The Flip Side

"Excuse me sir, are you traveling alone?" - I stopped in my tracks on the jetway.  Dammit - I thought I'd made it past the random international flight carry-on luggage search.  Then again, after a week of scruff plus due to a razor that didn't make the flight down, and a rod case that looked like it housed RPGs instead of Xi3s, I guess I couldn't blame the Federales.  Not even halfway down the jetway, and the sinking feeling of a great trip ending had already hit home.  

Less than twenty-four hours before, the previous day began by bouncing around on a panga, watching the sun come up over a small, hardly-discussed archipelago, with the throttle of a sixty-horse two-stroke outboard full open.  A day after staying close to base and fishing with my old man, the Mexican guide dream team assembled, and over a few Dos Equis and Sols we decided that the next day we'd chase the sun, make a long run to a remote and seldom fished flat, and try our luck again for the hardest fish to catch on feathers and fur - permit.

 As we sped out of the Gulf and passed the landmark that signifies the beginning of the Caribbean all of us were thinking the same thing.  Our goal was to find permit, but considering the success we'd had earlier in the trip, I'd be lying if I said that any of us really thought we'd catch lightening in a bottle twice in the same couple days.

When we reached out flat-du-jour, Sandflea killed the motor, and swung the Yeti onto the panga's transom.  He unhinged the Stiffy, shoved it into the mud, and began scanning the horizon for telltale black sickle-shaped fins, or the sign of water pushed around by a permit cruising the flat with the incoming tide.  After spotting a couple of fish without being able to get into position to make a cast, we spotted a "v" of nervous water snaking it's way across the flat.  A minute or so later the boat had been expertly positioned, and I launched a long cast that led the fish by just a couple feet.  Two slow strips, and the permit was on the fly - two or three more and he ate.  After a quick but subtle strip-set, the permit made a beeline away from the water that barely hid his back.  Line shot off the deck, and the reel's whining and bitching told the rest of the story.

After a spirited fight, I swept the rod back to the right, and the exhausted permit came alongside the boat.  Lightening had struck twice in the same trip - simple as that.

With the most difficult part of the slam in the bag, it's safe to say that all of us started wondering if we could do it again.  However, on a light colored bottom and partly cloudy skies, slam part B was anything but a sure thing.  But, with the guide dream team assembled, and four pairs of eyes scanning every inch of water for anything and everything alive, we found a few.  

But, I 'effed up the first one.  Decent cast - couple strips - hooked fish - fish runs - goodbye.  It was two hours before we saw another one, and with each minute that went by, my blood pressure ratcheted up a point or two.  Finally we spotted a pair of striped shadows slowly perusing the edge of a flat, and after a couple of blistering runs, part B was in the bag.  

 

As soon as that bonefish was released, they arrived in droves.  For a bunch of fishing guides that rarely get to fish themselves, this was a-ok by them, and they joined in on the fun as school after school moved past, doing what bonefish do.

After a couple hours of fun, with the sun well past noon, it was time to get back to business.  With a permit and bonefish in the boat already, everyone's mind - and to be honest, especially my own -
 returned to thinking about completing the trifecta

As we killed the motor and the boat settled down off of plane, immediately all of us noticed that the wind had picked up, and the sun was hidden behind clouds.  Fuck.  But, lucky for us, we hit the jackpot again, and found a couple of different pods of rolling fish that were happy, happy happy, and more than willing to eat. After jumping a few, and losing them painfully close to the boat on last-minute head shakes, powerful jumps into the mangroves, or hooks that just didn't seem to hold, a purple toad found a rare soft spot in the tarpon's jaw, and he was ours.  Another slam. Conclusion: I used up a lifetime of fishing karma in one trip.

Originally intended as a tarpon trip, we spent drastically more time chasing permit and bonefish than we did anything else. After being commercially overfished for decades, the local bonefish and permit populations are on the rebound - and these sought after species are slowly, but surely, making a comeback to places that they historically called home.  Now that it's been a couple weeks, it's honestly just kind of funny how things worked out.  

 As water disappears where we live - and in most places in our country - it's a refreshing thought that somewhere else the fish are staging a comeback of their own.

After the Federales were satisfied that my rods and reels posed no imminent security threat, I took my window seat, opened a book, and waited for the plane to take off.  As the plane banked and leveled out heading north, for a few minutes I had an amazing view of every flat I'd fished over the course of the trip.  Some of the best fishing I'd ever traveled for already seemed very far away.  

