pikehunter
06-16-05, - 10:44 AM
As a UK based bonefishing enthusiast who has already planned and booked his next trip to the Bahamas in 2006 I have been following the debate surrounding the rumoured banning of DIY (or Self-Guided) anglers with considerable interest.
I have experienced guided bonefishing excursions in Bermuda (once) and The Bahamas (South Andros) several times. I have fished without a guide on countless occasions in Bermuda, The Bahamas (South Andros and Eleuthera) and Grand Cayman. As a result of my experiences with guides I would always seek to guide myself wherever possible. That said, James Pearman of “Jump Dem Bones” in Bermuda has my unconditional recommendation – he will put you on fish and they will generally be big specimens. It’s up to you to put the fly in front of them! Bermuda however, is a very different proposition when it comes to bonefish and it is the threat of restrictions being placed upon visiting anglers to the Bahamas that causes me concern.
On my last bonefishing trip to Eleuthera in March of this year one of my colleagues, fishing alone, was challenged by two airport workers as he left the Airport Flats by Governors Harbour and informed that he had been breaking the law by fishing those particular flats. There were no notices posted warning anglers of this situation. No official notices were posted at our accommodation or in local restaurants and our car hire supplier made no mention of this situation. Yet all people we came into contact with soon knew that we were there to pursue bonefish and not a word was said to anyone. Two years previously both he and I (and several other vacationers) had fished the same area on several occasions without censure. My friend apologised profusely and repeatedly, but he in turn was repeatedly harangued with the responses “how would you feel if we broke the law in your country” and “we don’t come to your country and break the law”. Perhaps there may have been an element of heightened security awareness following the invasion of Iraq and security sensitivity still attributable to 9/11, but this was not cited by either of my friends’ antagonists. So, was this a security issue or one intended to discourage a tourist from fishing in an area that lends itself to wading the flats direct from the shore? For my part, I would like to give the benefit of the doubt to those who challenged my friend, but must express my dismay at the lack of communication from official sources either in the form of pamphlets, posters or billboards.
Last year, I took a party of friends to South Andros. Imagine our excitement and the sense of anticipation if you can. This trip was a full twelve months in the planning and had been booked six months in advance. We all know the reputation of Andros as being perhaps the most prolific bonefish fishery on the planet, but I regret to inform you that that is exactly all we found – a reputation. The weather was brutal and it frequently made guided trips to the west coast impossible; the opportunities to fish suitable “easy-to-access-from-the-shore” flats was surprisingly limited; there were plenty of unused skiffs but no-one wished to rent out a boat for a day or a week (proof of the influence of the local guide cartel); and evidence of excessive angling pressure was all too apparent whenever better sized fish were encountered on the east coast.
This excessive angling pressure is not the result of DIY anglers. No siree. No. It results from the local guides all “hammering” their accessible and known locations on the east coast during periods of sustained bad weather. What else can they do? If the weather or tides precludes travel to the west coast or the southern tip of the island and there are paying guests staying at the fishing lodges who want to cast a line, then if the guide wishes to earn an income he must provide a service for his client. Completely understandable.
Consider this though – here is a tale I heard direct from the horse’s mouth…..
A manager at a fishing lodge in the Bahamas arose one morning soon after he had started his new job to discover that it was raining quite hard. Fishable? Certainly. Dry? Definitely not. To his surprise, not a single one of his guides showed up for work that morning despite the fact that the lodge was pretty full and he was expecting to put at least six and maybe eight boats in the water that day. The manager waited 45 minutes or so, but still no sign of any guides. What should he do? Here are a dozen paying clients who have come to fish and despite the rain, naturally, they want to fish. Being a resourceful man, our intrepid manager quickly scrambles together a collection of spin-fishing gear, loads his clients into their transport (a bus) and drives them to a suitable shore location where they can fish. Thus, our hero saves the day! Hurrah!!!
Not quite it seems. The following day, which dawned fine and fair, saw all his guides present and firmly massed behind their appointed spokesman. Their message came as something of a shock to the manager. It was this:
“Since all the clients went out fishing yesterday we believe we should be paid for that days work. You should not have taken the clients fishing without us. You have denied us the opportunity to earn a days pay and the tips we would have earned that day too.”
