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Phantoms of the Flats
Casting for bonefish in the mangrove-choked lagoons of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula
good.
Originally Published in Outside Magazine October, 2001
© Steven Rinella
AT THE CANCUN International Airport, in
the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, you have to hang around until your
fly-rod case comes in from the plane on an oversize baggage cart
because the long, skinny tube won't ride properly on the conveyor.
This can make for a harrowing wait. There I sat, my backpack full of
camping gear, with $200 in cash (which about wiped out my bank
account) and a month to kill, and the one thing I really needed in
order to do the one thing I really wanted to do—catch some
bonefish—was likely lost and sitting on some other plane in some other
country. When I finally spotted my rod case, my mind moved on to
another anxiety: whether I'd have any luck hitching rides and finding
fish.
Much of this anxiety was thanks to the naysayers at a fly-fishing shop
back home, who assured me that my plan to hitchhike around the
southern Yucatan Peninsula would yield me no bonefish and probably
find me dead in the jungle by its conclusion. They told me that
catching bonefish usually requires a small fortune, and they suggested
an island resort where, judging by the brochure, a handful of
bathing-suit models and I would loll on a private beach sipping
daiquiris while casting at millions of fish.
I was committed to my plan out of sheer stubbornness if not
near-poverty, and once I changed into some cutoffs and got on a
southbound bus to Tulum, I was feeling much better. Tulum is a small
Caribbean beach town with a nice blend of local culture and European
beach bums selling pot and handmade jewelry, and the place really sets
you at ease. The main street is dotted with curbside chicken joints;
After sampling around, I can definitively say that Jorge, the grillman
at Pollos Asados Marisol, serves the best bird in town.
Tulum is also a good jumping-off point for fishing, because stretching
south of there along the coast almost to Belize is the Sian Ka'an, a
United Nationssponsored, 1.3-million-acre biosphere reserve that has
lagoons and beaches, Mayan ruins, monkeys, manatees, two kinds of
peccary, jaguars, two species of crocodile, 350 species of birds, and
plenty of fish. I bought rice and beans, a $12 hammock, and four
gallons of purified water and thumbed a ride to the reserve's north
entrance, where I started walking down a long, bumpy road that led to
Punta Allen, a lobster-fishing village some 40 miles distant.
The road runs the length of a thin peninsula separating the Caribbean
Sea from a large saltwater lagoon. Every hour or so a truck would come
by and not pick me up. After I'd gone quite a ways, I found a dead
bonefish as big as a loaf of French bread lying in the dust on the
side of the road. A guy hauling bananas and limes finally stopped.
When we got to a good-looking area I banged on the back window of the
truck. He wouldn't let me out until he counted the bundles of fruit to
see if any were missing. Just to the east of the road, waves pounded a
long, sandy beach; to the west was the saltwater lagoon—primo bonefish
habitat—barely visible through a 50-yard-wide, seemingly impenetrable
thicket of mangroves.
I strung my matrimonial-size hammock between two coconut palms on the
ocean side, found a piece of driftwood for a table, and picked a few
coconuts that were ripe enough to have firm meat. (I would later learn
that eating too many of these gives one a horrendous case of the
shits.) Little crabs were tossing sand out of their holes all around
my camp as I stashed my backpack, grabbed my rod and some flies I'd
tied, and then crossed the road to face the mangrove obstacle.
Mangroves have green, waxy leaves, and the branches grow together like
the many wires that make a window screen. I twisted and wrestled and
crawled through these tangles, turning my clothes almost completely
orange from a staining liquid that rubs off when you touch the limbs.
About halfway through, I was stung on the arm by a worm, something
that had never happened to me in all my 27 years. Before I could
retaliate, he dropped from his perch and disappeared underwater. The
bite swelled to the size of a 35mm film canister, and I got the
terrible feeling that this trip was not going to work out and I would
not be finding any bonefish after all. I named the worm the Mexican
evasive fighting worm and made a mental note of its appearance in case
I had to describe it at the emergency room.
The swelling receded by the time I finally reached the lagoon. The
water stretched for miles, white or gray or blue depending on the
depth, which ranged from ankle- to thigh-deep. Twenty feet in front of
me, a three-inch razor blade stuck out of the water, waving back and
forth. I was hallucinating from the worm. No, I realized, it isn't a
razor at all; it's the tail fin of a bonefish. I'll be damned, I
thought. He was tipped forward in the water, making the same noise
with his tail that you can make wagging your finger in the sink. There
were several more fish with him.
I fumbled with my rod before casting a sparsely tied brown fly with
ball-chain eyes about five feet in front of the fish, which raced over
and picked it up so fast that he was into the backing on my reel
before I had time to yell yeehaw. The line whipping through the water
sounded like ripping newsprint and it shot a rainbow-colored mist into
the air.
When I got that fish in my hand, I searched him from nose to tail and
am pleased to report that there was not a huge price tag stapled to
him. I thought of those guys in the fly-fishing shop back home and one
syllable came to mind: Ha!
Something I quickly realized about on-the-cheap fishing in Mexico is
that you wind up with a lot of time to kill. To spot fish on the
flats, you need a high sun with no clouds, so you can only sight-fish
for bones about five hours a day. The rest of the time I'd snorkel the
reefs that parallel almost the entire Yucatan, or talk to the teenage
soldiers who occasionally come strolling along the beach with grenade
launchers and M-16s, searching for drug traffickers. In the evenings
I'd try to catch something to eat. Killing bonefish is frowned upon in
angling circles, which is no big deal, because they're too bony to eat
and they don't taste very good. But I caught mangrove snapper,
barracuda, mullet, and reef fish, and now and then I'd find a conch.
You can wire the fish to a stick and cook it over dried coconut husks
and you've got a treat. Sprinkle with lime, salt, and pepper, then lie
around, swatting at sand fleas while you wait for the earth to orbit
around the sun and get into a good position for more bonefishing.
Sometimes a pod of bonefish will be coming at you so thick you'd swear
it's a green queen-size mattress getting pulled through the water, and
the fish will fight over who gets to eat the fly. Other times you
can't find any fish but a snobbish loner, and he'll look at your fly
like it's the stupidest thing he's ever seen.
One day I was having troubles with the latter situation, and I decided
to try swimming across a deep channel that stood between a mangrove
thicket and a large, knee-deep flat that stretched for hundreds of
yards. The night before, I had watched a crocodile swim down this
channel, gliding along with only his eyes and the thin ridge of his
back above water. Just as I got out in the middle of the water,
nervously doing a one-armed dog paddle with my rod held high in the
other hand and my fanny pack between my teeth, a small white boat
hauling two guys came zooming around a point, almost whacking into me.
I had been so focused on a potential crocodile attack from below that
I hadn't even heard the motor. The boat veered sharply to miss me, and
then disappeared as quickly as it had come. Shaken, I climbed onto the
flat and wrung out my shirt as best I could. The sun had risen to its
optimal position, straight up and burning bright. I drew a deep breath
and took a paranoid glance around for crocodiles, which had become a
habit of mine. The coast was clear, but off to my left, over a patch
of turtle grass, several razor blades flicked just at the surface of
the water, as bright as silver coins flipping in the sun.
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