Trip Report from Swains Cay, Bahamas




Here is an interesting report from an old friend of mine, Emerson Scott, who along with his significant other, Ceci Butler, just visited Swains Cay on Andros Island in the Bahamas. They had a great time reaffirming that Swains Cay is a great spot for couples. I also think Emerson makes a very good point concerning hook breakage and old flies. If you have some really old flies, you might want to read this report, then inspect your old flies before you hook that "fish of a lifetime"!

...and yes, I arranged for Emerson and Ceci to fish with Alvin "Shine" Greene. I've known Alvin for over 20 years. He is a great guide and a very nice man. I wanted my friends to be in the best of hands!



Scott,
We had a great time, and I assume you arranged for Shine Greene to be our guide. If so, thanks a bunch for that effort. We both genuinely enjoyed our time with him.

Conditions were tough most days, light wind days of 10-15 knots, 20-25 the remainder, calm hours could be counted on one hand. Cloudy most days, but Shine did a great job of relocating us to take advantage of openings in the clouds. Tides were about perfect and yeah, you have to have a local to get you to the right spot at the right time.

We caught plenty of fish most days, averaged about 8 a day, Ceci gained skills quickly and that helped our fish count, she graduated on day 2 from the "skills development zone" aka mud. Shine took her there the first two afternoons when her frustrations started to mount. Day 3-6 she nailed them on her own.




I attached a photo of captioned "when your toys fail you" top fly with broken shank was as Shine put it "the fish of the trip, if not a lifetime". We sight fished it, hooked it, and it ran hard, had it on for about 10 mins until the hook broke. Shine was genuinely pissed, slapped the water, and swore at the fishing gods. Note to self: get rid of all old flies, but then again it was the 4th fly we had presented to these fish and we were digging deep in to my fly box.


When your toys fail you!
The crab at the bottom was tried after the broken fly to the same fish and I had two takes on it, but couldn't hook up, checked fly and the hook had rotated to the edge of the body, not much room to make contact with.


The middle bent hook was another strong fish, that was a new fly, but that is part of fishing. Only broke off two fish, once when I stepped on my slack and the other trying to horse it out of some mangroves.





The two big fish of the trip were all taken in the same area, but different days, as the broken hook event, one was 8 lbs., Shine weighed it and the other was bigger, but we did not weigh it as we were away from the boat. All the big fish were taken wade fishing.

Thanks for setting us up and we can visit more later.

Emerson