In order to prevent a walk-out by the guides, the management of the lodge paid the guides a days pay for a days work that they did not do. This whole incident is most interesting and quite revealing. It provides an unparalleled insight into how some of the local people and certainly how the local guides think.
I feel sure I would not have paid a penny to any of the guides who failed to show, but would have used the incident as an opportunity to clarify future work practices – no show, no dough – but maybe I would have thought differently if my business had been threatened. As it was, the management chose the easier route, not wishing to ferment any form of unrest amongst the staff, paid up and made it clear that in future guides would have to attend the lodge and fish with their clients in order to earn their days pay. Fair enough.
Let me share another true tale ………… A party of three wished to hire a boat and guide for their next days fishing in South Andros. The party were not staying at a lodge but were renting a house, they did however have a contact at one of the lodges (the manager) and asked if he might be able to supply a guide and boat for the following day. The manager said he had boat availability problems but would endeavour to help them, although he could promise nothing. So, during the day, our party of three anglers do a little shore based flats wading and because of poor weather and adverse tides they retire to a local bar for a few beers at lunchtime. At the bar they meet a few locals and tell them of their desire to hire a boat, ideally without a guide, for the following day. Nothing doing on that score, but when they state that they would consider a boat with a guide then a name is suggested and they respond that they would be happy to discuss terms, conditions and availability with the man. They are informed that someone will be in touch.
Later that evening at approximately 6.30 p.m. at their rented house, they receive a telephone call from their friend the lodge manager saying that he has secured a guide and boat for them. The cost for the day will be $300; everyone is happy. They have heard nothing from their ‘bar contact’. The evening runs on, they have dinner, they share a few drinks. At 9.30 p.m. there is a knock at the door. It is the guide and one of his friends mentioned by the bar contact. Both of them had obviously been enjoying the hospitality of some bar, somewhere. The guide informs them that he has managed to secure a boat and guide (not himself) for them for the following day – the cost will be $650. When thanked for his time and trouble and informed that a boat and guide have already been secured by their party and therefore the services of ‘his guide and boat’ will not be required, the ‘bar contact guide’ informs the party that he has already paid out $400 to a third person for rent of a boat for the following day and that he will now be out-of-pocket to the tune of this amount. Again, apologies are offered by our threesome for any inconvenience he may have suffered, but no offer of compensation is made to the ‘bar contact guide’. The guide expresses the opinion that this is not the way he does business and he and his companion leave, still claiming they are owed hundreds of dollars by way of reimbursement for their expenditure on the project.
The following day the party of three, in one small flats boat plus a guide arranged by the fishing lodge manager, travel to the southwest side of the island and catch more fish, over a dozen, than all the other five or six lodge boats combined. The journey to the southwest side was tortuous, uncomfortable and long. But under the circumstances, successful too.
Q: Was the trip to the southwest side worth the time, the discomfort and the money?
A: Yes, because the weather had been lousy all week and they had seen very few fish themselves in the cold, milky water on the east coast.
Q: Was the guide good?
A: Yes.
Q: Was the guide happy with his tip.
A: He sure was – he got $100.
Q: Would they repeat the experience?
A: No.
Q: Why not a repeat trip?
A: The fish were all small, there was no challenge and no skill required in catching the quarry. Simply cast where instructed and strip, strip, strip. Fly selection? Immaterial!
I can imagine what you are thinking – ‘hang on a minute, all guided fishing is about casting where instructed and stripping as instructed.’ To a point, I would agree with you. This was the bonefish equivalent of shooting small fish in a barrel. No challenge, no great skill required and the enjoyment factor was diminished in proportion.
After two more days of DIY, with only one fish per angler to show for it, we contacted our friend the lodge manager and asked if he could supply us with a guide. Despite not being fully booked he was not able to assist us, since his boat engine problems had multiplied and he was struggling even to get out a sufficient number of boats to accommodate his own guests. He did though recommend a well known, highly respected, three hundred pound, five foot six inches tall, preacher man, with his won boat. Telephone calls were made – he wanted $450 to take out three anglers, we said no – a deal was struck at $300 for the three of us.
