Or maybe I should title this thread "Baby Tarpon on the Fly" in deference to KK's big tarpon, as large tarpon aren't present in this part of Mexico until May and June.

My philosophy for Mexico fishing is to take a break from our typical winter gray and rain and cold, and this year's snow and ice to somewhere warm and sunny, with an opportunity to do some fly fishing. There are an abundance of smallish bonefish, permit, tarpon, snook, barracuda, and other species on and around the flats of Ascension Bay, about two hour's drive south of Cancun. And they can all be caught on flies, or I wouldn't bother fishing. (This remark is made to confirm any lingering suspicions that Salmo is an elitist fly fisherman.)

My retired former co-worker friend and I joined a group heading to Casa Viejo Chaac in Punta Allen at the end of the 40 km long peninsula, or spit, that stretches from Tulum to PA, about half of which includes the world's winner of the "road from hell" contest. We left the hotel in Cancun at 5:30 pm, arriving in PA at midnight, with a one hour stop in Tulum for dinner. It's open to debate as to whether the final 20 km of that road can be traversed faster by walking instead of driving.

Manuel Chaac operates a comfortable fishing lodge in PA, located a couple short blocks from the roughly hewn docks where several 23' pangas are kept. The boats are powered with 40, 50, or 60 hp Yamaha 4-stroke outboards, mostly 40s for fuel economy, which turns out to be an important consideration since everything has to be trucked into PA over the road from hell, and we made daily runs of an hour and sometimes more to the better flats for fishing.

Ascension Bay bonefish run 1 - 3 pounds, and that's what we caught, although the guides claim there are larger ones around. If I were a guide, I wouldn't make that claim unless I knew I could take clients to where those larger bones are found, so who knows. I've only been to Mexico once before and fished just a small area of flats near Boca Paila, which is located about half way down the peninsula. I caught only bonefish the previous trip, so my fishing objective was to catch a few bonefish and then try to add new species to my "life list" of fish species fished for and caught.

A 15 pound snook rounded out the first day's fishing, and a 12 or 13 pound tarpon added a new species the second day. I had shots at four permit the third day, with follows by three of them, and a hookup with one about 12 pounds, but it broke off, taking a favored crab fly pattern that was in high demand and short supply. We fished with Manuel the fourth day, and he is tarpon obsessed. I hooked four but only landed one, while my fishing partner landed four. All the tarpon were in the 10 - 15 pound range, and more than enough to cause some serious line burn when they pull line after the initial hook sets; mine are just about healed.

We fished with a permit-obsessed guide named Tarantula the fifth day. He was describes by other anglers at the lodge as focused and intense, but crazed might be more like it. When he spots a permit from the poling platform on the stern of the panga, he says get in the water (quickly and silently) and beats the fisherman into the water, just dropping his pole and sliding down off the platform and over the side. His assistant, 16-year-old Elmer, retrieves the pole and clambers up to the poling platform to keep an eye on the fish. This worked really well when a cloud would block the sun, as Tarantula (Tara for short) would just have us freeze in place when he lost sight of the fish. When the sun came back out, Elmer would relocate the fish, and Tara and I would resume stalking the permit. I got lucky and got a hook-up to the first permit I stalked and cast to. My friend made four stalks that day without ever hooking up. Permit are every bit as wary as wary as the angling literature describes, and even when you do everything right with the wind blowing invariably from the wrong direction, the permit is just as likely to decide your crab imitation is a fake and turn away, in which case there is nothing you can do but begin looking for a more gullible permit.

A note here to Coley about the fish skull flies he sent me: As heavily weighted flies, I didn't get to give them a fair test. Most of the water I fished was less than 3 feet deep and often less than 2. I did get a brief chance fishing a deeper channel between flats for snook but hooked nothing. Had there been more opportunity to fish them in some deeper water I think they would definitely attract snook, probably tarpon altho the guides didn't think so. Withiout a doubt they would attract barracuda, but barracuda will hit anything that is fished to suggest a wounded baitfish, so barracuda would be a waste of a relatively expensive fly.

A couple of guys fished out off the reef at the edge of the bay where the water was deeper and more tidal current was present. However, it's totally exposed to higher wind, and the boat is bouncing around on the swells and in the waves, so casting those fish skull flies would require a safety helmet, so I think the guides would frown on using them.

We returned to Cancun on Sunday and went out Monday with another guide to fish north of town near Isla Blanca for more tarpon and snook in the mangrove lagoons. I had several shots at and hookups with tarpon but didn't land any. My partner did better and got a couple to the boat. We also caught some smaller fish. I got some kind of perch, and my buddy got a mangrove snapper, the latter species being good table fare.

I'll try to upload my photos from my camera to my computer tonight and then post some here. And I'll add some more after I get the ones my fishing partner took.

Sg