We had to cut our trip to the west side a little short due to an injury but it was still great. Yesterday we got to Red Bays at about ten in the morning and went straight to Gerald’s store to pick him up. He said we better hurry as we only had minutes to get out of the bay with the falling tide. We quickly drove to the dock and launched the boat. There is a small hole just out from the dock next to a crawl where one can punch it and get on a plane. Looking out the bay it looked marginal but we decided to go for it as the alternative is to pole out a long way. We made it out but just barely. Once again we were out in the blue, blue waters of the Grand Bahama Bank. This was a planned shorter trip than the last one and we went about ten miles down the coast line running almost a mile off shore in three to four feet of water. We turned in toward the coast where our map showed three creeks. By now the tide was low and when we found a suitable camping spot where we had to pack our gear quite a way across a muddy flat but it was a great spot with cedar trees around and lots of firewood. With camp set up we went to poling the shore line. For the first hour we saw only cudas and lots of them and big ones. I tied on a steel leader with a chartruse and white deceiver and within minutes we had two cudas. The first one broke off and the second and bigger one we got. I was poling and told Linda to slap the water with the fly and when the cuda turns to it strip like crazy. Next thing you know is the reel screaming like crazy. We boated this fish and kept him. Amazon woman was filleting this fish on the poling tower while I kept an eye on the flat. I heard a splash and noticed a big tarpon roll about a hundred feet out the flat. He was slowly crusin north toward the mouth of a creek. I ran down the beach to try to cut him off and all the thrashing and slipping and sliding on this muddy flat spooked him and he was gone.
We decided to explore this creek as I could pole across a shallow bar to the entrance and then a deep channel into the interior. This was the second creek we got into. At first it was just deep with mud banks. After rounding a corner there were lots of mud flats. We pulled next to one of these small mud flats and all of a sudden there were bonefish all over the place and I mean all over. We stumbled into a little gold mine of bonefish.
The day was perfect for the west side with clear sky and just a slight breeze from the east. This morning was quite different with cloudy sky and a stiff wind out of the west which is a killer for over there as it turns the near shore water milky. We took advantage of the high tide this morning to head back to tend the injury as the fishing with the west wind was not good anyway.
There will be pics of that trip as soon as I can get em to Patricia.
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