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"I could see a dark mass thirty feet from shore in about
four feet of water. Elmo said 'there they are' and it was only then I
realized I wasn't looking at weed. I was seeing 300 bonefish schooling
in the incoming tidal flat pools at the edge of Glover's Reef. Later
when I put on my snorkel and mask, I had the thrill of watching these
sleek, chrome-green fish splinter and ricochet past me within arms
length. They regrouped and slid across the flats, seeking the food that
the tide would bring.
I tried for three days to outwit these fish. I only
managed it once, but that one time was a highlight for me in a week that
was close to perfect. I loved the snorkeling and the tide pools the
folks at Slickrock showed me, but that moment alone when my fly hit the
water and a bonefish detonated at the surface... it was magical! I
thought about it all the while I was kayaking throughout the week, and I
still think about it today. Thanks Slickrock."
Kevin Jackson
Rimbey, Alberta, Canada
Adventure Island at Glover's Reef
February 2004
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Caribbean
Vacations:
Sport Fishing on our Private Island
at Glover's Reef, Belize
How's
the fishing? Although Slickrock’s program at Glover’s Reef focuses
on
sea kayaking,
snorkeling, scuba diving,
surfing, and windsurfing
vacations, guests interested in sport fishing will not be
disappointed!
Do I
need a guide? There is no need to hire a private guide, you
just wade in and fish! The fishing is excellent just off our island; in
fact professional fishing guides charging $300/day regularly bring their
guests over 35 miles by boat
just to fish a few feet from our shore. It is common to pull in several
bonefish per session.
What
about spin-casting? Many fishermen spin-cast off of our dock.
Permit, jack, and barracuda also provide great action. See below for how
to use your spin-casting set up for fly fishing.
What time of year is best for bonefishing? It
is good year-round.
What about a fishing license? Glover’s Reef is a National Marine
Reserve and it is catch-and-release only
for guests.
 Sport
fishing at Glover’s Reef requires a license. We pay it for you!
You can begin to fish right away, no waiting for the ranger!
You can
purchase a map of Belize to locate fishing
sites throughout the country.
Have a question you can't find the answer to?
Send us an email:
slickrock@slickrock.com or call (800) 390-5715.
What do fishermen need to bring?
We do not provide fishing tackle; fishermen bring their own. Wading is very easy on the flats near our shore and
more challenging on the reef edge. Bring a lot of lures because they
often get caught on coral or lost to big fish. Fly-fishermen on past
trips have made the following recommendations: 8-weight rod best, 9-ft.
length, use a marine floating line with 10-15 pound leaders. For a reel
use any saltwater compatible with plenty of backing (200+ feet.)
Recommended flies: Crazy Charlies, Brown Bitters, Snapping Shrimps, Foam
Crabs, McCrabs, also bring several tippets. Be sure to read Randall
Kaufman’s "Bonefishing With a Fly", especially chapters on
retrieve, hooking and landing. And finally, a must for fly-fishing:
polarized sunglasses and ankle high booties. Fishermen regularly wade
through turtle grass which is the perfect habitat for stinging hydroids,
a relative of jellyfish. Your ankles will be covered with little itchy
red dots if you don't have ankle-high footwear.
What if I don't have fly fishing gear?
You can use your spin-casting equipment for fly fishing... here's how to
do it. If you are using a collapsible spin-casting rod you will need a
clear float bobber that you fill with water. This gives the line weight
and gives you the ability to do longer casts with a short pole. After
the bobber you attach a swivel which stops the bobber from traveling
down the line toward the fly. After the swivel you tie on a tippet, then
the fly. A 7-foot tippet is best. With this set-up the fly sinks to the
bottom, and with a Crazy Charlie, it looks like a shrimp. Bonefish
don't go for lures, only flies.
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Fishing at
Glover's Reef
Bruce White, Ortonville, MI
Adventure Island at Glover's Reef, December, 2007
all photos
of the author fishing off Long Caye by Sandy White
I've
been an avid fly fisherman for more than 50 years, tying all of my own
flies and building some of my own rods. In many fishing articles I've
read that die-hard fishermen like myself are searching world-wide to
hook and land bonefish. A few of the lucky ones get a few, mostly in the
2-5 pound range.
On Long
Caye in two days I hooked five and landed four, all on flies I made. It
took a half hour to land the last one and 20 minutes for the other
three. All five bonefish took out all 90 yards of my fly line plus
backing on their 3-5, 100-140 yard, 4-5 second runs.
If
they didn't turn at the end of those screaming runs, you'd never stop
them. All four I landed were too large to lift up onto the dock, so I
was forced to beach them. The last one, being over 27" long, was so big
I couldn't get both my hands around it. I was forced to straddle it
between my knees and hold it by a gill plate to carefully remove the
fly.
Pound
for pound no fish in fresh or saltwater comes close to the fun of
landing a bonefish. They have great heart and are relentless. Cully was
standing next to me as I was beaching the first one I hooked. He ran to
get a camera. Suddenly the bonefish took off again for about 100 yards
into deep water. Then nothing. I brought the line back to find only a
head and gill covers on my hook. Almost the entire body had been severed
clean by a 4-1/2 to 5 foot long barracuda that Cully said had been
hanging out in the lagoon recently. Guess what-- two fish later the
exact same thing happened again. I retrieved a head with no body. Cully
couldn't believe it.
Those
four days of fishing were the best I've spent anywhere. One of the
greatest things was that I never needed any kind of boat. All fishing
was done from the dock, shallow wading or from the beach which was only
200 steps from our cabana. I caught probably 10 to 12 different species
in the four days I fished. I caught 27 fish in the last two hours of the
final afternoon alone. I had a fish on almost every cast. All wonderful
fighters, including one huge bar jack that almost equaled the bonefish.
