually two schools of permit and there were some tense exchanges between Shane and Katchu about what cast was the best to make but in the end Shane made the cast that needed to be made and he was soon watching his line rip through the water, attached to a permit at the other end. Then… the fish just came unbuttoned. No reason… it just came off.
We fished down to the point of the Caye and got to do some wading. Shane is at his most content when he gets to find his own fish, so this was a good stop for Shane. It was a good stop for me too as I stuck a fair number of bonefish there myself.
Belizean Bone rocking the Skinny Water Culture mask.
We fished here until it was about time to head back and Katchu said “If we want to get you the Slam, we better go now.” So, we went. It took all of about 5 minutes to get to the canal and another 5 minutes to get to the little mangrove enclosed lagoon where we’d be looking for “baby” tarpon.
I had never caught a tarpon. But, ya know, before that morning I had never caught a permit either. I had hooked a tarpon (the day before) and made quick work of botching the job, so… I was glad to hear “baby tarpon.” They sounded maybe a bit easier.
Just on the other side of this tunnel, I botched TWO tarpon eats.
Newsflash… the babies are not really babies… they are more like young-adults full of testosterone and anger. The first fish I cast to (which was totally not small, by the way) attacked the fly like my wife going after a pair of comfortable black high-heels… like me after bacon… it was savage. I felt totally unprepared. Actually, I WAS unprepared and quickly botched it. I then botched the follow-up.
We retreated further into the mangroves and I found myself in a mangrove-lined dead-end mini-lagoon with a tarpon at the other end and my grand slam on the line. An off-shoulder backcast was called for and delivered. The fish showed some real psychological issues as it threw itself at the fly and I nearly had to seek immediate psychological help after I botched THAT attempt. The fish, however, was still looking for the fly after I had just pulled it from its mouth and two more strips and the fish ate. I didn’t botch this one. I didn’t give an inch. I bowed to the fish when it jumped NINE FRIGGING FEET in the air.
There it is. Amazing.
The fish was in. The grand slam was in the bag. I was amazed. A Grand Slam that featured my first ever permit and my first ever tarpon. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen. But it did. What an amazing day.
Thanks for being there Tarpon.
One of the best beers I've ever had. A Grand Slam Beer.
As I waited at the Miami Airport to get to Belize, I posted a picture from Facebook showing the bonefish sculptures there. I got a reply that went “Hey, I work there, where are you?” I ended up meeting and talking briefly with Chris, who immediately noticed my Skinny Water Culture hat.
Today, I looked on the Skinny Water Culture blog, and who is it but Chris with about a 12 pound bonefish. Fantastic! Way to go Chris!
I thought to myself, jeez…what am I going to do when I see a bonefish. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the unmistakable, unfamiliar sight of a tail pop up.
via Skinny Water Culture: Monster Kayak Bonefish!.
The weather was set to continue being crappy and that didn’t seem like a good day to go out with a guide, so we decided this would be our DIY day. El Pescador is on the beach, but in the back, it has a small dock that leads to a lagoon… in the lagoon are bonefish. Instead of walking the beach, we set out by paddle. El Pescador has a rough map with some spots marked and we used that as a starting point to get to the fish.
Stormy skies and the red canoe
The first shore we patrolled was devoid of anything resembling a bonefish, so we moved on. Shane moved further down the beach and I stayed closer. Twenty minutes on I saw a bonefish cruising out of some flooded mangroves. I threw a brown gotcha in a #8 and the fish saw it and charged it. I set, the fish was hooked and it started its run. I tried to clear the line, but… well… the line still jumped up and wrapped around my hand. I was now 0/1. Rumor has it that I dropped a couple of f-bombs at this point in the trip, but those reports are unconfirmed. About 5 minutes later and Shane was hooked up… first fish of the trip was in the books.
The seal breaker.
One more move and my rod was finally bent all the way to conclusion.
Get bent.
Well, isn't (s)he cute?
Turns out what you’ve heard about Belize bonefish is largely true… which is they aren’t very large. This little guy was about the size we caught. We did see a few bigger fish and even caught some (mostly Shane), but there are a lot of smaller fish here. They are still very, very fun and it does present an opportunity to down-size on your rod selection. You could easily get away with a six and, ya know… maybe even a 5. That means if you want to get into bonefishing and don’t want to go out and buy a new rod for one trip, you could grab your trout gear and head to Belize. Just say’n.
Out in the lagoon for the rest of the trip we had a simple rule… before you dip into the cooler for a beer, you have to land a fish. So, this was a nice beer.
