Thanks to subscriber Glenn Ueda on his wonderful Guest Blog, reporting on his recent trip to Eleuthera. I have had more 0 – 3 fish days on Eleuthera than almost any other bahamian island. But…….I’ve also had a twenty fish day. The trick on Eleuthera is to study Google Earth carefully and combine the satellite images with the information you can find on the internet and in my book. There are some quality fishing locations, it’s a matter of finding those hard to reach and seldom fished areas. From Glenn: “Much thanks from my wife Mona and I for your informative book! With plenty of exploring, it was extremely challenging as expected, we covered the full length of Eleuthera and managed to succeed with a number of quality bonefish. We fished most of the spots referenced in your book and found the best action going into and after the low. We found that some of the spots would be best fished on the “lower” of the lows, say less than a 1.0’ while others were too deep to be fished effectively as the fish were likely beyond the flat and into the “bad bush” (thick mangroves). Because of its central location we opted to stay at Governor’s Harbor, specifically The Duck Inn which offered comfortable accommodations. I would venture down to the harbor most evenings and even managed a nice tailer the evening we arrived but only saw a few cruising on random tides and times. Spoke to a local guide and netting apparently has dramatically affected the fishing there. As with the single tailer, a few shad (yellowfin mojarra) were caught on tiny #8 pearl reverse gotchas. Also caught a couple barracuda there too. Barracuda were available at many of the spots and having a pre-wired streamer that could be quickly attached, paid dividends. One the areas worth exploring for these gamesters is the Jeans Bay shoreline near the Harbor Island ferry dock. Missing the best part of tide, we still saw some impressive bones from Bottom Harbor to the Spanish Wells Ferry dock. Once on Spanish Wells proper we had a wonderful lunch at the Shipyard Restaurant and though it was raining, we saw lots of potential as the flats apparently are untouched. Much of our trip was spent south and of course included a trip to Savannah Sound where some nice fish were seen near the mangrove/conch shell piles as usual but I could only manage half-hearted follows. A drive past Tarpum Bay occurred on all treks south but we did not see any bones near or between dock areas. We also visited Cotton Bay and while a stunningly beautiful beach, we saw no bones probably because a five foot long barracuda was patrolling the shoreline. The road to Jack Bay was chained. Most of our success occurred on either side of low tide at Half Sound and Starved Creek. Tailers were available as the flats drained and fish would reload on the flat with the tide change. Either end of Broad Creek has much potential as well with the west end having a larger sand flat area at the creek mouth and more of a rubble bottom working towards the Eleuthera Institute. We managed some very nice bones here. If I were to visit the east end of Broad Creek again I would stake out a spot where flat meets mangrove and ambush bones as they spilled into the channel bisecting the creek mouth. I blind cast the David Harbor channel’s entire length but did not see a bone. Faced east on the rock jetty and caught a footlong jack crevelle on a clouser. The walk further east to the cemetery did not yield any cruisers along a featureless stretch of beach. I tried to find a path to the creek from beach but could find none until I got to cemetery. We visited Plum Creek twice between tides and it was by far our favorite picnic spot with good access and shade. The furthest destination south was Princess Cay which in my opinion would be best fished on a lower low tide. There were lots of fish there but were already bunched up like they do when leaving or arriving on a flat. I misread the tide table so we missed our chance there. Lastly, Eleuthera is a great place to beachcomb as well! In fact, my wife found this island for its shelling before we knew it had bonefish. Am I lucky or what?
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