And the Sky Turned Black

The day before we left the islands I planned to fish in the morning and then put the gear away and not fish the evening incoming tide. As the day went on and Linda and I talked she really wanted me to fish the evening and of course I wanted to try and catch some final fish.

We have been running a shuttle across the channel to the flats to the south, I paddle over with Don and we leave the gear with him. Then I paddle back pulling the empty kayak and take it to Caroline. It works real smooth and we have gotten good at anchoring the boats with a rock, and then stalking the bones.

This flat feels like it has not been fished as hard and the bonefish are not as spooky here. They tail in larger groups and we get better shots at them when the wind is down.

Tonight the wind was dead calm and we can see the bones tailing. There was a huge cloud bank to the north of the island, it looked mean but it also looked like it would go the other way.

We started moving to the tailing fish and I had several good shots at some of them. Once I think one was taking my fly when another chased him off, no catch though. Caroline was the first to look over her shoulder and spot the thunder heads coming in. She headed for the boat and paddled over to the gazebo, telling us she would be back if needed.

The weather came in so fast! The next thing Don and I know is the lightning is starting to hit the north end of the island. I loaded my gear into Dons boat and he paddled as I swam the channel. We got to the gazebo, tied up the kayak and hid under the little building cover just when the first rain hit.

It was amazing! The rain came in buckets and the thunder and lightning was right on top of us. I did the '”one potato, two potato” count to see how far it was and most of the time I got to five and the thunder went off like dynamite. I love lightning and thunder, but some of this scared the crap out of me.

We had one clap so close that all of us jumped and ran to the abandoned house by the gazebo. We huddled there for the next 45 minutes as the skies let lose their furry. All I could do is think about Linda knowing how frightened she would be. I told Don and Caroline the I was going to go to Linda and they wouldn’t let me, Don said “Linda is scared but she is safe, do put your self in danger.” So I waited for about twenty minutes till the lightning got past us.

I drove as fast as a golf cart could go in a foot of standing water with more coming down.

The Final Bonefish - A Fighter

Now that I have finally got this figured out a bit, we have to leave tomorrow. I have learned quite a bit about fishing the flats for bonefish. There is a lot to it. You fish the lower out going tide and then mostly the incoming tide. We were lucky to have both sets of tides, one in the morning and one at night, that we could fish.

The fish come in and tail, eating critters in the sand, mud and turtle grass. When they tail you can see the tail flipping up out of the water as they gobble food. At time the fin. Fining is done in shallower water and the motion is much less aggressive. Another thing we looked for is fish mudding. They sit in one spot and churn up the mud eating.

After we figured out a little about the tide and how the fish feed, then we had to get the presentation down and with that decide on what they are feeding on. This took some time.
The presentation and fly that caught all our bone fish was a weedless green crab pattern tossed to the tailing fish and then you had to just wait for a while. Twitch and wait, then hope that the fish sucked up your crab.

All the fish I caught were caught that way. This last one was big and fat. If you look at the picture close you will see that it had bite marks on both sides. It looked like it had been attacked and was lucky to get away.

Today I will clean and pack my gear. I got a taste of bone fishing and was impressed with their strength and speed. Two of my catches ran be into my backing quite a ways. The one I caught last night was my exhibit fish. Just as I set the hook a big power boat filled with fishermen was motoring by. They all saw me hook him and were yelling along with me as it ran across the flats. It was pretty exciting.

Another Evening Of Bone Fishing

A Very Long Day!

Pinder Anyone?

With the rain, lightning and thunder out side I thought this would be a good time to show you the house where we are staying and explain a bit about the town of Spanish Wells. 

Spanish Wells is approximately two miles long and a half of a mile wide. The community of Spanish Wells is extended by a bridge that links it to neighboring Russell Island, which is just over three miles long and has become an integral part of the community. We took the golf cart to that island yesterday but didn’t explore much due to a low tank of gas.

Part of the everyday life of this island is centered around driving the main road that circles the island.  People drive around and talk to friends and basically keep up on the gossip. The island family is real tight and almost everyone is related.  We laugh a lot about the fact that when women are married on this island they seldom have to change their last names.  The Pinder family is a great example.  From the photo above you can see the local Pinder dynasty in action.  I took a picture of the phone book and you will notice something about the two pages  They are all Pinders, in fact six other pages of Pinders follow the ones I captured.

