I don’t know, the last post about Belize won a reel so it’s a tough act to follow, but…My brief trip to Belize was a tremendous experience, but my day of fishing didn’t go as planned. I met my guide at the docks at 7:30am, with the wind gusting at about 20 mph. Not ideal conditions for fly fishing. Plus, my guide revealed that he was a fill-in who specialized in reef fishing. Still, he motored me over to the outlying mangrove islands in search of bonefish. We found a few flats in the lee of the wind, and my guide started poling. I noticed he didn’t have polarized glasses, or any sunglasses at all for that matter. “How are you going to find the fish?” I asked. “They’ll be tailing.” “What if they don’t tail?” “They always tail.” Sure enough, we saw a school of twenty fish tailing on the first flat we poled. We inched over so as not to spook the crowd and I presented my fly to a–sheepshead? I had never seen sheepshead tailing like that before, but it was pretty wild. I made a cast or two but they had no interest in my gotcha fly. We didn’t see another tailing fish all day.I quickly came to this realization: On a typical guided flats trip, the guide spots the fish, tells you where to cast, when to cast, and when to strip. Since my guide couldn’t see anything, I had to figure out those variables myself.Finding them is the hardest part. It took me a while, but I started picking up their shadows, and following little puffs where bonefish were rooting through the marl. I started noticing little slivers moving against the bottom–bones. I began to figure it all out–how to lead the fish, when to start stripping and when to let the fly fall. I presented to a bone that actually turned and started following my fly. He accelerated and nailed it–I did it! But wait, he spit the hook. So I didn’t catch a fish in Belize, but I believe the experience made me a better angler, as I was forced to figure out on my own what I’d previously left to the guide. In that sense, the trip was a success.Overall, the outlying islands and flats of Belize are as beautiful as you’ll find anywhere in the world, and I had an amazing trip the next day taking a small boat up a jungle river to some Mayan ruins, where howler monkeys jumped around in the trees above us. (I wish I’d had my five-weight, the eco-guide told me the river held 3-5 pound peacock bass.) Of course, the day i flew home the wind lay down and the flats looked as smooth as glass. Guess I’ve got to go back.