BELIZE FIELD REPORT - DAY ONE AND TWO
After a red-eye flight from Bozeman to Atlanta and on to Belize City, the Yellow Dog crew of Jim, Tom and Bryan arrived on Monday morning. A quick water taxi trip delivered us to the island of Caye Caulker, where we met up with Haywood Curry of the Sea Dreams Hotel and Angler’s Abroad guide service. We enjoyed a fun night on the island, taking in the best of Caye Caulker and quickly adjusting to island time. After a great night at the Sea Dreams, we headed out early Tuesday morning with Haywood and Caye Caulker guide Ken Coc in search of permit, tarpon and bonefish.Tuesday was an absolutely perfect day - warm, sunny and dead calm. Too calm, as it turned out. About mid-day we pulled into an area that was absolutely loaded with permit. We literally saw thousands of permit tailing and finning on the glassy surface, and at times the boats were literally surrounded by black tails and dorsal fins.
As any permit angler knows, conditions that are absolutely dead calm and glassy are not exactly ideal for permit, as they are ultra spooky and can blow up the moment you even think about casting in their direction. The day delivered an unbelievable number of shot at permit, but unfortunately no eats. We did manage to land some really nice Belizean bonefish, and Bryan jumped a tarpon late in the day, but the sickle-tailed devils eluded us.
Tuesday night brought us back to Belize City, where we rendezvoused with Aaron Adams from Bonefish Tarpon Trust for a great dinner out on the town and fun session of late-night beers back at the hotel bar. Wednesday is the first ever Belizean Flats Fishing Summit (sponsored by BTT and Yellow Dog Flyfishing) followed by the book release party for the new “Fly Fishing Belize” book. More updated and photos to come in the days ahead!