We met him as arranged the following day and he had a superb skiff, with poling platform and a beautiful power unit. The guide barely managed to provide one decent shot at a fish. We spotted more bonefish than he did. He tried hard, for sure, at least in terms of trying different locations. But he put us in front of very few fish indeed. Not a single fish was hooked, nor landed. He still took our money though – and we even paid him a cursory tip. An indication of his professional pride having been pricked was apparent when he drove to our house later that evening with a bag of crawfish tails which we had mentioned we would like to acquire. He would take no money for them. To summarise this episode, he was a poor guide, we had had more success ‘guiding’ ourselves than we had had employing a ‘professional’, but he was a decent man.
Finally, for now at least, another tale from last years’ South Andros trip. I had the pleasure of speaking with an individual who owns a vacation property on the east coast of South Andros. Beautifully situated, on a beautiful beach, idyllic.
We spoke about many ‘local’ topics, but naturally enough I was very interested in anything he could tell me about the bonefish – since I had hardly seen any throughout the duration of my stay and this was supposed to be the world’s foremost bonefishing fishery! We discussed the harsh nature of the local economy and the fact that it appeared many of the locals were barely scraping a living. We spoke of the local man who that morning had caught and legally killed three 4lb bonefish for the table using a handline and bait. We spoke of the government ban upon netting bonefish for sale as food and my understanding that all netting of bonefish was outlawed. We spoke of a conversation I had had with a local man who approached me as I was walking along the shoreline with my fly rod – this gentleman informed me, unbidden, that it was illegal for me to ‘take’ any bonefish, this was already my understanding of the law in the Bahamas.
For the record, all my flats fishing and fly fishing within the Caribbean has been catch and release. My choice. However, what surprised me more than a little was when the property owner told me that the netting of bonefish still takes place each fall and that the fish are invariably sold on to sources in Nassau!!!!!!!!!
Now, having seen the subsistence level at which many Androsians must live I fully understand why they might still seek to practice this harvest of the sea, despite it being against their laws. They have been fishing in such a manner for centuries and it is definitely not my place to tell them how to live and survive within their own country. But I have also experienced first hand a surprisingly low density of bonefish about their shores - given the reputation of Andros - and a surprisingly high number of those fish I saw were small fish, under 1lb or so. Additionally, despite a stranglehold upon waterborne transportation and a limited supply of suitable guides, it is the local guides and lodges who are contributing regularly to the pressure placed upon resident fish stocks and when the weather limits their choice of suitable locations they still take clients out and take their clients money in the full knowledge that the fishing prospects are poor or even worse than poor. What choice do they have?
Rather than seek to fashion a workable solution themselves which accommodates DIY anglers it appears that instead they prefer to use such tourists as scapegoats and they are obviously seeking to discourage such visitors. It works, I will not be visiting South Andros again in a hurry, be it guided or DIY. Our experiences in Eleuthera have been excellent, and I would not hesitate to visit the island once again, despite the attitude and manner of two self appointed airport security officials. Next year we plan to visit The Exuma. What lies in store for us there, I wonder?
What is quite obvious to me, after many trips to The Bahamas and the out islands in particular, is that certain but by no means all individuals resent tourists and their apparent wealth. Indeed, it is obvious that a majority of Bahamians seek out every opportunity to financially exploit their visitors, this is after all what a tourism industry seeks to do – make money from tourists. What they seem to have forgotten is that I, the tourist, can choose where and how I spend my dollars. Give me a bad experience and I shall think long and hard about my desire to repeat that experience. Give me a series of bad experiences and you loose my revenue for a long, long time.
The restriction or banning of DIY anglers is another example of how some Bahamian resident guides are seeking to capitalise upon their bonefishing resource. It is their right to pursue this course through the appropriate parliamentary channels if they see fit. Currently though, it is not law and should it ever be proposed that it become so then it is the cost in lost revenues to the country as a whole that should be taken into consideration. If it becomes law, I can promise you this, they will not see any of my dollars, nor those of my fishing colleagues either.
