Sea Hunter: Our First Full Fishing Day

A rare morning windless morning in the Bahamas

Up bright and early, we headed back into the flats system that snakes out of Atwood Harbour. The morning was dead calm. Not a ripple marred the surface of the flats and not a breath of wind cooled the sweat on my brow. Calm mornings are unusual in the Bahamas and rarely last very long. Anglers must savor them when they do come and we did.

 A few thunderstorms bookened the flats, but posed no immediate threat. While Mike Kotrick wandered off with our guide Reno, Jim Woollett and I waded up a channel that appeared to open up into a bay. I waded the shoreline hoping to find some fish eagerly moving up with the tide. Instead, I found quite a few bones lying utterly motionless, laid-up in the numerous pale turquoise potholes that pockmarked the mangrove edge. 

The potholes not yet covered by the tide

These hard-to-see fish presented me with a classic angling conundrum: Is it or is it not a fish? I found myself often muttering...

“That can’t be a fish, can it?”  

“It could be a fish or maybe it's the bottom… it's not moving” 

“It's a fish… cast!  You'll be pissed if you don’t! ”

Nice solid fish were lying completely still on this calm morning

Each and every time I fretted over one of these unmoving “maybes”, it turned out to be a bonefish. It went like this... after a brief conversation with myself, I would toss a fly onto the beautiful white sand near the pale hole or if there was enough room, into the depression itself. Then my “maybe” became a slinky form, often quite large, drifting towards my fly. Soon my lack of clarity got straightened out in a hurry!

After I waded this channel, and picked up enough fish to already call my day a success, Jim joined me at the outlet to a bay where I could see dozens of bones stacked up waiting for the tide to turn to enter the bay. At times, I could see dozens of fish tailing, but the flat was so sticky and soft, I couldn’t wade to them without: 

a.) making so much noise climbing up and over the soft hummocks that I pushed the fish off into deeper water. 

or

b.) risk sinking waist deep into the very sticky undulating goo that perhaps I would never emerge again.

Voracious blue runner

I did manage to catch a couple smallish bones and a beautiful little blue runner that peeled out of a pack to take my fly like a bluefin trevally. But I was frustrated having these bones so close and not being able to reach them. It was driving me crazy so I eventually left the area to rehydrate in the boat and decide where to go next. The rest of the day was either lots of fish on very soft bottoms or no fish on very hard bottoms. Eventually, It drove us a bit crazy, so we called it quits when the tide hit high. We motored quickly back to the Sea Hunter for showers, cocktails and dinner. Great day, but we thought our next bonefishing should be on the west shore of Crooked where we knew both hard bottomed flats and good numbers of fish more often intersect. As soon as we were all back onboard, it was decided we would head back to Landrail Point where we would anchor for the night.

The guys watch the sunset from the upper deck...

As we chugged along at seven knots with the wind and seas off our stern, Sea Hunter Captain Mike Riffe gave us the weather report for the morrow: light winds (up to 7 mph), and the possibility of some rain, but nothing too threatening. He thought it would be a good day to go out to the Diana Banks. It would be about a 20 mile run in the Sweet Jessie. We would need to be off by 5:30 AM if we wanted to go.

… as we start back to Landrail Point

It didn’t take much to convince us. Soon we scrambled to string our 12 weight rods and pack big bluewater streamers and poppers. I told the guys to make sure they had their raincoats and we tossed in some spools of straight #69 wire and packages of barrel swivels. With any luck, we would get into some dolphin, wahoo or yellowfin tuna. We asked for a wake-up knock at 4:45 AM then we all retired hoping to get some shut-eye as the Sea Hunter rumbled along pointed back towards Landrail Point. The last thing I remember before sleep overtook me was the anchor chain’s rat-a-tat and then the wonderful silence as the Sea Hunter’s engine went still. 

Next: Our bluewater day!