Fishipedia Report: Mount Pleasant Lodge, Andros – Day 4

September 9th, 2011| No Comments

Alone With the Bones: One angler, one week, alone on the flats of Andros Island. The fourth of seven reports, in which Rory Batho serializes his week spent fishing the waters around Mount Pleasant Lodge, Bahamas

Mount Pleasant - Day 4Day 4: In a spin

There’s no point mixing words here, today was a poor day.

Though I’m usually concentrating on fly-fishing, like many people I usually pack a spinning outfit for these trips to the Bahamas. Sitting in the lodge last night, something occurred to me – I’d bought a sweet new Quantum Cabo 40 reel especially for the trip, and I’d yet to put it to the test. Initially it’d been detailed as my standby set-up for cudas and maybe some snapper, but then I thought it might be fun to break it in on a bonefish or two. Off came the tube lure and trace, on went a fluorocarbon leader and small bucktail jig. What could possibly go wrong?

Next day, I rounded the corner to the Bight as the tide was falling and found myself, almost immediately, face to face with a school of bones.

No panic. Cool as you like, I unlatched the jig, flicked it 30 feet and gave myself a little pat on the back as it was snatched almost immediately. It all happened so quickly, I realised too late that I hadn’t adjusted the drag sufficiently and the inevitable separation from the fish arrived roughly a five tenths of a second later. I know. I KNOW.

Cursing my poor planning, I looked around to find that the school of fish had moved 50 feet to my left and seemed, incredibly, unspooked. Tucking the spinning rod between my knees, I unsheathed the fly rod and prepared to make amends. As one bonefish peeled off from the school and grabbed the fly, I thought that’s exactly what I was about to do.

But a moment later when the fly line refused to move through the guides and I looked down to find it wrapped round the handle of my spinning reel, I was forced to reconsider. The line locked, I scrambled to free it, but… you know the rest. I couldn’t help feeling I’d got what I deserved.

The curse was upon me from that moment on. I lost two further fish later that day – by the time the second came off, just as it was about to ready to admit defeat, I was muttering things under my breath like, “Of course that was going to happen.”

Some days you just have to doff your cap to the fishing gods, tuck your rod under your arm and depart the field of play.

In better news, I remembered to take the ‘starfish-from-above-through-dappled-water’ photo that seems obligatory for all Bahamas fishing reports.

Mount Pleasant - Day 4

Check out other instalments from Alone with the Bones: 
Day 1,  Day 2,  Day 3,  Day 5Day 6,  The Journey Home

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