I have experienced guided bonefishing excursions in Bermuda (once) and The Bahamas (South Andros) several times. I have fished without a guide on countless occasions in Bermuda, The Bahamas (South Andros and Eleuthera) and Grand Cayman. As a result of my experiences with guides I would always seek to guide myself wherever possible. That said, James Pearman of “Jump Dem Bones” in Bermuda has my unconditional recommendation – he will put you on fish and they will generally be big specimens. It’s up to you to put the fly in front of them! Bermuda however, is a very different proposition when it comes to bonefish and it is the threat of restrictions being placed upon visiting anglers to the Bahamas that causes me concern.
On my last bonefishing trip to Eleuthera in March of this year one of my colleagues, fishing alone, was challenged by two airport workers as he left the Airport Flats by Governors Harbour and informed that he had been breaking the law by fishing those particular flats. There were no notices posted warning anglers of this situation. No official notices were posted at our accommodation or in local restaurants and our car hire supplier made no mention of this situation. Yet all people we came into contact with soon knew that we were there to pursue bonefish and not a word was said to anyone. Two years previously both he and I (and several other vacationers) had fished the same area on several occasions without censure. My friend apologised profusely and repeatedly, but he in turn was repeatedly harangued with the responses “how would you feel if we broke the law in your country” and “we don’t come to your country and break the law”. Perhaps there may have been an element of heightened security awareness following the invasion of Iraq and security sensitivity still attributable to 9/11, but this was not cited by either of my friends’ antagonists. So, was this a security issue or one intended to discourage a tourist from fishing in an area that lends itself to wading the flats direct from the shore? For my part, I would like to give the benefit of the doubt to those who challenged my friend, but must express my dismay at the lack of communication from official sources either in the form of pamphlets, posters or billboards.
Last year, I took a party of friends to South Andros. Imagine our excitement and the sense of anticipation if you can. This trip was a full twelve months in the planning and had been booked six months in advance. We all know the reputation of Andros as being perhaps the most prolific bonefish fishery on the planet, but I regret to inform you that that is exactly all we found – a reputation. The weather was brutal and it frequently made guided trips to the west coast impossible; the opportunities to fish suitable “easy-to-access-from-the-shore” flats was surprisingly limited; there were plenty of unused skiffs but no-one wished to rent out a boat for a day or a week (proof of the influence of the local guide cartel); and evidence of excessive angling pressure was all too apparent whenever better sized fish were encountered on the east coast.
This excessive angling pressure is not the result of DIY anglers. No siree. No. It results from the local guides all “hammering” their accessible and known locations on the east coast during periods of sustained bad weather. What else can they do? If the weather or tides precludes travel to the west coast or the southern tip of the island and there are paying guests staying at the fishing lodges who want to cast a line, then if the guide wishes to earn an income he must provide a service for his client. Completely understandable.
Consider this though – here is a tale I heard direct from the horse’s mouth…..
A manager at a fishing lodge in the Bahamas arose one morning soon after he had started his new job to discover that it was raining quite hard. Fishable? Certainly. Dry? Definitely not. To his surprise, not a single one of his guides showed up for work that morning despite the fact that the lodge was pretty full and he was expecting to put at least six and maybe eight boats in the water that day. The manager waited 45 minutes or so, but still no sign of any guides. What should he do? Here are a dozen paying clients who have come to fish and despite the rain, naturally, they want to fish. Being a resourceful man, our intrepid manager quickly scrambles together a collection of spin-fishing gear, loads his clients into their transport (a bus) and drives them to a suitable shore location where they can fish. Thus, our hero saves the day! Hurrah!!!
Not quite it seems. The following day, which dawned fine and fair, saw all his guides present and firmly massed behind their appointed spokesman. Their message came as something of a shock to the manager. It was this:
“Since all the clients went out fishing yesterday we believe we should be paid for that days work. You should not have taken the clients fishing without us. You have denied us the opportunity to earn a days pay and the tips we would have earned that day too.”
