Bonefish Video

I work way too much. Especially in the winter months when we are in hightourist season and the roads are filled with cars with license plates fromall over North America. I will herein refer to the people that drive thosecars as ³snowbirds² with no disrespect intended. It¹s these ³snowbirds²that I work for day in and day out. ³Dave, can you help me with this?² or³Dave, you have a minute?² is all I hear day in and day out until themiddle of May when the lakes thaw and everyone heads back to the north.It¹s also these ³snowbirds² that I desperately need to escape from on my dayor two off each month. I have recently found my sanctuary deep in theeverglades where the cell phones don¹t work and all I have is snook,redfish, and tarpon on the brain. I also enjoy fishing with a guide onthese days because down here if you want to fly fish and do it right, youneed to have a decent boat and someone to pole you around. So the second weekend in January 2006 rolls around, keep in mind we areexactly one week into our tourist season, and I am already burned out, butready to spend a couple of days fishing. One problem. The strongest coldfront of the winter is blowing through out of the northwest at around25-30mph and fishing here is not really an option. Its Saturday evening andI have the next two days scheduled off. I jump around on the internetlooking for some hope, a place where my cell phone might as well be a boatanchor, a place with decent weather, a place without a hint of ³snowbird²,oh yeah and a place with tons of fish. So I stumble upon this obscurelittle website, www.bahamasbonefishing.net. I give this guy a call, and he convincesme to come over the next morning. The plan was to catch an 8:00 am flightout of Ft. Lauderdale to Freeport, GBI, Capt. Phil was going to pick me upat the airport at 8:50 am, and have my first bonefish on around 10 am. Theplan worked. I was greeted at the airport on time and shuttled off in Capt. Phil¹s vandown the left side of the road, which was partially gravel, for the next 45minutes. Phil and I believe his son P.J. told me where we were going andwhat I just signed up for. It sounded too good to be true, but shortlyafter we arrived in McLean¹s Town, GBI and pulled straight up to theconcrete town dock where I was greeted by my guide Bernard. I grabbed myrods, threw my pack into Phil¹s van, and Bernard and I were off. Keep inmind I just signed up the night before with some random guy in a foreigncountry, got driven to who knows where from the same random guy, threw allmy non-fishing belongings in a grey van, and jumped in an old Maverick skiffwith another random guy who tells me that they have a room at a housearranged for me to stay in and that my gear would be safe. Ten minutes laterI hooked into a 5pound bonefish and nothing else really mattered. We spent the rest of the first day wading a beautiful flat, seeing bone afterbone and catching way more fish than I probably deserved to, with no oneelse in sight. This place is magical. Its not one of those ³destinations²,its an easily accessible, affordable family run business in a small townwith no hotels, restaurants, or grocery stores. Which brings me to thefood. I was getting hungry and wondered what I could do about food. ³Whatdo you eat from the sea?² Bernard asked as he pointed at an exposed conch ona grass flat. We grabbed it, a couple others, we speared a few lobsters,caught a couple of jacks each day and upon arrival to the dock to call it aday we brought the cleaned creatures to a woman up the street who kept mefed while I was there. After we ate, Phill picked me up in the van, withall my gear in tact, and took me to the next town where he had arranged asmall room directly on the beach with one of the most unbelievable viewsanywhere in the world. I tied a couple flies and crashed out hard. The nextmorning I woke up for the sun rise, swept the sand out of the room andback onto the beach and was back on the water as soon as the sun was highenough to spot the bones. Bernard poled me around spotting fish, some thatI could not even see. ³12 o¹clock, longer, longer, yeah drop it there man.Strip, strip, stop, strip, got him!² All day long. We found most of ourfish on shallow grass flats, but even found a few mudding around in somedeeper water. Lobster and conch were on the table when we called it quitsat 4:30 pm. I filled my belly, grabbed my gear and got back to the airportat 5:55 for my 6:30 flight, and was back in Naples by 9:00. My 2 day last minute adventure was over, but I¹ll be back. Maybe in a weekor two. Hats off to Capt. Phil and Mel for the arrangements, to Bernard for one ofthe best fishing experiences of my life, and for shooting the digitalmemories of it with my little Cybershot