The Fourth of Fly
Fly Fishing the Northern Cayes of Belize
There’s a quiet flat, 36 miles off the coast of Belize on the leeward side of Ambergris Caye, where the wind whispers to the water to send ripples across the reef. 10 miles North of San Pedro, our panga skips along the surface of some seriously skinny water as we head for a fly fishing camp known as Cayo Frances Farm & Fly. My water-taxi captain, Carlos, points to an island offshore and tells me he heard Leonardo DiCaprio just bought it for 5.5 mil. “Should we swing by and see if he’s got any beer?” I laughed.
Carlos turns us down a mangrove cut that opens onto pristine white sand flats in crystal clear, Listerine water. A school of Bonefish scatters at the sound of the 8-horse Mercury engine plowing through their backyard. A backyard they share with the other locals, the Tarpon and Permit, and one hella-friendly dude from San Francisco named Jeff Spiegel.
At the other end of the flat lies Cayo Frances. We can see Ginger, one of the many dogs Jeff has rescued waiting patiently for our arrival on the dock, where she watches for visitors and scolds the morning rolling Tarpon for not stopping by to say, “Hi.” As our panga pulls up to the wooden welcome platform flanked by the mangroves, Jeff greets us with a smile, and gives us the report on the past few days as he helps unload our gear onto the dock.
The Belize air is hot and thick. As I step onto the sponge of the soft sub-tropical grass that blankets the campsite, I immediately feel the weight of the omni-connected world disappear. All there is here is shades of green and blue. The way the world was meant to be viewed. A gecko is catching some rays on the 9-weight resting on the rod rack just beyond the dock. I drop my gear off in my cabana, a beautifully simple bunk house, which will be my home for the next four days, and begin to plan out the week’s flats excursions.
Jeff tells me that the Permit are crunching crab patterns and they’re getting Bones on small “Gotchas” and “Bitters”, while there’s fun to be had on juvenile, 20 lb. Tarpon in the backyard. I am electric with anticipation.
We wind down with a dinner of pork chops cooked on a giant old grill built from a converted propane tank, bean burritos with fresh, made-from-scratch tortillas, and brussel spouts. As the guests sit down to eat, Andres, the camp-hand lights the stack of wood in the fire-pit on the edge of the flat.
As the night turns, the air feels lighter, but still holds a bit of warmth from the day. Off in the distance we can see the remnants of a thunderstorm baring its teeth over San Pedro. Back onshore, the bonfire on the edge of the bay throws heat and a warm glow upon storytellers nestled in Adirondack chairs, nursing bottles of Beliken beer beneath a blanket of subtropical stars.
The next day, I wake up at 5:30 sharp. It’s impossible to sleep late at Cayo Frances when the flats are calling. The soft light penetrates the venetian blinds of the summer camp-style bunks, as the sun rises over the lagoon, heralded by a symphony of marsh birds singing their morning hymns.
Coffee is ready at 6 and breakfast is at 6:30. Jeff just so happens to be world class chef, and has prepared eggs with Chaya, a Mayan miracle plant that he’s dubbed “Super Spinach”, served with tortillas and a habañero hot sauce called Marie Sharpe’s (for which I was later stopped in Atlanta on my return for having a few “out-of-code” bottles stashed in my bag), accompanied by a side of fresh slices of mango, pineapple and banana. Elsie, a three-legged pitbull mix is all too happy to hang at my feet while I eat in the shade of the palapa.
My captain for today is Hilian Martinez, a local guide from the Tres Pescados guide service. Jeff warns me that he’s usually early, but that’s cool because I’ve been ready since last Thursday. I prep my gear on the dock while watching a couple Schoolmaster Snapper hunt shrimp in the turtle grass. Ginger comes running onto the dock and sits down next to me, patiently alert, looking out over her lagoon domain. Minutes later, I see Hilian’s skiff idling into the lagoon. I wonder how long ago she heard him?
As Hilian pulls up, he’s relatively quiet. A younger guy, I’d guess he’s around my age, and wouldn’t put him past 35. I load up my Simms wading boots and Patagonia dry bag, and my 7, 9, and 12 wt rods. Hilian inspects them rigorously before he puts each in one of the rod slots in the gunwales of the panga. Jeff wishes us tight lines and good fishing, and we shove off to head out to stalk some fish.