In order to prevent a walk-out by the guides, the management of the lodge paid the guides a days pay for a days work that they did not do. This whole incident is most interesting and quite revealing. It provides an unparalleled insight into how some of the local people and certainly how the local guides think.
I feel sure I would not have paid a penny to any of the guides who failed to show, but would have used the incident as an opportunity to clarify future work practices – no show, no dough – but maybe I would have thought differently if my business had been threatened. As it was, the management chose the easier route, not wishing to ferment any form of unrest amongst the staff, paid up and made it clear that in future guides would have to attend the lodge and fish with their clients in order to earn their days pay. Fair enough.
Let me share another true tale ………… A party of three wished to hire a boat and guide for their next days fishing in South Andros. The party were not staying at a lodge but were renting a house, they did however have a contact at one of the lodges (the manager) and asked if he might be able to supply a guide and boat for the following day. The manager said he had boat availability problems but would endeavour to help them, although he could promise nothing. So, during the day, our party of three anglers do a little shore based flats wading and because of poor weather and adverse tides they retire to a local bar for a few beers at lunchtime. At the bar they meet a few locals and tell them of their desire to hire a boat, ideally without a guide, for the following day. Nothing doing on that score, but when they state that they would consider a boat with a guide then a name is suggested and they respond that they would be happy to discuss terms, conditions and availability with the man. They are informed that someone will be in touch.
Later that evening at approximately 6.30 p.m. at their rented house, they receive a telephone call from their friend the lodge manager saying that he has secured a guide and boat for them. The cost for the day will be $300; everyone is happy. They have heard nothing from their ‘bar contact’. The evening runs on, they have dinner, they share a few drinks. At 9.30 p.m. there is a knock at the door. It is the guide and one of his friends mentioned by the bar contact. Both of them had obviously been enjoying the hospitality of some bar, somewhere. The guide informs them that he has managed to secure a boat and guide (not himself) for them for the following day – the cost will be $650. When thanked for his time and trouble and informed that a boat and guide have already been secured by their party and therefore the services of ‘his guide and boat’ will not be required, the ‘bar contact guide’ informs the party that he has already paid out $400 to a third person for rent of a boat for the following day and that he will now be out-of-pocket to the tune of this amount. Again, apologies are offered by our threesome for any inconvenience he may have suffered, but no offer of compensation is made to the ‘bar contact guide’. The guide expresses the opinion that this is not the way he does business and he and his companion leave, still claiming they are owed hundreds of dollars by way of reimbursement for their expenditure on the project.
The following day the party of three, in one small flats boat plus a guide arranged by the fishing lodge manager, travel to the southwest side of the island and catch more fish, over a dozen, than all the other five or six lodge boats combined. The journey to the southwest side was tortuous, uncomfortable and long. But under the circumstances, successful too.
Q: Was the trip to the southwest side worth the time, the discomfort and the money?
A: Yes, because the weather had been lousy all week and they had seen very few fish themselves in the cold, milky water on the east coast.
Q: Was the guide good?
A: Yes.
Q: Was the guide happy with his tip.
A: He sure was – he got $100.
Q: Would they repeat the experience?
A: No.
Q: Why not a repeat trip?
A: The fish were all small, there was no challenge and no skill required in catching the quarry. Simply cast where instructed and strip, strip, strip. Fly selection? Immaterial!
I can imagine what you are thinking – ‘hang on a minute, all guided fishing is about casting where instructed and stripping as instructed.’ To a point, I would agree with you. This was the bonefish equivalent of shooting small fish in a barrel. No challenge, no great skill required and the enjoyment factor was diminished in proportion.
After two more days of DIY, with only one fish per angler to show for it, we contacted our friend the lodge manager and asked if he could supply us with a guide. Despite not being fully booked he was not able to assist us, since his boat engine problems had multiplied and he was struggling even to get out a sufficient number of boats to accommodate his own guests. He did though recommend a well known, highly respected, three hundred pound, five foot six inches tall, preacher man, with his won boat. Telephone calls were made – he wanted $450 to take out three anglers, we said no – a deal was struck at $300 for the three of us.