For those of you who remember Dudewater's beginnings - and our first experience as movie stars - will certainly remember RA Beattie - one of the best filmmakers in the fly fishing industry (and just an all around good dude).  He came to Cleveland looking for jumbo trout in a blizzard, and all we'd had to show for a few days of effort was water you could jump across and a some sporadic action - not really what you'd want to see on the big screen.  I don't remember his exact words, but the gist was more important.  When you travel to fish, more likely than not the fishing isn't at it's best, and sometimes it's just plain tough going.  However, this more common experience makes hitting things just right that much more memorable.  The last day of his trip, and the filming that came along with it, was perfect.

All things considered?  This trip was too. 

"It's Just a #$%@ing Jack"

Almost exactly three years ago I was standing at a wedding cocktail reception in the middle of a field in Saddlestring, Wyoming.  Despite the locale and the reason for celebration, my head was thousand miles away as I chatted permit with one of the most accomplished anglers you're likely to come across in the U.S., if not the world.   

The first permit this fisherman ever landed had come in Mexico.  He booked his flight without a return ticket and rented a shack on the beach, claiming to anyone that would listen that he wouldn't leave until he landed his first one.  He meant it.  Weeks had gone by and all he had to show for it were cracked and calloused hands, awful tan lines, and higher blood pressure.   Around that point, he came across another fisherman who gave him a few pointers, and put his mission into context. A few days later he came across the same angler, who showed him a few pictures of monster permit he'd caught since their first meeting.  The background was familiar though - it was right in front of the shack he had rented.  His eyes returned to Wyoming - he stared at me and said, "remember, it's just a fucking jack."  

Fast forward to March 2012, and I'm standing on the bow of a panga on my last day of a "tarpon trip." Instead of rolling 'poon in front of the boat, a black sickle-shaped fin snakes through the water.  I cast a few feet in front, wait for the crab to sink to the bottom of the foot-and-a-half deep flat, and began a slow continuous strip.  The fin changes direction ninety degrees and the fish is hot on my fly.  I speed up my strips - faster - still continuous.  

Forty feet later he's still on it, but I'm running out of line.  The permit is still noncommittal, but still hot on the chase.  I feel the perfection loop pop in through my tip-top - and then it happens.  The permit surges forward, opens it's mouth, flares it's gills, and my crab is gone in an instant.  The fish tears off to the right, ripping fly line as it goes.  I swing the rod over to my left, and apply pressure.  Ten seconds later the line separates with a sickening pop.  I check the rod to see where it broke, and it dawns on me that I busted the fish off.  Who the fuck does that with a permit.  The disbelief and disappointment was gut-wrenching, and it stayed with me for fourteen months.

Fast forward to today - adjacent flat, same fly, and the same damn rod.  Sickle-shaped fin knifing from right to left - sixty feet, fish is at two o'clock.  Lone permit cruising past at a pretty good clip.  The only words I can think of are "remember, it's just a fucking jack."

Two false casts, led him by about eight  feet, he stays on course - lucky, stripped the crab right past his face as he finned by.  Fish makes a ninety degree turn. He's on it.  Tips up - tail breaks the surface.  Steady strip set, and he's on.  Ten minutes later and I wrap my hand around the bony wrist of his tail.  

Twenty minutes later - long but slender shape is moving across the flat.  First cast, too close, and the fish rockets away spooked.  But wait - fifty feet behind is another one.   Another cast, and he's on it right away.

Pressure is on now with two-thirds of the Grand Slam complete.  First flat, first cast and my black and purple toad is inhaled, but the fish spits the bug and spooks faster than you could blink an eye.  Shit. That was my shot.

Next stop - a secret pothole nestled into the mangroves.  The guide polling barks - "fifty feet, twelve o-clock," but I don't see a damn thing.  Regardless, I cast what seems to be about fifty feet, and strip twice before my fly is inhaled in a violent boil.  I hammer the hook home with a strong strip, and bow as the tarpon erupts out of the water.   The fight is painstakingly long, and my heart jumps each time the tarpon does.  Finally leadered, finally lipped. 

The overlooked tarpon fishery has even more to offer, and for that, I am extremely thankful. First pumps, man hugs, and the air is electric.  This slam was a team effort.  

It's almost midnight and I'm still riding the adrenaline high, ears tuned in for a direction and a distance.  Outstanding guiding, willing fish, and a couple of lucky casts and I'm in fly fishing heaven.