“What are you thinkin for today?” I ask. He still hasn’t really said anything.
“Me, I’m not thinking anything. I’ve got nothing on my mind. You’re the client what do you want to fish for?”
I try to respectfully gauge his opinion on where best to start.
“How are the conditions lookin for Tarpon or Permit? Wind and tide alright? This is my first time down here.”
“Yea man, we can do whatever you want. I just want you to know this isn’t trout fishing. You’re not gonna be finding fish 10 feet from you and dropping a fly on their heads. This is saltwater fishing. Can you cast into the wind?”
“Yes.”
“From 60 feet?”
“I don’t know but let’s give it a try.”
“Cause you’re gonna get one shot when you see that fish and you gotta make it count.”
“Alright man, well let’s make it count.”
Fishing a flat is much more akin to hunting than it is to other types of fishing. You have to be stealthy, and you have to be precise with your shot. We ride in complete silence for about 30 minutes as we head south to the island he’s picked for our first drift. We dip through a winding cut about 20 feet across surrounded on both sides by encroaching mangroves, and slow to an idle just before the channel opens up.
“Get the Permit and Tarpon rods ready.”
I pull them out of the holders and string up the line.
“What do you recommend I throw on?”
“Let me see the fly box”
He surveys the selection silently.
“You tie these?”
“Some.”
“This one. Red and Black for Tarpon. And… let’s try this one for Permit.”
Hilian ties on a 60 lb shock leader to the Tarpon rod and quickly cinches both flies to the lines.
“Alright let’s go.”
We motor out of the cut and settle down on a patch reef on the edge of a flat about 100 yards off the mangrove shoreline and begin drifting down a channel off the reef edge in about 12–15 feet of water. I hop up on the bow and Hilian climbs up to the poling platform above the engine, and silently prods the bottom, steering our drift as we stalk for schools of fish.
“How quickly can you get the line out?” Hilian asks.
I immediately know that I’ve already screwed up.
“I don’t know, err, fast?” I search for the right answer.
“That’s not gonna help if the line is sitting on your spool. Take out fifty feet and have it ready at your feet. You’re gonna get two false casts when you see the fish before you have to land the fly.”
This I struggled with mightily.
I take out the line and within 30 seconds of me having the Tarpon rod ready I hear…
“There! 11:30. 100 feet. You see them? Get the Permit rod.”
I scramble to put the Tarpon rod, and fifty of now-tangled line aside, grab the Permit rod and pull out line as fast as I can to ready a cast.
“Ok, 60 feet. Go!”
I break the two false cast-rule on my first go, and take 4 or 5 long swinging throws, fit for a lazy Summertime hopper session on the Farmington.
“Land it!”
I let go, the fly lands in the middle of a pack of Permit crunching on small crabs on the surface, now about 30 feet away.
“Let it sink. Ok, now strip.”
I start twitching the fly in. The Perms ignore my erratic crab fly, see the boat and tuck down deep and move past us.
“No, no, no. Slow, long strips. Like this.” Hilian makes like he’s playing a whole note on an upright bass with a bow.
“Ok, keep that rod ready”
We keep drifting down current. On the bow, I can see a white patch up ahead, and on the leading edge, three large dark shapes headed upcurrent.
They are mystery-laden, those strangely deep shallows
“Hilian, 11 o’clock!”
“Get the Tarpon rod!”
Now I’m running. I slide the other rod aside, get set, make three false casts (one too many, but who cares?) and release the fly to the three inbound silver torpedoes.
“Let it sink… Now!”
I strip twice, and before I can screw this one up, the biggest of the three surges up from 12 feet down, opens its vacuum-like mouth and sucks the little black and red fly into a vortex below, as the other two peel away.
I set the hook hard, and the fish takes a violent turn upcurrent. Within seconds, the Tarpon has peeled off 200 yards of line and I’m deep into my backing.
“Yes! He’s a big boy. You got enough backing? Can we get him from here?” Hilian asked.
I look down at the line still peeling off my reel.
“No, let’s f***ing go!” I yell.
Hilian turns the engine and floors it after the fish
“Reel like a motherf***er! Don’t let up any slack, and keep him away from the mangroves or he’ll turn that fly line into Swiss cheese!”
