The 20 foot Maverick was immense. If I were a track and field official, I would have demanded a urine sample. Hanging off its back was a 200 horsepower Yamaha framed by twin trolling motors. “They do the work,” said my guide earlier. “The push pole is just for course corrections.”
Nevertheless, I had signed up for what H2O Bonefishing calls its “No Boundaries” program. And at that particular instant in time, it was really well named. We had left Grand Bahama Island about 15 minutes ago and there was nothing but ocean all around us – no cays, no flats, no rocks – just ocean. Apparently, we were headed to some isolated cays. Luckily, it was flat calm.
Another 5 minutes passed, and the cays showed up as a couple specks on the horizon. In another half hour, we were hunting tarpon in a shallow bay.
Nothing but a couple of big nurse sharks showed themselves as they lumbered along… We drifted outside the bay to a small point… Tarpon! 40 to 50 pounders rolling luck crazy! I think I got bit on my third cast. Nevertheless, as tarpon are prone to do, it jumped off. And the remaining tarpon, as tarpon are prone to do, got lockjaw.
So off we went in search of bonefish… The rest of the day is a bit of a blur – but a good blur. We fished mostly deeper flats from the boat. We saw huge schools of bonefish, small groups of permit, groups of bones with permit mixed in, singles, doubles, barracuda, sharks… You get the picture. The bonefish weren’t pushovers, but they were pretty grabby. And the 8 or 9 that visited the boat averaged a solid 4 pounds. The permit … Let’s just say they were permit.
It was hard focusing on just bonefish and permit; there were too many other distractions. Like blacktip sharks and barracuda. Don’t let anybody tell you that sharks and barracuda are reckless predators; they knew exactly what I was up to…
I remember one brash 4 foot blacktip and an equally ballsy bonefish. I was winding the bonefish close to the boat when the blackip charged – not the bonefish, but the boat! At high speed! The guide gave it a solid crack between the eyes with the push pole and the shark settled, skulking about 30 feet off our stern. At this point in time, the bonefish ran directly toward the shark. As far as I could tell, the bonefish gave the shark a solid head butt in the flank. The shark, obviously disturbed by the sheer madness of the situation, finally moved off.
Needless to say, that bonefish got unhooked with extra respect.
As we wandered from cay to cay, a lot of fine looking rocks and coral were worked over with a sinking line. The odd jack or snapper was happy to play. Occasionally, a thunderstorm would pop up in the distance, but we’d adjust our course and skip around it.
It was a long day on the water. I left my hotel at 6:30 AM and came back 13 hours later. But those kinds of long hours I can get used to.
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The “No Boundaries” program runs during the summer months. It actually consists of 2 days fishing the plentiful flats close to Grand Bahama and 2 more days plying the offshore cays. The quiet summer winds (and the big boat!) help make the offshore forays possible. The offshore cays offered amazing fishing in terms of size, variety, and numbers. (If you’re a gear head, bring lots of stuff!!!) The closer in waters offered excellent bonefishing, although the fish were a smaller and the variety less. The accommodations were in Freeport and boat got trailered to launch sites around the island.
