You never forget your first bonefish. Mine came more than twenty years ago during a visit to the Andros Island Bonefish Club in the Bahamas with the legendary fly-fishing writer John Merwin. In a journal entry from that trip, I wrote of the experience, “The take itself is nothing if not a nudge…but the first run is like hooking a sound wave zipping to the horizon.” Since then I’ve chased bones across the Bahamas and even on the out islands of Puerto Rico.
And while I now prefer DIY trips, this past spring I joined two close—and very fishy—friends on a weekend excursion to the Delphi Club on Abaco Island, where the accommodations and service push back against the notion that a fishing lodge and luxe are mutually exclusive. That was brought home to us after the first day of fishing when we were met with rum punch and cold face towels as we unloaded. Our rooms were well appointed, meals were divine (I’m still thinking about the fresh wahoo I had for dinner one night), and everything happened with the precision of a Patek Philippe.
It’s hard to pin down the most restorative part of the weekend: Sitting on the second-story deck overlooking the Atlantic each morning, coffee in hand, to watch the sunrise in the face of a pleasant easterly? Trying in vain to enumerate the shades of blue the water takes? Discussing fly patterns and the best seafaring books (Adrift? Endurance?) over a cocktail? Or, of course, the rush that comes with spotting a bonefish at fifty feet and zipping a cast to get your spawning shrimp fly close—but not too close!
All of it added up to a trip I won’t soon forget, chasing a species that has become a keystone in my sporting life. But my ledger also includes a few of the South’s other classic quarries, including wood ducks, turkeys, and largemouth bass. Those and more take center stage in this issue’s cover package, which will take you on a journey into the woods, swamp, salt, and beyond. And if you’re a sportsman or an outdoors lover, you won’t want to miss our fourth annual Champions of Conservation, which spotlights ten heroes putting in the work to protect the South’s wildlife and wild places—including the Bahamas’ bonefish flats—for all of us.
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