Mr Boney is on!
Every five years or so my wife’s side of the family initiates a group vacation together… all 30 of us adults and kids. It’s typically a really fun get-away, and this year we headed to Cancun, Mexico. As an enthusiastic saltwater fly angler who unfortunately doesn’t get to the flats nearly enough, I was ecstatic.
My wife and I had vacationed in Cancun as a couple before a few years ago. On that trip I fished the Nichupte Lagoon, conveniently located pretty much right across the street from our hotel.
The Lagoon is filled with baby Tarpon, Snook, Jack, and Barracuda. Martin van der Does of cancuntarponfishing.com offers a variety of Lagoon trips, some as short as four hours. On that trip I remember fishing one morning for a few hours and being back poolside with a cerveza in hand before lunch. It almost didn’t count as fishing time. It’s a great set-up for any angler jonesing for some hit and run fishing during an otherwise family-centric trip.
Senior Trinidad on the job
This time the get-away with the extended family was to be longer, so I wanted to be sure to get in a full day of serious flats work, especially given July is prime time for Tarpon and Permit (hell yes bucket list!). Martin connected me with Enrique Trinidad as the guide, and the Isla Blanca preserve north of the hotel zone was to be our absolutely stunning (and completely empty) hunting ground.
We were on the water by 6:30 am and after a short panga ride were checking out rolling baby Tarpon within 45 minutes of the dock. A mere two hours later we had hooked and landed three hard-brawling jumpers who got fooled by a cream rabbit-fur Clouser.
Tarpon slayer
These were beautiful, wild fish. Outside of maybe Florida, it seems to me these Mangrove (or Baby) Tarpon are vastly underrated as a game fish. They look prehistoric-with their humongous bucket mouths and distinctive armor-like scaling. They tail-walk like a steelhead on steroids, and they just hammer a well placed fly. What more could you want?
Landing a Megalops of any size is always the toughest part of the gig as hooks are often spat during violent head-shakes that come with the leaping. “Bow to the king” is a common refrain among Tarpon guides everywhere when coaching anglers how to preserve their hook-sets.
This day my fishing karma must have been in good stead as landing all we hooked is apparently pretty rare. Either that, or it was Enrique’s special-sauce bite tippet rigging.
lovin it. #1 of 3
After our third poon was properly photographed and released, Enrique started mumbling about a saltwater “Grand Slam” (a Tarpon, Bonefish and Permit in one day). Initially I was convinced this was just crazy talk. Bonefish? maybe. Permit? Ha!
Outside of a video screen, I had never even seen a Permit, much less come within casting distance of one. What made me even more skeptical about the idea was how equally rare it is to find Bonefish in large enough numbers within the Isla Blanca preserve. But why the hell not go for it? We had our Tarpon(s), so why not invest the rest of the day, if need be, to hunt for the other two players.
So we took off to another part of the preserve and soon after we started poling through some prime water, sure enough eagle-eye Enrique spots some cruising Bones. A couple of lame “behind them” casts chased off the first pack of fish. But not much later I was able to launch a textbook 65 foot arrow-pointed throw right on the money about four feet ahead of a nice cruising fish. Then a couple of strips, the gentlest of takes, a solid hook-set, and Mr Bone was off on a blistering run taking my entire line and even some of my backing out for a dance. Bone soon thereafter landed.
As you can imagine, the pressure was now on big time to find the most elusive of the “Grand Slam” trio- a Permit. I’m going to refrain from recounting the sad details of the ensuing heartbreak here (if only to preserve my own sanity), but suffice it to say we found more than one Permit. We were even able to get into a decent enough position on a couple of them to have three legit shots before they spooked off.
Alas, it was not meant to be. Tensions were high, guide to angler communication skills were challenged, the wind decided it wanted to play spoiler, but ultimately the casts didn’t get to where they precisely needed to be when they needed to be there.
Grand Slam nada! Ugh. But what an incredible day and an awesome family get-away. We are already planning a return trip for next year.
Huckin' Loops 