In mid-July I had the pleasure of accompanying 5 eager anglers from the Fourth Corner Fly Fishers as a trip host to pursue baby tarpon on the wild and relatively unpressured flats of the Northern Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. After months of tying flies, amassing gear and honing our casting skills on the dewy morning lawns of Bellingham's Cornwall Park, Marion, Steve, Frank, Ralph, John and I were as ready as ever.
The couple of weeks leading up to the adventure were slightly unnerving as news coverage of hurricane Beryl, the earliest recorded storm in the Atlantic to develop into a category 5, dominated the airwaves and threatened to derail the trip as it thrashed its angry path northward along the western Caribbean. Fortunately, Beryl largely spared the area we were traveling to and we were greenlighted to depart from Sea Tac Airport. After a quiet and uneventful 6 hour flight we touched down in Cancun and, after gathering our bags and being corralled through customs, hopped in the shuttle van for the Marriott Courtyard hotel where we'd spend the night before driving to our ultimate destination for the week. The van was palpable with excitement and we shared the ride with several from a group of 12 women from all over the country that were on their way to fish for bonefish, permit and tarpon further south in Xcalak. We soon arrived at the hotel, settled in, met for dinner in the lobby and retired for the night at a reasonable hour to prepare ourselves for the following day.
Morning came easy and after a nice breakfast we found shade beneath a poolside palapa and waited with our bags for the shuttle driver to arrive and take us to Rio Lagartos where we'd spend the next week fishing with Tarpon Cay Lodge. The mid-morning air was already hot and sticky, so by the time we finally loaded up into the shuttle van we were relieved to get the A/C going and enjoy the 3 hour drive northwest of Cancun. The chaos and congestion of the large seaside city eventually faded into long stretches of rural highway lined with dense forests of palm and ceiba trees. Eventually the inland jungle transformed into thick swathes of mangrove swamp and we knew we were approaching the coastline. The drive went by quickly, with a little extra help from a heavy foot on the gas pedal and we pulled up alongside Yuum Ha Hotel in Rio Lagartos to unload and make ourselves cozy for the week.
After tipping the shuttle driver, we were met by Cresp, the head guide from Tarpon Cay Lodge and Jose, from the hotel who set us up with our rooms, made us feel very welcome and began to lay out plans for the week. After dropping off equipment in our rooms, we met Cresp downstairs over chips and salsa picante and quesadillas con camarones. At this point it was late enough in the afternoon for an icy Pacifico or two and the conversation shifted to fishing. Cresp shared that we'd be starting on the water early at 5:30am and fish until about 10:30 to take advantage of the best tides and weather conditions to find tarpon. We'd come in for lunch and a siesta, then depart again to fish in the afternoon from 3:30 to 6:30pm. Once Cresp made sure we were set for the following day we bid adios and resumed unpacking and getting our equipment ready for the first day of fishing.
Our trip to Tarpon Cay Lodge was set up through Fly Water Travel and while we were well assured that accommodations at Yuum Ha would be comfortable and that meals would be decent, we were soon to be completely stunned by just how amazing the food and hospitality would be for the week. At 7:30 we sat down to dinner and were greeted with a plate of savory octopus in garlic butter that was absolutely phenomenal! Following the meal, a decadent plate of flan was set before us, so artfully arranged that it felt almost criminal to eat it. This pattern continued throughout the week, with meals like ceviche mixto, pescado frito and loads of fresh seafood followed by one delectable dessert after another. The fishing would be one thing, but little did we know we had signed up for such an unforgettable culinary experience as well.
