{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: The Benjamin Button of Flats Fishing

Righteous post. Congrats on the permit.

On Monday, January 11, 2016 at 2:10:51 PM UTC-7, Misha Gill wrote:

Hey guys and gals. So I had the opportunity for 1 day of Belizeian flats fishing over our vacation in celebration of my Wife's completion of her MBA curriculum. I went to the southern end of the county, to a town called Placencia, which lies about halfway between Dangriga and Punta Gorda. Belize City is a short 35 minute puddle jump on Maya Island Air or Tropic Air. Puddle jump quite literally describes this ride. The coast line is littered with swampland. I mean littered in the best possible way, because the mangrove marshes provide superior habitat for juvenile gamefish. In Placenica, the cayes offer some world class Permit fishing. 

I think I'm the Benjamin Button of flats fishing. It's like I started at the end and regressed over the course of the day. Who goes flats fishing for the first time and catches a permit?

Now, that's to say I didn't make mistakes. I probably made em all but tried to keep it to one time only events. For instance, after I hooked my permit, my reaction to it's first run was to tighten down the drag. If my permit had been anything more than a relative teenager, I could easily have lost my fish. In the future, I shall endeavor to set the drag to an appropriate setting before taking my first cast into the salt. 

As is normal when it comes to destination fishing, circumstances really had to come together in a serendipitous way to yield success. My first bit of luck was the weather. This year, Belize's wet season was mostly dry. This winter, the start of the perennial dry season, has been wet due to El Nino. Although there were showers in the forecast almost every day we were in Belize, the wind was most problematic – it ended up preventing Brooke and I from going out scuba diving again on either of the last two days we were in Placencia. Having booked my day of fishing during the tourist busy season 3 months in advance, I depended on luck to provide good conditions rather than flexibility. Fortune smiled on me, and I had the calmest day for seven days on either side of my booking – about 5-10 MPH winds all day. High tide was also from about 11:30-2pm; also perfect.

We got the day started focusing on tarpon. After a 30-40 minute ride out to Tarpon Caye, where we didn't see much, we moved on to another caye that offered a protected lagoon behind a peninsula. We found tarpon rolling on the lee side of the peninsula, and fished to them for 45 minutes somewhat unsuccessfully. Jason thinks I may have had a tarpon bite, but it was blind fishing so there's no way to tell. 

 forgive the Web 1.0 fish I drew :)

Before we left, Jason told me to cast towards a bare, circular patch in the lagoon. I put my chartreuse clouser on the far side of the patch, and began stripping it back medium aggressively. Around the middle of the patch, an unexpected silver outline honed in on my fly and hit it. The hook didn't find purchase, so I picked it up. One backcast, and I launched the fly 60 feet towards the far side of the patch. This time I retrieved it a bit slower, and miraculously the outline appeared behind my fly again. Jason cued me perfectly and I strip set.

 Permit on the Line!

The fish took off on a strong run, and I fed the slack into the guides and got the fish on the reel. My next reaction was to tighten the drag probably more than I should have. The drag – cranked 3 clicks to almost 50 lbs – turned the fish pretty quickly. The fish came back over the bare patch and almost accidentally became airborne briefly. This is a sure sign I had the drag set too tight. The fish was just bee lining away and got clotheslined by the tension, bringing it head over heels out of the water. Just after it "jumped", I had the presence of mind to turn on my Go Pro, and I filmed another two runs before Jason netted the fish.

It was a smallish permit of about 5-6 lbs, but it was like being struck by lightning. I couldn't believe I had caught a permit my first time flats fishing, and on a fly I tied! I couldn't stop talking about it for the rest of the trip to any stranger that happened to inquire. My day was officially made, but the first thing Jason said after we let it go was "Now we go for the Grand Slam!"

More on my blog, DM me for the link!

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