By Geoffrey Norman, Donovan Webster, Chris Dixon, Kirk Deeter and Roger Pinckney | Dec 08/Jan 09 | Features

The Hidden Bahamas

30 new reasons to head south, way south

In this article:
The Bonefish Club
Eleuthera
Harbour Island
The Abacos
Off the Charts

The Bonefish Club
There are nearly as many bonefish guides on Andros Island as there are bonefish, but only one is considered the godfather of them all

By Geoffrey Norman

A bottle of cold Bahamian beer rested below me, in the sand, within easy arm’s reach. I’d finished about half of it, and two pages of some forgettable novel, before the soft, steady breeze lulled me to sleep in a canvas hammock stretched between two palm trees. Then, through my slumbers, I heard a sound.

That can’t be but one thing, I said to myself.

And, sure enough, out on a shallow flat no more than fifteen or twenty yards from where I was taking my rest, the translucent tail of a feeding bonefish cut through the surface of the water like a scythe.

I had come to this resort, with my wife, to do a little scuba diving, not to fish. But, then, once upon a time, I’d heard the music producer who “discovered” Fats Domino explain that it was just a chance encounter that led him to the club where Domino was playing. “Somebody said something about a hot new piano player, and I never passed up a chance at that.” I had internalized that lesson and applied it to fishing.

I owned a four-piece fly rod that went everywhere with me, so I hustled up to the cabin and got it. On the way back to the beach, I fumbled through a small box of flies and picked out a Crazy Charlie.
When the bonefish tailed again, it was in easy casting range. So, of course, I dropped the fly right on its neck. It lit up in alarm and left a clean V wake on its way off the flat.

Damn.

I stripped the line, held it in coils in my left hand, and hoped for another opportunity.

Which came in five minutes or so. This time, I made a better cast. The fly dropped a yard or so in front of the fish. When the fly touched bottom, I stripped a couple of inches of line. The fish moved on the fly, and the water bulged when it took. I made a long strip, raised the rod tip, and was hooked up and quickly into my backing and feeling the great surge all anglers experience when a bonefish takes off on that first improbably long, blistering run for freedom. The exhilaration is something like the feeling you had when you were a kid and took your first ride on a roller coaster.