Posted on February 02 2010
Photo: Louis Cahill
Our first full week of guests in the year 2010 brought us some very interesting characters.
Bruce Chard did it again! We welcomed back Bruce and many of his past guests for another great week on Andros. Guys like Don Jackson, Phil Clough, Mike Greene, Bob Whelan and Mike Glynn know our program very well and they know how to have a good time. We also welcomed some new guests brought to us by Bruce. Louis Cahill, Robert Zipperer and Paul and Chris Santoro were newbies to the bonefish games they were about to play, so they took advantage of Bruce’s wealth of information on fishing the flats.
The fishing this week was quite good in spite of the weather. The guests had consistent numbers and some nice fish landed, and some nice fish lost! Unfortunately you have to pay to play so some of the bigger fish were lost in the mangroves. Quite a few of the guests were open to chasing ‘cudas or other available species with spin or fly tackle and that really made for some busy days on the water mixing it up between bones and toothy critters! A couple of the guys even took advantage of the nightly dock fishing using some of the scraps leftover from the day’s cuda fishing. Mike Glynn worked hard at trying for shark off the dock, but they were tough on him. Guess you’ll have to break that new rod in next year!
The weather this week was not kind to the guests with a cold front of historic proportions. We had a couple mornings where it looked like our guests were all going out for winter steelhead! Most of the days were partly cloudy, partly sunny with winds that ranged from 5-15 mph. The top wind for the week was in the low 20’s. Temps ranged from 58 to 75 degrees. It was still a lot warmer than the northeast US at the time so the guests were still quite happy to come down and have some sun while chasing some fish around.
We had a very nice time getting to know Louis Cahill during this week and it was wonderful to see Andros South through his eyes (and pictures). He spent most of the week on the flats with the other guests taking photos of them while fishing and just keeping his camera at hand for any of those National Geographic moments. He also spent a little time above the island during a flyover in which he took some amazing pictures of the flats from a birds-eye view. We thank you Louis, Bruce and the rest of the guests from this week.
During the second full week of January we welcomed back Wayne Walts and his veteran crew of anglers from the Northeast US. We were really hoping that the weather would be nice for this week and Wayne could rest easy knowing the guys were finally able to enjoy the fishing and the weather in the same trip! Quite a few of these guys kept us on our toes with the crazy jokes and political banter during the week.
Nothing huge for bonefish was landed this week, but the guests did report sightings of some really large fish through the week. Maybe next time guys! The cuda fishing stayed good for anyone that had the urge, but most of these guys were intent on catching as many bonefish as the time would allow. Therefore we did not have the big cuda numbers like we saw the week before.
The weather was all over the place this week, but at least the temps were higher than last week! We had nice sunny days that you dream of, but then we had days where you might be better off playing cards and drinking all day. And for this group that could be of interest! The temps were between 75 and 85 degrees this week which was really nice, but we still fought the cloud cover at times.
For the final week of January 2010 we welcomed back Charlie Craven of Charlie’s Fly Box fame and a small group of his guests. Jeff Stang joined him again after having a good time last year. Charlie brought along Ross Bartholomay from the shop as well as shop customers Phyllis Vinson and Tony Sartoris. Mid week we welcomed back Tom Sharkey and Jim Connell for the start of a ten day trip for them.
Fishing this week was pretty steady for bonefish and cuda which made for some happy guests. The fishing was really good for Phyllis Vinson a few times, enough so that she probably ended up being top rod for the week if anyone was counting. I’m sure the guys decided counting fish this week was probably a lost cause and therefore started the quality over quantity argument. The rest of the group played catch up to Phyllis the entire week, but it was all in good fun.
The weather once again was a mixed bag with showings of sun, clouds, wind and rain during the week. For the most part the weather was quite nice for the week with temps between 75 and 80 degrees and just a little bit of liquid sunshine to keep things refreshed. Winds were from 5-20 mph at times during the week, but overall it was perfect to keep the bugs off. A good end to the month of January and we are looking forward to February already.