What a trip!
I didn't
get a chance to experience the new fishing kayaks, but they certainly
promise a much greater range to the already great fishing at Slickrock.
Read about our newest sport:
kayak fishing!
Some Thoughts About Fishing on
Long Caye at Glover's Reef
Matt Waldo, Brooklyn
New York
Adventure Island at Glover's Reef, February 2004
and April 2006
Last winter, my wife and I decided to go to
Belize again for our vacation. Unlike the last few times we decided to
sign on with the Slickrock outfitters and travel to Glover’s Reef. We
knew we would be kayaking, snorkeling, and doing other sea sport
activities to our hearts content.
On our other trips we had seen many tourists
carrying really expensive looking fishing poles, sheathed in
multicolored gear tins as carry-on luggage. Also, I had met fishing
enthusiasts who spoke rhapsodically about bonefish fishing and deep sea
fishing in Belize. I concluded that Belize is a “primo” fishing spot
that should be tried as a life experience even if I only had a mild
interest. So, with a New York January winter raging outside my Brooklyn
apartment, I decided that by the time I traveled to Belize in February I
would be outfitted and knowledgeable enough to fish the mythic Belizean
waters.
However, before I got into this effort, I
wanted to impose some rigorous parameters to this fun/sport effort.
Because I am sort of a “gear head” (kayaking, snorkeling, cycling,
hiking… you get the picture) I did not want to buy a lot more stuff.
Apartment storage is already impossible. First rule: I would not buy to
the high tech side of the fishing gear spectrum and I would be budget
conscious (cheap) for once. Secondly, I wanted to avoid becoming
“expert” at another activity: you know the type… I wanted to avoid being
able to quote “High Tech Fishing Today Magazine” about titanium blah,
blah, blah… In New York there is pressure to know a lot about everything
you’ve become an enthusiast about. I decided my goal was to remain
relatively stupid about fishing: the “babe in the woods” approach.
Thirdly, I like fish in general and did not want to kill many of them.
The behavior of fishing, standing knee deep in warm, aquamarine water in
the middle of a tropically heaven casting lures while working on an even
tan, this appealed to me. The act of fishing that is about “killing”
fish wasn’t exactly my cup of brine. Lucky for me, Glover’s Reef is a
catch and release site.
I like books and am a firm believer in the
adage “If you can read, you can cook”. I decided to teach myself to fish
from reading books in my apartment, after work and the dishes. After
some in-store reading to sample what was available at the local Barnes
and Noble, I bought the following two books: the KISS Guide to
Fishing (stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid!”) by Robert Roth and
North American Fishing, by Ken Schultz. From them I learned that I
was probably interested in spin casting: the reels look very cool and
the process is very low tech. Fly fishing is a little fussy, lending
itself to that expert syndrome again, and the effort with the deep sea
gear strikes me as some kind of over-kill extravaganza (you remember the
stuff in “Jaws”?).
After more reading I came to the conclusion
that I could fish in Belize with a light to medium weight spin casting
reel, a light weight spin casting rod which broke down to a some of
parts in a tidy way, some 8 to 12 pound test mono filament line and a
variety of lures. My actual outfit included a Shakespear brand,
“Tidewater” model reel for approx. $50, a nine foot “Ugly Stick” rod
which broke down to lengths of 20-24 inches for another $50 (fits in a
duffle), 250 yards of ten pound test line (clear) for $7., and some
lures. If you ‘re determined to follow a budget (cheap), watch out in
the lures department! I unfortunately tend to buy lures that I find
attractive, not because they are tried and true fish killers. Lucky for
me form and function came together in chrome and/or gold “jigs”. From
experience, I would say to bring at least five of each of your
favorites, varying the size from one to three inches. Expect to spend at
least $75. on lures: ones you like, ones you’ve read that the fish like,
and the ones that your sales person needs to sell some of. Other stuff
to think about absently: swivels, leaders, a variety of rubber painted
minnows (you won’t believe it), a nifty box to store all this cool stuff
in. A knife is a valuable piece of equipment in case you have to cut
line, but it isn’t necessary to have a BIG knife. More importantly,
fishermen’s pliers are helpful for extracting your hooks from the fish
with the least amount of harm to you both.
Please realize that you can spend much more
on better and more complicated fishing equipment. I made my choices
based on a low impact to pocket and storage basis. I also caught a
number of fish with a minimal investment. And you should have seen the
ones that got away!
A humanitarian note: there is no need to
“super set” the hook when a fish has your lure. Unless you are a dentist
who misses his oral surgery appointments, an exaggerated jerking of the
rod to drive your hook deep into the fish’s mouth isn’t really
necessary, especially in a catch and release environment. So what if the
fish gets away! After the five minutes of intense play you’ve just had,
you should give thanks and gratitude for the experience of having shared
a life’s joy with an aquatic life form.
Some fun stuff: don’t be surprised if while
you’re bringing in a good sized snapper or jack, pole bending under the
strain while you squint into the light like Spencer Tracy in the “Old
Man and the Sea”, that a large barracuda doesn’t just bite the fish in
half. Though I brought in fish heads twice, I really love telling the
stories.
Belize sun light while fishing: If you wade
a lot, remember your sun screen will begin to come off, no matter what
the claim at purchase. The sun is always intense, but while fishing
there is real possibility of burning. So, work on your even tan, but be
careful about parts exposed for too long or that have been wet for a
long period. Hats and sun glasses are a must. A very lightweight shirt
with collar and sleeves is helpful to protect neck and arms.
The really fine points of casting won’t be
worked out in your apartment, and I haven’t really tried hard to master
them anyway. Hopefully you will benefit from some of my not-expert
advice about fishing in Belize and have fun working on your even tan.
Remember to be respectful when asking the fish to take your lure.
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