The Green Case

Our island hop flight arrived about 11 am, and the plan was to get to our accommodation, unpack the essentials and rig up a couple of rods (I'd already sorted these out with leaders and tippets, so it was just a case of attach the reel, thread the rings and tie on a fly). Before hitting the flats we would have to go shopping for food – just in case we fished longer than expected (always a possibility if we get into some fish). As such, we were making our way onto the first flat of our trip by about 2pm – exactly to plan.

Unfortunately the fishing didn't go to plan (the one where we catch a load of bonefish on the first afternoon – this did actually happen once a few years ago). As it was, the wind was howling down the flat causing long lines of foam to form. This really makes spotting fish difficult as we found out on our last trip when we faced similar conditions on a number of days. To make matters worse, the wave action was kicking up silt which coloured the water to the extent that we couldn't see our feet in twelve inches of water.

In hindsight we spent too long on this flat. About a mile up there is a rocky area where we hoped that the water would be clearer due to there being less sand and silt, thus we persevered and waded through some pretty boggy ground to tough going to get to this area where we've found fish in the past. The wade proved to be a waste of time though, the water was clearer (marginally) but there were still no bonefish to be seen. We therefore made a decision to get back to our car as quickly as possible so we could change flats (we still had to go back through the mud, so it wasn't that quick).

Once back to the car, and slightly exhausted, we set off for a different flat which would have been largely sheltered from the wind, thus we were hopeful that the water would not be churned. On the drive however it became clear that we were going to lose the sunlight, and the cloud formation suggested it wasn't going to come back anytime soon. To make matters worse, when we arrived at the flat we found fresh footprints which could only have been from the previous tide. Now this flat contains spooky (but large) fish anyway, so having them pressurised so recently would make things doubly difficult, [This flat used to have a terrible road to it, and Tracy and I used to see very little evidence that people would go there – I certainly wouldn't drive any car I actually owned down there! However, a path has now been cleared with a view to selling development plots, and with that the fishing pressure has increased enormously].

It was not perhaps a surprise when the first bonefish I found bolted from the fly. Actually at first it moved towards my offering but then bolted on the first strip. I think 'educated' fish like this one learn to associate a stripping action with danger so I would have been better to employ a figure of eight retrieve than the one I did. We both had a couple of shots each that were very difficult given the wind, lack of light and spooky fish, thus we didn't have the planned end to our first day. The next day (today as I write) was also poor in terms of the light. We did manage to catch some jacks whilst blind casting into a deep area, and I also spent some time teasing some big sharks into chasing my fly in a dock area (I probably won't be making the mistake of allowing one to take again).

As I write this the day's gloom has broken into a tropical thunderstorm. We've lost power (as is typical) and I'm writing this with a torch illuminating my keyboard, whilst watching the lightning flashes and listening to the thunderous rain. The forecast for tomorrow isn't great so we'll have to have a think about what we're going to fish for, but the day after looks good as the frontal system passes through.

I hope you have a great week,

James.

PS: Tracy has been taking photos of the local birds, in particular of a humming bird nesting right outside our villa.