Egg Island Adventure

They Say the Wind Will Be Less Tomorrow!

It’s Saturday, the USA vs Ghana soccer game is on, and I have a bit of time to catch up on what has been happening. The house we are staying in is beautiful and has many more amenities than we thought. We have a golf cart to travel about the island. I think I told some folks that they only travel using golf carts and that there were no cars in this town. I was wrong. There are cars, some of them very fancy. Big wheels, loud stereos and Caribbean rap; they drive around and around. The golf cart is the dominate form of transportation. Then when you drive you drive on the left side of the road. This is a bit disconcerting at first, but since my left hand hangs out the driver’s side, I just think of touching the walls as I go.

We fished hard yesterday, almost too hard. We were out early in the morning and fished right up until lunch and then headed back out and fished till about 8 pm. Fishing has not been good due to the wind. It is said to be blowing 25 to 30 mph and that is not good when you are working bonefish. I am at a disadvantage because I really don’t know what I am looking for and the wind really messes with the surface of the water. I have seen fish tailing, mudding and many spooking but have yet to hook up on anything.

When we are not our on the flats we are in the house talking about when and where we are going next. Our conversations go like this; “10:40 am for high water we were out on the flats at 11:15 am, but that was a bit late, what do you think Dean?” “Wait was that high water at 10:40 or was the beginning of high water?” “I think that if we are at the school house at that time then we should hit it right.” “But is that high or low water?” “We need to there on the incoming tide.” “So that is low tide rising right?” “Yes, but that will be an hour later tomorrow.” “So that is 11:40 am?” “No Dean that would be high tide. We want to be on the flats in the afternoon about 4:00 pm.” “You’re saying that but I think I’m not getting it. I’ll just go when you tell me.”

This conversation happens about three time a day and each time I get more confused. Speaking of being confused, is there anything harder then trying to catch a fish you can’t see because of the waves, and you can’t cast because of the wind. Reports say the wind is going to calm down in the next few days so I many figure this out yet.

Incoming tide tomorrow at 5:56.

The Bahamas – Hard to Believe We’re Here

Arriving at Eleuthera International Airport was just about how one might imagine it would be. Prior to landing your eyes are treated with beautiful blues and whites. The plane wings its way over the aqua colored water, clouds drift by below like popcorn. The islands appear below adding whites, greens and browns to the mosaic. The plane touches down, hits the breaks, spins around and motors back to the terminal. We spot the people waiting on the porch, the young men dressed in orange blazers and the various workers scurrying about. We deplane and the heat and humidity hits you like a hot wet towel. You realize at that point that you are finally in the Bahamas.

Everyone lines up at the door to the terminal, I use the word terminal loosely because the building actually a small three room rancher house, modified to act like an international entry point. We hand our documentation to a lady who stamps it and makes sure it is complete. Then we walk around the corner and they open the door outside where everyone scrambles to the luggage cart grabbing their baggage or having one of the local boys pick and carry their gear.
Linda got a young man to help her and she took our bags out away from the frenzy. I was in the middle trying to save my fly rod from getting crushed. One of the people grabbed the rod case and pulled it from under the pile. In doing so that ripped the case cap off and my best rod came flying out on to the ground. I was right there to scoop it up before it got damaged. I was very lucky!

Once that chaos was over, you followed everyone back inside and past a big black fellow who looked at you and said,”Do you have anything to declare? Welcome to da Bahamas mon”, in very cool Bahamas dialect.

Spanish Wells is a small town on the island of St. George's Cay (about half a mile wide by two miles long) located approximately one mile off the northern tip of Eleuthera island. The scope of Spanish Wells is extended, however, by a bridge that links it to neighboring Russell Island, which is just over three miles long and has become an integral part of the community.

It has a population of approximately 1,600 residents. It is so small that many residents get around the island using golf carts instead of full-sized cars. Lobster fishing is said to be their main industry.

Spokane to Miami – First Class the Hard Way

The worst possible thing a person could do when they are waiting to travel to a location is to get a phone call from someone who is already there and learn that the activity that they will be doing once they arrive is stellar. For example, if you are going skiing and your friend calls and says “The pow is awesome!” or you are traveling to Mexico and you find out that the weather is beautiful down there. You know, the anticipation is heightened to a point of frenzy. Today Don and Caroline Skyped us and the first thing they said was, “Oh my gosh, the bonefish are everywhere!” From that point on all I can think about is getting there and fishing!

