First, a warning, this is not a post full to the brim with grip and grin shots featuring exotic fish and ear to ear smiles. If that is what you have come in search of, turn back now lest you be severely disappointed. Although at least in my mind it started out that way, in the end this trip was not mostly, barely even partly fishing related in the end. Consider yourself warned.



What follows in a trip report of sorts from a very recent trip to Belize that I had hoped would be at least partially full of successful fishing stories. The fishing gods were against me and the trip turned into much more of a travel and "new experience" sort of adventure as opposed to a highly successful angling affair. So it goes sometimes.

A bit of background before I get into it. This trip had been in the works in one form or another for going on 12 years or so. A good climbing partner of mine and I used to joke half sincerely about taking a beach vacation, usually as we were strapped to some high alpine wall and as the suffering was nearing it's peak. At that point in our lives, our adventures had all been pretty similar and more or less based in the hills and centered around climbing stuff and freezing our tits off if they hadn't fallen off from being scared yet. As you might guess, this sort of lifestyle wears on a guy after a while and so as each year went by and as our collective climbing resumes grew longer with progressively higher, steeper, and generally more difficult ascents, our discussion of this beach vacation seemed to grow more serious. Well, he got to it before I did and wound up marrying a Norwegian chick he met in Thailand. Until two weeks ago, I had yet to set foot on a real, warm water, tropical sorta beach.

APKD had been to Belize the winter before last and had good things to say. Naturally we started tossing the idea around of teaming up for a trip there this winter. Again, the gods were against us and a very last minute work fubar, literally the day before my booking travel deadline, kept my wife and I from being able to AP and his wife back in late Nov. Better late than never I suppose. My wife and I regrouped and headed out towards the end of Jan.

In a nutshell, I had been looking forward to Belize for quite a long time. I had done research, tied flies, read articles, searched high and low on the internet, and generally had high hopes for a successful fishing trip with some more typical beach sorta stuff mixed in.

A good friend of Stam's and seasoned angler (to say the least) spoke to me some wise words that I have taken to heart. Expectation management is key. He spoke them in the context of planning and carrying out fishing adventures, although I think the concept can be applied more broadly. Allow me a tangent. I have often have a hard time drawing a line between hope, and expectation. As near as I can come to separating the two is to say that hope is your ideal, your dream, what would happen if things went perfectly, whereas an expectation should be what is realistically most likely. Quite often the two switch places and perhaps that is where I often go astray. After all is it hard to consider “most likely” in a setting that one has no experience in. Back on track, perhaps my expectations for what I could achieve from the shore in a place like Belize were too high.

A brief summary of our trip to Belize before I quit boring you with words and get on with the photographic part of the report. Our general plan was to fly into Belize City, bump over to San Pedro and spend a few days putting around. For me that meant walking the beaches and casting to plentiful bonefish and the occasional cruising permit, even perhaps stumbling upon some unsuspecting baby tarpon milling about. From there we would catch a water taxi to Caye (key) Caulker and spend a day or two there before hopping on a sailboat for three days heading south to Placencia (island hopping snorkeling and of course fishing along the way) from where we would continue south to Punta Gorga before turning north on the mainland and checking out the jungle a bit before heading home.

As things turned out, we were delayed in Caye Caulker due to weather, which was not a bad thing in my book, and wound up having to cut out most of what we had hoped to do and see inland.

So, without further ado, some photos.



We got dropped off in the Seatac airport at midnight ish and caught a few rough hours before getting on the plane at 6am.













After arriving in Belize City, and as we were carefully cautioned, we caught a ride to the water taxi terminal and headed to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye as quickly as possible.














San Pedro was an interesting place for sure. It is located on the southern end of Ambergris Caye which is long and fairly skinny. From the reef side shore of the island to the lagoon side of the city is about three blocks. The three streets were chaotic and busy as was the beach side, but that made for some good people watching and entertainment.

From what I had heard about fishing around San Pedro, one could do quite well for bonefish especially just by walking the shore and picking them out of the sand and turtle grass. During our three day stay on Ambergis (Am-bear-griss), conditions for sight fishing were grim to say the least. The wind was pretty steady at about 15-20mph and it was more or less overcast. That having been said, I put in some hours and found bonefish off the docks and on a few mini-flats between the turtle grass, but had zero luck getting them to chase a fly. In speaking to locals, the tides were "too low" and the bonefish weren't coming in close. Not that it mattered, with the wind, I couldn't get my fly line much beyond the tip of my nose accurately anyhow.

A few shots from around San Pedro.





























more to come...