On my knees on the bow of the boat, I’m reeling as if my life depended on it as we speed up the coast to regain the line this fish took on its first run, rod butt jammed into my stomach, and pulling to the right with all my weight, keeping pressure to turn the fish away from the mangroves. A boat comes motoring out of the same cut we came out of and the fish is headed right for it. I stand up and we’re both waving and yelling for the captain to hold up as our fish passes. Luckily, he sees us and stops the boat until we pass. 150 yards away I see the Tarpon thrash just off a mangrove edge. I pull hard towards open water and he starts coming. Up ahead, a giant tree trunk is sticking up in the middle of the flat. The fish sees it too. He makes a run towards it that sends my spool in a knuckle-busting backspin, and my drag screaming. Hilian turns the boat for deeper water and I lean into the fish with all I’ve got and we start coaxing him away from the danger area. We narrowly get him past the stump.
“Has he jumped yet?” Hilian asks.
“I don’t think so.”
“Ahh shit, he’s been hooked before. The big ones don’t jump. They know it takes all their energy. We gonna be in for it.”
For the next two hours we gain line back inch by inch, and every time we get the fish to within 20 feet of being caught, marked by the clear shooting tip of the Cortland line, the fish would come up and gulp air. Tarpon have the unique ability to breathe air from the surface directly into their swim bladder, which contains rows of highly-vascularized, lung-like tissue that allow it to use the oxygen to supplement its normal breathing that it does through its gills. They’re the only saltwater fish that can do this. Reinvigorated with new life, the fish would surge for deeper water, looking for any opportunity to break the line off on channel markers or the reef. Every time we zigged, the fish zagged. He’d run down-current to catch his breath and we’d follow, gaining line back, and as soon as we got over him, he’d turn upcurrent, forcing us to chase him with the engine.
After 2 hours and 5 miles, he seemed to be tiring out. We carefully position ourselves over the fish steadily moving upcurrent, once more performing it’s zig and zag maneuver, and notice a stick marking the edge of the reef up ahead.
“Keep him away from that.” Hilian yells
My arm feels like I’ve held a 10lb curl for the last two hours, like it’s about to fall off. I’m sweating pure Caribbean seawater. He makes a run straight for the marker. I hold him.
“Turn the boat up, it’s gonna break.”
“Just keep the pressure on him, bro. He’ll turn.”
He didn’t turn. After all that, the tension became too much, and the loop knot on the shock leader parted, and just like that the fish was gone, with a nice new piece of black and red lip jewelry.
I stood defeated on the bow, forearms on fire, sweat-soaked, and my stomach bruised from the butt of the fly rod.
“That happens, bro. Don’t worry, we’ll get another shot.”
For the next day and a half we saw good fish, but none like that one, and no Tarpon were brought to the boat. That’s just how it goes sometimes.
Something tells me the fishing gods aren’t kind enough to let your first Tarpon be a 100-pounder on a fly. I have found, though, that the love of fishing and the passion for the pursuit does not come from all of the great fish a man has caught, but rather from all of the great fish he has lost. It is that which is unknown that keeps driving us forward.
The next three days were spent paddleboarding and wading the flats, catching countless bonefish, which are no slouch on a drag themselves, and though I saw a few smaller Tarpon, somehow, I think, subconsciously, my casts were purposefully errant. For I know that there is a greater score to be settled on Ambergris Caye, in a 12-foot channel, just off the reef.
There is so much more to the saltwater swells and tropical flats, than the tourism economy and the fishing and diving industries. There is a humble character to the sea that cleanses the soul of the impurities wrought within daily life. They are mystery-laden, those strangely deep shallows. Out here, we are no longer bankers or coders, bartenders or writers. We are the Apostles of the Atlantic, each willing to kneel humbly at her feet to bear witness to the bounty of life beneath. But with that knowledge comes power and with power, even greater responsibility. We are entrusted to remain shepherds of the sea, our fly rods as our staffs. For those who spread the good word of the water also have a duty to protect it — to ensure our children, and their children after them, can too revel in that same mysterious natural beauty. To help preserve Belize’s Hol Chan Marine Reserve, please visit http://www.defendcayorosario.com/.