We checked and rechecked our bags and constantly questioned each other about what we might have forgotten. It was to the point that if we had left something out, then it probably didn’t matter. Emily Compton arrived on time and we loaded into her car. She was great to talk to and we really appreciated her taking time to get us to the airport. The drive was uneventful in spite of my ravaging need to fish.

Last night we had tried to check in via the internet, but we were not allowed to do so, so in the morning Linda had called our travel agent and they talked thing out. We are flying international so the two of them came to the conclusion that we would need to arrive early and make sure we had plenty of time to get checked in.

When we arrived at the Alaska flights check-in desk the young man entered our data and immediately started shaking his head. He worked the keyboard and kept frowning. Linda started to worry, but held up pretty good. As it turned out, our travel agent had booked an American co-share flight and when they tried to check us in on it the system would not let the Alaska desk open the reservation and confirm us. (Something like that.) So our check-in person had to call a bunch of people and rebook our tickets which took us about an hour.

At about 3 pm we entered the boarding area with tickets in hand ready to catch our 4 pm flight to Seattle. Linda had settled down and we were ready to start the first leg of our adventure.

If you have ever traveled with Linda you would know that every detail about the trip is captured in her mind. Departure times, gate numbers, concourse numbers, flight numbers and even seat assignments are logged into her brain. This happens at the grocery store also. If she picked up something that is on sale for $6 and it rings up as $6.25, she is all over it. That is a great trait and it saves me from worrying about anything. All I have to do is carry things and take care of little stuff, like holding her hand on takeoff. At 3:10 pm Linda looked up and noticed that our 4 pm flight was posted as leaving at 5:25 pm. She immediately walked to the boarding desk and confirmed that our first flight had been delayed one hour and fifty minutes.

If one would look at the start of our trip one might cringe a bit, but you know… there’s bonefish out there.

“May I have your attention please? Horizon flight 2509, which was delayed coming out of Seattle due to a problem with the flight attendants PA, is now delayed in Spokane for the same reason. We will be leaving at approximately 5:50 pm. If you have any questions regarding people issues, connections, etc. please see me. If you have any questions about electrical issues that the plane may be experiencing, do not see me because I only deal in people issues, and I am very good at that.” Gate agent humor never helps to calm Linda at times like this.

The clock now reads 5:58 pm and our flight has been pushed to 6:15 pm. Linda has confirmed with the gate agent that we will miss our flight from San Francisco to Miami if we don’t get going. The young man has now re-booked our flight leaving Seattle, and instead of Seattle to San Francisco we will be flying directly from Seattle to Miami. He smiled and called it the “Red Eye”. Then he told us that it the redeye flight would have to be in first class seats! Wahoo! First class!!! Our first time in first class!

With all this joy, we still have a bit of a problem. We have not left Spokane and our flight leaves Seattle at 10:30 pm. We should be able to make that departure because our flight needs to leave here at about 9:10 pm to make that happen. But that still does not ease Linda’s mind. She is a wreck and all I can do is try to keep smiling.

I love to look out the window of the jet at the fluffy white clouds. Right now I’m looking at the bright sun reflecting off the pillows of white tufts. It is very calming. We need some calm.

Back about 30 minutes ago the gate agent, now known as Brandon to us, finally gave up on flight 2509 and told everyone in the waiting area that they were going to squish them on to any flights that they had going out to Seattle. Linda was right there in line when he made the call and he re-booked us on to flight 695. It was being held at the C gate so we had to run over to that check-in area. We made it and got settled with about ten minutes to spare.

The connection from Seattle to Miami went smooth as silk. I now sit in a big cushy chair in first class on my way to the Bahamas, well we still have to land in Miami and take off, but it sounded real cool to say first class and Bahamas in the same breath. On this flight we have been provided free WiFi, drinks, a cheese plate, movies to watch and lots of leg room. I am hoping Linda does not grow accustom to this comfort.

Once we land we will have time to eat some breakfast and get some coffee. I will probably try to post some time tomorrow night, that will be Thursday. I am so excited that I can’t sit still. Did I tell you they saw bonefish in the flats just a few blocks from our house?