By David N. McIlvaney
When I was a kid, trout always seemed like magical creatures. Maybe it was that trout anglers, to me, were old rich white guys in Connecticut. Growing up as I did at the bottom end of a steel town in Canada, where carp and suckers were on the menu, the odds of me even seeing a trout were pretty low. Decades later, I now share geography with trout here in the Catskills and I’m happy to say we have a nodding respect for the other’s hardscrabble upbringing.
My go-to rod is a soft 4wt. A leader lasts me a season (longer when I’m lazy). My flies are kept in a small metal cough-drop box. And trout (or their cousins) are the only fish that hold my interest. Bass seem to be put on this earth for kids and addled old men who can’t yet, or are no longer able, to fish for trout. Honestly, any fish where you can catch a record from a dock, turn professional, buy a $75K boat and then park it 25 feet off the shore to cast back towards the dock isn’t a fish worth consideration. Bass-fishing competitions astound me.
However, I’m married, and after dragging my wife to chase sea trout in the pouring rain in Iceland, hike down the Rio Grande Gorge in a snowstorm on Christmas Day for cutbows, and brave the blackfly-infested ponds of the Adirondacks for brook trout, she finally said, “We’re going to the beach this winter. Mexico. Tulum. See if they have any fishing.”
I’ll admit it, saltwater fishing was a crazy mystery: blistering sun, unrelenting wind, enormous broomstick fly rods, and dressing like I’m walking into a cloud of plutonium just to catch gaudy and ugly fish.
I enlisted the help of a friend who managed the local Orvis shop and he shook his head and said, “Dude …bonefish.” He handed me his personal 10’ 8wt Hydros, and then kitted me out with some 12 and 16 lb. leaders, appropriate tippet and a dozen flies.
A few hours later, I started searching for guides and DIY options.
After emailing Rod Hamilton, author of the definitive book on DIY bonesfishing, for a little info and doing the same with guides, Nick Denbow and Rhett Schober (who were booked), I settled on Victor’s Fly Fishing Club out of Punta Allen and their guide Cosme. Part of the decision came down to money as they were 25% less expensive than the well-known lodges. Sometimes it goes that way. Not old rich white guy.
Gear packed and guide booked.
We made the airport in plenty of time. As we checked in, I asked the agent if I could carry my rod in the cabin. “May I see it?” I reached for the rod case and felt … air.
And then in the most movie moment of my life, the footage sped up and the camera travelled backwards out of the airport, into the cab, back across the Bronx, over the Triboro, up my building’s elevator and into my apartment where the rod leaned by the front door, ready for the trip.
As I discovered, La Guardia has strict rules against public swearing.
But I like a challenge.
The flight was in 97 minutes. I tossed my carry on to my wife, jumped in a cab and said, “There’s an extra double sawbuck in it if you can get me to Harlem and back in thirty minutes”. After I explained what a double sawbuck was, the driver raced to my place and rod now in hand, we made it back to the airport in 32 minutes. I breezed through security and finally … Mexico bound.
The meeting place was about 15 minutes inside the Sian Ka’an Biosphere through the stone arch at the south end of Tulum beach. There is a small campground called El Ultimo Maya on the left where I parked for 100 pesos, then walked to the dock just down the road on the right.
I met another angler on the dock who was waiting for his guide. Montana guy … I think he worked for Simms. He had four rods already rigged up: bonefish, permit, tarpon, sea serpent. I looked at my lonely rod, still in the tube and sitting in my wife’s rattan beach bag, and quickly put it together.
Cosme pulled up and we headed off across the bay. Suddenly, he cut the engine, dropped anchor and said, “Okay friend, let’s see your cast.”
“I’m a trout angler and I’ve never cast a rod larger than a six weight,” I explained as I quickly fed out some line and proceeded to mimic all the salt guys I’ve seen on video with their big sweeping power casts and lawnmower-pullcord hauls. I missed my timing and slapped the fly onto the water while puddling the line. He thought for a moment and said, “I have a spinning rod.”
I don’t know what it is about saltwater guides that makes them so … umm … salty.
We hit the first flat and between the wind, my ill-timed cast, direction confusion – your other nine o’clock – and an inability to see the fish that he pointed out from his platform, each cast was either behind or directly on top, scattering the fish in an instant.
Speed matters in bonefishing. Their movement is unpredictable, so you don’t have time for false casting to get line out and on them. You need to be able to pick up 40 feet of line and with one or two false casts, lay out 60 to 70 feet of line with a change of direction.