The first morning came early, rolling out of bed at 4:45 am fueled only by the excitement of calm flats boiling with tarpon and the promise of hot coffee just a few flights of stairs away. We congregated over a simple but delicious breakfast and eventually lumbered over to the boat docks across the street to meet the guides. Cresp, Martin and Eliseo greeted us and offered assistance loading our rods and gear into the pangas. We divided up, two to a boat, and ventured off in search of tarpon. The waters were a mix of clear and shallow turtle grass flats and reddish brown stained water around the river mouths and labyrinthian mangroves. After some twenty five minutes, our guide for the day, Cresp throttled down and reached for his long wooden push pull. By the scores of surfacing tarpon surrounding the boat it was evident that we were in the right place, or at least a right place. I stepped up on the bow with my 8 weight rod and floating line, and tied a quick, tight non slip mono loop in the 50 lb. mono bite guard at the end of my leader to attach the small, sparse chartreuse and white EP Minnow fly that Cresp had given the nod of approval for the morning. My partner for the day, Frank awaited his turn on the casting deck which would hopefully manifest quickly with so many fish around.
I can't honestly say I really remember the first fish of the trip other than, to my surprise and amazement, I landed it. Having fished a bit for baby tarpon in various locales over the past few decades my primary takeaway from this pursuit was that you tend to land far fewer fish than you hook. Perhaps the hook never finds a secure purchase in the tarpon's boney jaw in the first place or the fly comes shooting back in your face and the line goes slack after one of their numerous acrobatic maneuvers. Tarpon are absolute masters at throwing the fly given any shred of opportunity and more often than not, leave you trembling in the wake of a lost fish. Few ran very far if at all, but every single fish took to the air several times, furiously shaking their heads, rattling their gills for a moment like a giant silver-scaled maraca. The trick to landing them was to bow when they jumped, extending your rod arm forward to introduce a cushion of slack to prevent them from crashing down on a taut leader and breaking or pulling free. Better yet, everyone in the group learned to keep their rod tip low to the water throughout the battle and when the fish insisted on resting, shift your rod position to pull towards the tarpon's tail, forcing it to work against the pressure. In the waning minutes of each fight, the boat was largely silent, save for the rhythmic cadence of our guide calling out "left....right....left" until the tarpon was thoroughly worn out and Cresp, Martin or Eliseo could reach for the leader and tether it on a short leash. Even then, many of the tarpon mustered the energy for one last leap, showering the panga and its occupants with salty water droplets. Tarpon don't have teeth, but the insides of their mouths are like 100 grit sandpaper and most of the time you'd have to cut an abraded section from your 50 lb. mono bite guard and retie the fly before presenting to the next rolling fish.
The week went on in this fashion with many tarpon brought to hand. Most were in the 8-12 lb. class, with a few smaller and some larger fish up to around 25 lbs. Our 8 and 9 weight rods were well-suited to the task. We primarily fished smaller 2-2.5" EP Minnow type flies in tans, tan/chartreuse, red/white or black/purple. As conditions changed, so did our fly selections, but most were tied on lighter wire 1/0 Gamakatsu SC15's so they'd sink very slowly and not rake through the sprawling, shallow turtle grass beds. A tarpon's eyes are also oriented near the top of its head so any fly that sunk too quickly was doomed to go unnoticed as it moved below their field of vision.
We swapped boat partners daily and rotated between the three guides. Each guide had their individual bag of tricks, favorite haunts, preferred fly choices and demeanor. All were exceptionally calm, patient and high skilled. I suppose having an abundance of tarpon around most of the time lends itself to a certain state of mind as seldom did we seem to wait too long before we found rolling tarpon off the bow of the boat. Mornings were typically the most productive. We'd motor from the harbor, sometimes making a long initial run up the shallow glassy coastline, sometimes barely motoring 10 minutes before finding numbers of rolling tarpon in the protected bays and lagoons around the neighboring town of San Felipe. Regardless of our waypoints, we were typically greeted by what seemed to be hundreds of baby tarpon, gently breaking the still surface with their dorsal fins and tails, exploding violently amidst a school of sardinas or rising methodically along the edge of a dense mat of floating sargasso weed. We'd typically begin out in the wide open flats targeting fish at 30-50 feet, trying to drop a fly with a foot or two of the surface disturbance. We'd retrieve the fly in long fast strips and often a lone tarpon would peel away from the pack, eating the fly multiple times before you finally connected and the fish launched its silvery body into the air.