Mmmm... good.
Belikin is the beer of Belize and we drank a fair bit of it… 58 of them according to the bar tab. Here’s the thing about Belikin… they are a LIE. The bottle is heavy… very heavy… the weight of each bottle is roughly 95% glass and 5% beer. They are about 2 ounces each… or 9.6 ounces as it turns out. You can grab and empty bottle and the weight makes you think it is full… but it isn’t. That is a tragedy. When you have a Belikin you are largely holding glass. Someone said when you buy a Belikin you also buy a weapon… and I can see that. In my totally imagined feud between Kalik and Belikin, I’m going to raise the Kalik on sheer volume. Hope that doesn’t offend anyone, but really… a beer should be AT LEAST 12 ounces… AT LEAST.
I only managed a couple of fish that day, Shane had about 7, which was a sign that things were as they should be. Shane’s a much better angler than I am since he’s a guide on the water about 200 days a year and he has about 350 days of bonefishing under his belt.
It seemed appropriate with it raining that hard... to have a beer.
The rain came and went… and then came again. Our paddle back to El Pescador was a wet and windy one. Just as we got to the mangrove chute we’d take to get to the dock Shane was mentioning that this particular environment looked ideal for baby tarpon. Then I saw one roll. So, we fished for some very small baby tarpon for a few minutes. I cast from the canoe while Shane stood in the back of the canoe trying to locate the fish. I had one eat, but didn’t hook it.
When we got back the light was failing and we were both wetter than seemed possible. It had been a challenging day, but we had made it work. The best time to go fishing, after all, isn’t when the weather is perfect. The best time to go fishing is when you can.
wet, wet, wet
We made the right call and had a fun day under the Belizean clouds.
Small? Sure. Pretty? You bet.
The third day of the trip and the second day in Belize were done. Dinner was fantastic… Lobster and Chicken Parmesan. They treat you right at El Pescador.
The next day was going to be with a guide and a trip to the tarpon flats.
I didn’t expect it. But it happened. Amazing.
Bonefish
Tarpon
Permit
A Grand Slam at El Pescador.
My Grand Slam Pin from El Pescador.
A little YouTube bonefishing hunt turned up this little video, newly added to interwebs. This is in the Bahamas somewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtUhxXqi5Io?fs=1&hl=en_US
I was reading an old article on Reel-Time about bonefishing and saw something about a remote island in Kiribati (Christmas Island is in Kiribati).
Note: Christmas Island is not the only bonefishing location in the South Pacific. Kanton Island, located approximately 2,2 00 miles west from Christmas is in the process of opening a full-scale bonefishing operation as soon as the operator can arrange dependable flights onto the island.
Looks like that dependable air service never quite made it there… this article was written in 1996 and today it does not appear that there is an active guide or lodge operation on Kanton Island, although I think I found the operation mentioned above… still waiting for investment.
It might not be totally ready for full on development… with just 24 people living there including children that have sever calcium deficiencies. Things were looking pretty grim there in May when a Brit named Bond (not making that up) stopped by and found the population in a dire straight. Might not be a totally wonderful island paradise if the supply ship gets stranded and doesn’t make it there for a few months.
The look of the island would suggest that it might have some of the same issues that Penrhyn does in terms of lack of tidal flush and high water temps, but that is only a slightly educated guess.
I see one inlet that means no real tidal flush.
Still… I’ll bet it’s pretty.
My guess is that we’ll hear a lot more about places like this in 20 years when other favorite destinations have been degraded and depleted. All it takes is a reliable transportation link to open these places up… and then to beat them down under a few million flip-flops.
I wonder how many other places like this there are in the South Pacific. My guess is that there are more than a couple… some with bonefish, some with former bonefish populations (if you had to survive on fish for a couple months, you might pick bonefish since they come into the shallows).
Kanton… I don’t think we’ll be hearing much from you for a while.
I’m culturally insensitive. I say that because this makes me angry. I know they’ve been taking and eating bones for a long time (probably not with modern nets though). Still, I think it is a sad, sad thing to kill a bunch of bonefish to sell them (I have not heard of them being sold before).
A bonefish is worth more living than dead. These fish are too wonderful to end their lives in a nylon net. If thinking that makes me an a-hole, I’ll just have to live with that.
It was a good catch, they said, and then they drove off to take it to market.
via Food, people, life, stories. » Blog Archive » Pulling bonefish from the sea, Kaua’i style.
Damn.
