A Saltwater Fly Fishing Story

Fly fishing Turneffe Flats, Belize

Fly fishing report by Tony Hooley (UK)

Belize was one of the surprise destinations for me, I've been saltwater fly-fishing for 10 years and never experienced an eco-system quite like Turneffe Atoll.

To start the trip, Miami is a great stop off to rest overnight, with great shopping, nightlife and a number of fly fishing shops to visit if you have the time. An added bonus is a great cigar shop on Ocean Drive, South Beach, where I purchased some hand rolled Dominica Robusto's that had been rolled in the shop 30 minutes before.

We arrived from Miami to Belize on a short flight of just under 2 hrs, Turneffe Flats have a dedicated driver and mini bus transfer that takes you direct to the Radisson Hotel at the Port and then your met by the Turneffe Flats team and whisked off by the transfer boat for a 90 minute transfer to the offshore atoll, 30 miles offshore.

As new arrivals, we are greeted with generous Rum Cocktails before being designated our immaculately presented beach front Cabana's Turneffe Flats Lodge is set in a beautiful location on the easterly facing edge of the atoll, with its own sand flat, protected by a coral reef, approximately 2 miles in length.

My daily routine was to get up at 6am, walk exactly 12 feet to sandy beach edge and cast to the sometimes waiting school of bonefish who preferred to shelter in the turtle grass just 30 yards away so after 1 or 2 nice bonefish, I would go off to breakfast, on occasion I would also fish the afternoon and took a shot at a permit following a leopard ray, spotted 100 yards from my Cabana! The fish are very hard to find sometimes but if you stalk them properly you will get good shots on the home flat.

You start every evening with cocktails and beers before dinner and its a great chance to tell stories between the groups. The food is generally very high quality, and the Belizean cuisine changes daily so you get a taste of everything from tenderloin of Pork right through to Cubera Snapper the standard of food presentation is very high.

They have a shop full of flats shirts, flys, fishing accessories and locally made gifts from rare hardwoods etc so if your short on anything you will have no trouble getting items to keep you supplied and gifts to take home.

Bonefish

Turneffe Bonefish are unique, they remain resident on the flats, so at all times the bonefish are present, making it a highly challenging proposal. They feed in similar cycles with the rise and fall of the tide, so it does get difficult as the tides change. This presents your first challenge at Turneffe. Don’t treat them like bonefish! Its a challenge of another kind, more closer to home than you think?

Its stalking.... with long leaders and very small flys, with small bitters, shrimps etc being the most productive! And to prove this point my fishing partner and I were getting fish on average to 3lbs with daily catches of 4lb and some up to 10lb! Sometimes the water goes like glass and is only 10 inches deep, so you skill at casting will come into its own Turneffe is like dry fly fishing on a chalk stream, everything has to be perfect.

You also have the once in a lifetime chance of "turning silver into gold" here, where there are a very small number of "Golden" bonefish. A regressive gene on the local bonefish population means they produce a very small number of "Golden" Bonefish. You might see a bright gold flash among the bones as they tail or drift across their resident flat, very few people have caught them, they are a rare prize if you manage to land one!

Turneffe bone-fishing is a duality of tranquil wading in skinny water, with that lovely unhinged mindset, after a few days "water vision" you see the tails come into view an you instinctively become the hunter and make your bid to lure the outriding big bones to the fly and bam! your on, only to be broken off by a searing run into the numerous coral heads that dot the flats, but... we found a way around that too! So if you plan to go on this adventure, get in touch and we might just tell you some more...

Permit

As we all know, they are the holy grail of saltwater fly-fishing and Turneffe is unique in that they have good numbers of permit, up to 35lb. On day two of the trip, we were stalking bones on the easterly islands 20 minutes north of the lodge and we had a trio of nice size permit come to flats, I had 2 hook ups and they destroyed the fly's each time and eventually spooked and went, usually that's it for the right right? not here!

Later that week, my fishing partner Andy took shots at 2 big permit on the same location, and saw a further one that was over 35lb, but travelling to far to take a shot at. On the inner lagoon we took multiple shots at permit during the week, until day 6 we hooked two very nice permit. Fly selection is critical and despite running through every locally selected crab patterns, we found a pattern courtesy of Charl Duvenage at Farlows was the ultimate killer pattern!

In summer, Turneffe plays host to a number of big migratory Tarpon, with the guide telling us they have landed many Tarpon up to 150lb. So, there's a great chance to "Slam".

I brought my wife along with me and Andy's girlfriend, they simply said it was one of the most beautiful and adventure filled, fun holidays they have ever been on. Turneffe Flats organized an amazing Atoll tour package, that had them out every day either swimming with wild dolphins, manatees, eagle rays and many other things that I think would be best left to my wife to give a summary of....

Tara says “Just wanted to add to Andy's comments, to say that Suzan and I had the most FABULOUS time, as non-fishers, at Turneffe Flats. Our guide, Abel Coe, was truly wonderful, his knowledge is encyclopaedic, and we we very privileged to have been in his company (he is Mayan, which really enriched the whole atoll experience), he is a credit to the Turneffe Flats organisation. I am sure you have been to Turneffe before (??), but if you have a chance next time you are there, do spend a day with Abel, as it's a truly wonderful experience. We even had a hand at some fishing one day (on spinning rods, much to Tony's dismay!! However, I am now hooked on to this type of fishing - pardon the pun!!).

I have to say, this really has been one of the best 'fishing-holidays' I have been on (and I have been on quite a few these past six and a half years!!!), I think because we had our own itinerary planned and the boys went off each day not worrying about if we would get bored, etc.

It's a truly magical little spot in the Caribbean, which I hope remains so and is never spoilt. The lodge was wonderful, the food just divine, the staff are just lovely and we met some great people, fisherman as well as non-fishers. Both Andy and Tony want to return next year to catch the tarpon (they did have a bash a couple of early mornings towards the end of the holiday), I sincerely hope that we do. And I am sure you have heard about their permit stories! They were lucky enough to fish on the change-over day, so they had the lagoon to themselves, as they were the only fisherman to be fishing that day from Turneffe flats (their guide, Daniel, very kindly gave up his weekend and stayed at Turneffe over the weekend).”

The staff are very nice all English speaking, great sense of humor, as you can imagine its a very laid back affair. The guides are all well trained and more often than not if they sense frustration, will change the area and tempo and get you into fish.

Presently the owners are lobbying the Belizean Government to try and get the Atoll turned into a marine reserve, to protect its fisheries and wildlife eventually they hope to get Biosphere status, as we understand that a number of companies are illegally dredging some of the remoter outlying flats to get the sand. Commercial fishing is starting to have a big impact on the habitat in the Atoll, so we hope to help support the Turneffe Atoll Trust as well, so we can enjoy the unique fly fishing and marine & wildlife it has to offer in many years to come.

Many thanks to Mat at Fly Odyssey for a great service.
With Thanks.
Tony Hooley