When you travel to the “Bonefishing Capital of the World,” you have to give it a try, right? I’m not much of a fisherman, although I did go fishing quite a bit as a kid, and have never gone fishing on any of our trips to the Caribbean, but when I read an article in Garden and Gun about bonefishing in Andros, I thought we had to give it a try.
Bonefish are super fast, silver fish which are super skiddish, and are a challenge to even a competent fisherman. We set out in two boats, one guide and two guests in each, and set out on different paths. In our boat, “GotaBone,” we started out by checking out a number of spots along the coast to the north of Kamalame Cay, and settled in on a small area where our guide, Greg, spotted some of our prey. Bonefish will react to any sound and take off, so you have to be really quiet. Greg killed the engine, and our boat floated in toward our target area. From here on out, he use a long pole to push the boat along without making a sound.
I am not very skilled at casting, and that was immediately apparent. Greg would quietly tell me to cast at 1 o’clock, and I was lucky if I made it to midnight. I had one on a couple times, but in my excitement, overplayed my hand and lost him. I told Greg that it did not matter to me if I didn’t catch anything, as I was having fun just to try. He said, “Not on my boat!” and took us around to try our hand at fishing for snapper. It was loads of fun, and a lot easier than fishing for bonefish. We pulled in grunts and snapper and enjoyed the rest of our morning.
My son caught his very first fish, a small snapper!
On our other boat, my husband and daughter were not able to see any bonefish, but pulled in their share of snappers and grunts.
At the end of our morning, we headed back, unfortunately into a shower passing over the island. Even though we got a little wet on the back, it was a great day!
In our next post, we take a visit to the Spa at Kamalame Cay, the only overwater spa in the Bahamas.