The good folks at Orvis recently posted up a list of ten tips to help your experience be all that you want it to be when you head down to El Pescador. The list comes from Ali… who we’ve met and interviewed in this VERY BLOG!
Ah… Belize… it’s been sooooo long (actually, just in November, but sooooo much has gone on since then). El Pescador was good to me… a grand slam on my first tarpon and permit? Seriously? That’s just silly.
Here’s my list of 5 things I can think of to help make your Belize/El Pescador trip all it can be…
- Bring lots of #8 gotcha’s in various colors… don’t do what I did and have a couple that I only had one color of.
- Put weed guards on the good stuff.
- Have your box organized so you know which flies have weed guards and which don’t.
- Strip fast for the permit, but feed the tarpon.
- Leave the 8 at home… 7 for the bones, 9 for the permit, 10-11 for the poons.
Other things I think of when I think of that trip… the beers are less than 12.oz and that means you need to keep track of how many of those things you drink… we had a beer tab of just shy of $400… for three days.
There are places with bigger bonefish, for sure. There are probably places with bigger tarpon at times of year. However… if you are looking for a grand slam… there probably isn’t a better place to get it done… anywhere.
Permit. Not a world record, but a frigging permit!
Not a big tarpon, but a tarpon.
Bone
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Ah… the coveted grand slam! That particular slice of happiness (and notoriety) has so far eluded me… not that I’ve tried. However, in my defense, I have SEEN a grand slam…although it was over several days. And, if you consider snook to be the third leg of that triple header, I’ve seen one hooked, but not landed. So, my friend, hats off to you.
As for El Pescador, I’d add a couple things to that list: First, just put weed guards on everything. They’re pretty easy to cut off while fishing, but very tricky to add. Second, for tailing bones cast ON the fish, man. Leading them like they’re finicky tarpon means they’ll never see the fly.
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Yeah… I got pretty lucky on that whole day. Shane, in the boat, hooked a grand slam on the same day… he hooked a permit that unbuttoned for no reason… he hooked a tarpon, but since I was on the hunt for the tarpon to finish the slam, he didn’t get another shot. Shane is about 16x the angler I am… I got the slam, he didn’t. Just goes to show how much luck is in the whole deal. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good!