Spent the last ten days of my Bahamas trip on one of my favorite islands, Acklins. Changed it up a little this year, camping for three nights and spending the last seven days with my buddies at our usual “hang out” Acklins Outback Fishing Lodge. Both the weather and the fish fully cooperated making for a great way to end 2013. No monsters caught this trip but a few in the seven pound range, the remainder tipping the scales between 3 – 5 pounds. As usual, the gang on this trip consisted of six guys, making the math simple. Each day two of the fishermen would go with Fedel in his boat for a full day of guided fishing while the other four loaded into the car for a DIY day. We then rotated this throughout the week so that everyone had ample time on the flats by themselves and with Fedel in his new flats boat. It’s always an interesting discussion when we meet at the end of the day with a Kalik in hand. There is no guarantee that the guys in the boat will do better than the crew in the car. On the whole I would say it is a 50/50 deal. The self-guided guys did a lot of walking this trip. Three days in a row we walked well over six miles getting into places we had not reached before. It’s what I like to do, but perhaps not for everyone. There were a couple of days where the fishing was outstanding for the DIY guys with top rod one day at about thirty fish. Overall lots of 10 – 20 fish days for the DIYers. Father time seems to be slowly catching up but the distances we go seem to be the same. It’s just the number of Advil at the end of the day that has increased. One of the regular gang couldn’t make it (apparently a trip to Peru with his wife is more important than bonding with his buddies on a far away rock) and his place was taken by Davin Ebanks who you may know through his Blog, Flatswalker. It was great fishing with Davin and as a professional guide in Grand Cayman his expertise was clear to see. It should be noted that we didn’t hold his age against him. Since he was between 20 -30 years younger than the rest of the group his experience level in maters of love and world peace just didn’t measure up to our more sophisticated (read “old”) views. But give him credit, on the flat he was able to stay up with us. We had some fun with flies. There were a variety of refusals and some of the old standards just were not working. We leaned more toward flies that had these characteristics: rubber legs, orange mouth, black eyeballs, tan craft fur. They needed to have a variety of weights as we fished lots of skinny water covered in grass. I don’t know why this always surprises me but the Pink Puff was a stand out. I’m tying a bunch this week as my supply got wiped out (this is why you should only have friends that tie their own flies). Tie them in #4 – #6, both pink and tan heads, with a variety of weights. Throw in a couple of light ones with weed guards. On Acklins there is always a chance at a permit, this trip was no exception. I was surprised when nervous water turned into a large single permit. With no time to switch flies I threw my Bonefish Junk three feet in front of its head and watched as it turned and stared at the fly, sure I was going to hook up to a 25 – 30 pound permit. With as much distain as I have for turnips on my Thanksgiving plate, he turned from the fly and went on his way. My heart returned to its normal rate after thirty minutes. We concentrate our walk and wade days from central Acklins to the northern end of the island. There are more miles to walk and explore than you could ever cover in a week. Throw in a couple of kayak trips and it’s new water every day. Unlike many places these are friendly, happy fish and likely to chomp down aggressively on moving flies. This has got to be one of the Bahamas best choices for DIY bonefishing.
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