Tracy&James | Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Our flight over to the Bahamas this year was rough. For the last four hours the pilots kept the fasten seat belts sign illuminated because of the turbulence. A number of times the captain apologised for the rough ride over the intercom, noting that there was nothing they could do; up, down, and any path deviations would all be the same according to reports from other air traffic – he did mention we had a headwind of over 100mph at one point, so I guess they were fighting the jet stream. Booking in for our Bahamas air flight the next day was equally stressful. With our trips being so long we tend to travel with three luggage cases, we book this in advance with the airline. Whilst at the check in desk things were progressing as normal as the first two cases were tagged and transported into the back via the conveyor. We then lifted the last case onto the scales (the important case with all the fishing gear in it!) - this seemed to take the airline employee totally by surprise. This started a conversation about how Bahamas air no longer allows passengers to take extra luggage.
Obviously we were bemused at this point as we'd already paid for it and had a receipt. After some debate it was agreed that our case would go via 'freight' although we were assured this meant it would be on exactly the same flight. We then had to wheel the case round to a 'back office' of the airport where a hand-written label was attached to it. To both Tracy and myself this 'solution' had lost luggage written all over it. We would have been worrying about our fishing gear for the entire flight if we'd not seen it being loaded on to the aircraft as we stood waiting to board, at that point we relaxed.
Our hire car was waiting for us when we arrived into our destination airport, a small Japanese hatchback with the steering wheel on the right side – they drive on the left in Bahamas but most American import vehicles are left hand drive. As it is, driving feels almost like at home apart from maybe the entertainment system in our car. This is different in that not only does it play music, it shows the music video on the central screen – whilst we're driving! I'm doing my best not to watch TV on our commutes to the flats. One good omen was that it played 'Bonefish Folley' by Phil Stubbs to us on our first day, it also played a song about catching crabs, but we'll gloss over that one!
The fishing has got off to a great start, I'm pleased to announce that I won the bonefish curry for the first bone of the trip – I think I've won this at least three times on the trot, maybe more. I was quite pleased with my first one – it was windy as hell and that was churning the water slightly where I was wading next to a slightly deeper (maybe mid-thigh) channel. I noticed a 'smudge' in the channel that was definitely moving so I placed a back-hand delivery ahead of it and waited for the fly to sink. One strip and the fish was on – it was nice to see my backing again for the first time in a year. We both caught bonefish on our first trip, and we've continued to do pretty well on the subsequent ones, with both landing quality bones upwards of 5 or 6 pounds.
My run of bad luck regarding barracuda is continuing though. The first one I saw, a really nice fish, was goaded into attacking my fly in the usual way (a series of pick-up and lay down casts to swim the fly at speed across its nose). Unfortunately the take was so savage that it broke my split ring that I use to attach the fly. I've never had one of these fail before, they're supposedly rated at 25lb – so that gives you an idea of how hard this cuda hit my fly. The next shot I got (today) was on a fish that chased something small straight across my path, it didn't catch whatever it was so was very keen to take my fly when I presented it without the need to 'wind it up' first. Unfortunately this fish threw the hook seconds later.
Tracy was with me on both of these occasions and obviously learnt from my mistakes. A few hundred metres up from where I lost my cuda she spotted one. This one did not look like it was in the mood to take a fly, however Tracy instigated the 'wind-up' procedure and maybe 50 casts later the cuda launched itself at her fly. She did everything perfectly and landed a really nice fish – unfortunately there's no prize for the first cuda of the trip – perhaps there should be!
I hope you're having a great week,
James