After spending a week in Ascension Bay, I now have the solution to the water problem between SoCal and NorCal. A pipeline to the Yucatan during their rainstorms. On three different days, we got enough water to match all of Los Angeles’s precipitation of 2006-2007! If you squeeze out the laundry I brought home, you may be able to shut off the Central Valley pumps during spawning season.

The good news is that the storms we experienced, fortunately lasting a few hours at most, did not affect the overall quality of the trip. We caught more and bigger bones than in any of the last ten years we have gone to Pesca Maya. Several in our group had double digit hauls on more than one day. And on one sunlit day, two of us hooked and landed three Permit!

Think bonefish only feed in crystal clear water? I landed one in blood red runoff outside of a small lagoon. I hooked, but did not land, my first snook, too!

And as if we did not get in enough fishing, while eating quesadillas before dinner, a school of small jacks starting crashing along our beach. A run to the rods and back to the beach gave us an hour of nonstop action of 10-12” scrappers. The best sight (the one you never get on film) is standing neck deep in water and casting to the school. Try setting, walking backwards and winding when your arms are straight up. Fortunately, they moved in closer to the beach and we were able to finish off only knee deep. This did not prevent Marshall from stumbling backwards and having a wave wash over him. All we saw was a bent rod sticking out of the swirl!

Flies that worked on the bones were slightly heavier than past years. The usual suspects of Charlie’s and Gotchas. Blind flies seemed unnecessary except under rare conditions. Olive and tan shrimp patterns took the Permit. The snook ate my black and red deceiver, another species to the list! I used the Sage Equator line for the bones and loved it. The Rio Clouser line takes some getting used to but if your timing is on, it works great.

And bring a rain jacket…just in case.

written by Michael Schweit