The “once in a lifetime” days
My guide for the day was Vinola. He asked me what I wished to fish for that day. I told him “snook”. He got a thoughtful look on his face and then we took off. We motored for over an hour and finally came to a mangrove channel at the end of a shallow bay. Vinola said he hadn’t been there for a long time and was uncertain whether we could get through the channel. For the next thirty minutes we pulled and pushed the flats skiff through the channel, often breaking mangrove branches, sometimes water was ankle deep then waist deep. Eventually we came to a large lagoon. There were fish everywhere, mostly small barracuda and baitfish – but also snook, milkfish or lady fish(?) and tremendous numbers of barracuda. As we moved into the lagoon I caught a medium size barracuda and we spooked a couple snook. Then we saw two really, really big barracuda and although I would have tried for them, I didn’t have a suitable cuda fly and Vinola didn’t seem like he was too interested them. We poled farther out into the lagoon and started seeing small schools of tarpon swimming in open water. I immediately hooked and landed one. Then, for the next four hours we cast to open water tarpon that were everywhere. We never stopped for a drink of water or lunch – it was madness! We hooked 15 tarpon, landed 5 and lost a couple at the boat, also jumped another half dozen or more. The tarpon were very cooperative and few refused the fly when cast to properly.
There were also schools of big bonefish and at one point Vinola handed me my bonefish rod and I immediately hooked and land a nice bonefish. I thought at the time it was odd he wanted me to fish bonefish with all the tarpon around. After about 4 hours Vinola said we should leave as he was concerned about getting through the mangrove channel and across a big flat with the lower tide. We were making our way back to the mangrove channel and came upon a muddy area where lots of tarpon and snook were cruising. I was surprised when Vinola handed me my rod and said to fish, as I knew he was concerned about getting out and time was short. I cast and jumped a tarpon then hooked a very strong fish. Vinola got excited and I realized I had a snook. I played the fish to the boat after a tough battle and Vinola was able to lip it – a beautiful big snook. We took pictures and Vinola said I had caught a slam! I hadn’t even thought about that, but realized then why he had me try for the bonefish.
The next part of this story was getting out! We started down the mangrove channel and it was much shallower than when going in. We pushed and pulled the skiff for an hour, at times we would be dead stuck and I didn’t think we would be able to slide it any farther, however, somehow we managed. Finally we made it out to the open flat and it was too shallow to run the motor, so we pushed and pulled the skiff for several hundred yards, eventually getting to deep enough water to run. Exhausted!!!
A day I will never forget as it truly magical. I still think back to the day and ask myself “did that really happen”. Thanks for setting up the trip Richard! You have provided some wonderful trips for me/us through the years. Seems like just yesterday we were meeting you in Ambergris Caye and fishing with Omar.
