Brazda's Fly Fishing

Left the windy lands of Ellensburg Washington for my second trip for Permit and Bonefish on May 1 and returned yesterday planning the next trip. I don’t think I have been this jazzed about new angling in over a decade. The whole experience is a learning curve, from climate adaption to leader tapers.

Rex and I began by road tripping it to Hobox island in hopes of finding a guide for whatever time we had. We managed to fish a ½ day in the mangrove sloughs catching many 20 inch Snook on sardine patterns. Good fun and a great warm up. Lesson one: gas stations don’t always have gas! But someone in most towns will even if it comes from 2 litre coke bottles.

Arriving in Xcalak we found the town nearly stopped as the tourist season was finalizing, fortunately the winds also had slowed from a gale the prior three days.

The next five days gave us all many shots at Permit, we had 20 fish schools of 5 pounders and singles to over 30 pounds. They would chase shrimp patterns right to the rod tip and most never bit but many gave us good intentions. Many times our well placed crabs or shrimp would be gobbled by bonefish feeding on the bottom below the Permit. Reminded me of ol’ whitey on the Big Hole in July!

 I again managed to catch a permit on bonefish gear, a 6 wt no less, wile on foot what a battle thank god for backing. Chris and Darrell had great fishing and a few days could have caught 50 plus Bones a day but the frequent passing of Permit kept us hunting them.

Rex and I went on exploratory trips to the far inside of Chetumal bay finding huge unfished flats with  larger uneducated Bones and very fast schools of Jacks hunting baitfish. Chucho then took Daryl and myself far up the ocean side in search of large untouched Permit, only to find all four flats species in a single large lagoon a ½ mile inland. The Snook and Tarpon proved too sneaky but the Permit and Bonefish made the trip.

As for the next trip, I am thinking Early December right after Montana Deer season the guides say that there is a month window there before the north winds arrive cooling the water and moving the larger numbers of Permit out. I will share more on booking that trip later in the season.

Flats fishing has bitten my soul, the new challenges and its beautiful environs have me wondering will I ever feel the same about trout fishing again.

After thirty five years fly fishing in the NW chasing steelhead and trout a guy gets,,, well,,,,for lack of a sophisticated word,,,, bored with it. Now don’t get me wrong I love my job and lifestyle I crave the next big pull from a pissed off steelhead and the painstakingly slow take of a big brown trout to a dry fly. But for one that is in limbo between the peak fisheries I have re-found the passion that has been simmering in me for many off seasons. The same passion that burned so strong when I caught my first steelhead at 13 has been rediscovered on the flats of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Not only has it re-ignited my desire to fish more but also my excitement for discovery, a thrill I thought scarred out of me on many trips searching for steelhead in SE Alaska twenty years ago. There is a whole world of angling out there that is now newly available to me, a fishery that has eluded my attention for way to long.

Some of it could be the fact that it takes place in a much warmer climate, a habitat as diverse as any on the planet, now instead of grizzly bear’s there are alligators, instead of drift boats there are Pangas, and instead of  driving rain and rising rivers, there are sunburns and north winds, hardly as annoying.

The fine people of the Yucatan are Mexican and Americans, the homes for lodging are mostly Americans and the guides are true indigenous Mexicans. The country of Belize is a short water taxi away, another world yet to be fished on a later date.

I feel the urge to spend days on the flats camping on remote beaches hunting in an all new way, picking through mangrove rivers to undiscovered lagoons where one may find tarpon and snook that have never seen a fly, once again my fishing imagination can run wild.

I can hardly wait for my next trip to the region; I won’t have to wait long as it’s already in the works. The first ten days in May 2010 will find me and whomever I can convince to go along on the search for that next big Permit, Tarpon, Snook or Bonefish.

Any Takers?