We met him as arranged the following day and he had a superb skiff, with poling platform and a beautiful power unit. The guide barely managed to provide one decent shot at a fish. We spotted more bonefish than he did. He tried hard, for sure, at least in terms of trying different locations. But he put us in front of very few fish indeed. Not a single fish was hooked, nor landed. He still took our money though – and we even paid him a cursory tip. An indication of his professional pride having been pricked was apparent when he drove to our house later that evening with a bag of crawfish tails which we had mentioned we would like to acquire. He would take no money for them. To summarise this episode, he was a poor guide, we had had more success ‘guiding’ ourselves than we had had employing a ‘professional’, but he was a decent man.
Finally, for now at least, another tale from last years’ South Andros trip. I had the pleasure of speaking with an individual who owns a vacation property on the east coast of South Andros. Beautifully situated, on a beautiful beach, idyllic.
We spoke about many ‘local’ topics, but naturally enough I was very interested in anything he could tell me about the bonefish – since I had hardly seen any throughout the duration of my stay and this was supposed to be the world’s foremost bonefishing fishery! We discussed the harsh nature of the local economy and the fact that it appeared many of the locals were barely scraping a living. We spoke of the local man who that morning had caught and legally killed three 4lb bonefish for the table using a handline and bait. We spoke of the government ban upon netting bonefish for sale as food and my understanding that all netting of bonefish was outlawed. We spoke of a conversation I had had with a local man who approached me as I was walking along the shoreline with my fly rod – this gentleman informed me, unbidden, that it was illegal for me to ‘take’ any bonefish, this was already my understanding of the law in the Bahamas.
For the record, all my flats fishing and fly fishing within the Caribbean has been catch and release. My choice. However, what surprised me more than a little was when the property owner told me that the netting of bonefish still takes place each fall and that the fish are invariably sold on to sources in Nassau!!!!!!!!!
Now, having seen the subsistence level at which many Androsians must live I fully understand why they might still seek to practice this harvest of the sea, despite it being against their laws. They have been fishing in such a manner for centuries and it is definitely not my place to tell them how to live and survive within their own country. But I have also experienced first hand a surprisingly low density of bonefish about their shores - given the reputation of Andros - and a surprisingly high number of those fish I saw were small fish, under 1lb or so. Additionally, despite a stranglehold upon waterborne transportation and a limited supply of suitable guides, it is the local guides and lodges who are contributing regularly to the pressure placed upon resident fish stocks and when the weather limits their choice of suitable locations they still take clients out and take their clients money in the full knowledge that the fishing prospects are poor or even worse than poor. What choice do they have?
Rather than seek to fashion a workable solution themselves which accommodates DIY anglers it appears that instead they prefer to use such tourists as scapegoats and they are obviously seeking to discourage such visitors. It works, I will not be visiting South Andros again in a hurry, be it guided or DIY. Our experiences in Eleuthera have been excellent, and I would not hesitate to visit the island once again, despite the attitude and manner of two self appointed airport security officials. Next year we plan to visit The Exuma. What lies in store for us there, I wonder?
What is quite obvious to me, after many trips to The Bahamas and the out islands in particular, is that certain but by no means all individuals resent tourists and their apparent wealth. Indeed, it is obvious that a majority of Bahamians seek out every opportunity to financially exploit their visitors, this is after all what a tourism industry seeks to do – make money from tourists. What they seem to have forgotten is that I, the tourist, can choose where and how I spend my dollars. Give me a bad experience and I shall think long and hard about my desire to repeat that experience. Give me a series of bad experiences and you loose my revenue for a long, long time.
The restriction or banning of DIY anglers is another example of how some Bahamian resident guides are seeking to capitalise upon their bonefishing resource. It is their right to pursue this course through the appropriate parliamentary channels if they see fit. Currently though, it is not law and should it ever be proposed that it become so then it is the cost in lost revenues to the country as a whole that should be taken into consideration. If it becomes law, I can promise you this, they will not see any of my dollars, nor those of my fishing colleagues either.