And spotting them is like being in some kind of secret club of which I was clearly not a member. They’re silver fish in blue-silver water under a grey-blue sky. At one point, after I couldn’t see the fish he was pointing at (yet again), Cosme took my sunglasses, put them on and said, “No, not the glasses.” Salty.
I said a silent thanks to all the trout that were kind enough to be exactly where I thought they would.
We broke for lunch and I ate quietly as I worked it out in my head. Then I grabbed Cosme and we worked on my cast and our communication until I got a semblance of a decent presentation. The sun broke through the clouds and I began to get into the groove. He pointed out a school (cemetery? boneyard? ossuary?) of bonefish and I laid down a perfect 50-foot cast three feet in front of them. They rushed the fly and one good strip set later, a 4-pound bonefish was on and a lousy morning forgotten.
What is it about catching a fish that makes you feel like a kid with an ice cream cone?
Twenty minutes later, I spotted a solitary bonefish 30 feet in front of the boat and cast and hooked it before Cosme knew what was going on. Slightly larger than the first and one I felt I could call my own. The clouds came back and though he worked hard, we only connected with three more bonefish for the rest of the day.
As we finished the last flat, Cosme said it was time to head back. “Sure, just let me cast to that barracuda for the hell of it.”
The fish was hovering 15 feet off the boat and I threw a half-hearted cast toward him. He turned and grabbed; I set and raised the rod; and the water exploded … juvenile tarpon. It was so unexpected that I didn’t have a chance to drop the rod as he flew out of the water and spit the fly back at us. A hell of a five-second rush.
What is it about losing a fish that makes you feel like a kid who just dropped his ice cream cone on the hot sidewalk?
The next day, I thought I would try some DIY fishing at the Boca Paila bridge, about a 30 to 40-minute drive further into the Biosphere. The road gets a little rough but it’s nothing the average rental car can’t handle.
I parked just before the bridge on the right side, “geared up” (just pulled my rod from the car and put on a pair of cheap tennis shoes) and walked back along the road for approximately 200 yards to the entrance of the flat on the left. The wind blew from the west and I found it easiest to wade out to the drop off and cast back toward the shore and mangroves. The sand here is mottled and I had zero luck spotting fish, so I would just blind cast in a methodical pattern trying to cover as much water as possible. This may be useless considering the way bonefish move, but it seemed to make sense at the time. A few tugs and one solid strike and set, which was broken off pretty quickly. Bad knot or bad luck or bad bonefish.
If you’re up for a challenge, the more fishable flat is across the channel to the left. From where you enter off the road, stay left and hug the mangroves until you reach the channel. Then comes the swim to what is a very large white flat. I didn’t have a dry bag, so I didn’t venture it. The next time, I will rent a small kayak or paddleboard along the road to get across.
There’s a thing though. Online is a video of a kid swimming like hell for the shore as a 12-foot crocodile slowly chases him. It was shot from the bridge and is more or less exactly where I was fishing. Being alone in the biosphere is a truly humbling and calming experience. Being alone on this water after watching that video isn’t. Be aware—every second cast saw me looking over my shoulder—or better yet, don’t watch the video.
After fishing that first flat, I left the water and walked back to the bridge. Just before it on the left is a path that takes you down to the the inlet between the ocean and bridge. I came out onto a small pure white flat with a pretty sharp drop off, walked to the ocean end of this flat and fished back toward the bridge. Again, blind casting got me a few tugs and one very nice bonefish to hand. There seems to be a natural wind break here so despite the strong wind coming off the ocean, the casting was easy.
You can also fish the deep channel to the ocean and, if the wind cooperates, the surf itself for larger fish. A bait angler near me caught a few bonefish in the channel.
Not a twenty-fish weekend and nowhere near a slam, grand or otherwise, but I left for home humming with the memory of a fling with a flashy, hard-bodied, silver-clad beauty I met on a beach in Mexico.
On the way to the airport, my wife received notice that work would take her to Grand Cayman a few weeks later and she asked if I wanted to join for the weekend. With my rod safely in my hand, I pulled out my phone and looked up bonefishing in the Cayman Islands.
I hope the trout can forgive me.
—David N. McIlvaney is a terrible fly caster who catches fish all over the world. When not in Manhattan, he stays well-hidden at an off-the-grid camp in the Catskills, where he writes, hews wood and draws water like all good Canadians. Don’t ask … you can’t get there from here. @the_real_dnm