End of Week at T Flats

Today is the last day of fishing in this holiday, Christine has three dives ahead of her. Looks like we are going cave tubing in Belize mainland tomorrow prior to flying back to Dallas.

This has really been a great trip, met some good people, have had a terrific time fishing with one of the best slat guides I've fished with. Dubs is his name and he likes to hunt Permit. Aside from knoing the flats and being able to see well, he has a vary calm demeanor that really helps for setting up a successful shot.

Yesterday was another day of looking for Permit. I fished with the manager of the resort, Cameron, and Dubs. The goal was more photography and a Permit...so we were doomed from the start Dubs poled all around the haunts but the fish were not showing yesterday. We ended up on the reef side of the atoll and found a few fish. Cameron got  a great shot and the fish followed but no eat.

The last place we fished was another long flat up against the reef. We pulled up to the flat near a cut in the reef and saw some parrotfish, as we were watching them..2 Permit showed...the current was too strong though and we drifted out pretty quickly. We fished that flat, and saw a couple Permit tailing but they were 200 yds away and we never saw them again. Diminishing light and an approaching storm gave encouragement to a speedy departure,
I asked Dubs to run back up into the spot where we saw the parrotfish and permit before the long boat ride home. He was happy to do this and as soon as we got in there...bam...permit at 15 feet, one roll cast out there, they didn' see my fly. Pick it up, fish turned, put the fly a foot or two ahead of them and wham! Fish hit it so hard going away, nearly lost my rod. My leader broke at my tippet knot...it was my knot. Honestly don't know that it was a bad knot, think it was more of a big hot fish going away at 3000 mph! Very cool though.

Driving back to the lodge, I was processing the whole thing in my head. What is permit fishing? Various lines in movies came to mind. One from Lord of the Rings seemed most appropro - the dwarf said something about little chance of success, near certain death, what could go wrong. In my mind the best description I could come up with now that I have payed some dues and landed one and hooked a few is this. Permit fishing, or the pursuit of Permit on the flats, is like going out and talking a hammer to each of the joints on the fingers of one of your hands. Purposely smashing each one to bits just so that you can get a shot of Demerol!

One more day.