As the tides changed and the sun rose higher overhead, the tarpon would seemingly disappear from the flats and we'd find them feeding in or on the edges of the floating grass mats and along the mangroves. Precision became the name of the game and you often had to put a fly within inches of the cover to elicit a take. Sometimes our guide would pole well up into a creek or river channel, at times not much wider than the panga itself. Here you'd find yourself casting into the tightest of openings and tunnels in the mangroves. With nowhere to run, the tarpon would somersault out of the water repeatedly while you chaotically fought to gain the upper hand. Playing tarpon was an entirely different game in these narrow corridors but incredibly rewarding when you could succeed at bringing one to hand. After hours of excitement, we'd eventually head in for the morning, have lunch and perhaps nap for a couple of hours before heading out to do it all over again in the afternoon.
The week wore on, though despite pre-dawn wake ups, indulgent eating, a few after dinner cocktails and late night strolls around the lively streets of Rio Lagartos, the whole week was pretty relaxing. As all good things must do, the time wound down to a close and our final day of fishing was upon us. I spent the last day fishing with Marion and had Eliseo as our guide. We glided into the bays near San Felipe and immediately found good numbers of rolling tarpon in the shallow waters. It didn't take long before we hooked fish. The sun was ascending rather quickly however, and with few clouds in the sky, the tarpon vanished almost as suddenly as they had appeared. Scanning the distance for signs of life, Eliseo spotted a sizeable school of tarpon porpoising and moving fast in the wrong direction. Determined to catch up to them, Eliseo gracefully poled the panga at mach 10 in an effort to get ahead of the tarpon so we could take a shot. It seemed for every 20 feet we gained the tarpon moved another 30. Eventually, in what seemed like an interminable chase, I was able to manage a long cast just ahead of the lead fish and immediately connected with another powerful silver king. After all that effort, I would have been mortified to nullify Eliseo's ardent poling by blowing the shot. We managed to catch a few more tarpon here and there before returning to port while the winds picked up and we watched darkening skies and gathering storm clouds form over the Carribean.
When we later gathered in the lobby of the Yuum Ha anxiously awaiting the last few hours on the water, our optimism was not exactly at an all-time high. The weather had turned for the worse and between the dark billowy cumulonimbus clouds, steady rain and a biting wind, the conditions looked less than ideal for finding a few more tarpon and ending the trip on a high note. As Marion and I motored west with Eliseo, my wide brimmed straw hat flapped loudly in the breeze and sharp heavy raindrops stung our faces as we hunched within our Gore-Tex jackets. It would have been really easy to rest content with an otherwise spectacular trip and extend the afternoon siesta by an extra hour or two instead of braving the awful weather. We had come all this way, however, and figured it was worth toughing it out despite low expectations for this last evening.
After some 40 minutes of a rough boat ride across the choppy Caribbean, we eventually came to a stop near a river mouth and Eliseo began to pole the panga slowly across an expansive shallow turtle grass flat. Miraculously the rain and the wind shut off simultaneously and the low evening sun peeked through the dissipating cloud cover. Off in the distance, we notice one gentle rise, almost like a trout nosing a tiny midge, and then another, and another. There were tarpon, lots of tarpon, circulating at a leisurely pace in just about every direction. We traded spots on the bow for the next hour and a half, trying land our flies as gently as we could ahead of the fish on the now glass-smooth surface of the water. Sometimes the line would touch down on top of an unseen school of tarpon mere feet from the boat and the whole flat would erupt into a mad stampede of frightened fish. Within a minute or two however, they'd settle back down and continue their casual cruising just under the surface. We hooked several more tarpon in this brief magical session before the sun dipped low in the red-orange sky and we knew it was time to return to the docks. The trip back stood in stark contrast to when we had started out just a few hours earlier. The storm had passed, leaving only a vibrant double rainbow over Rio Lagartos in its place. Marion and I both noted that it had been the perfect final evening, an almost spiritual experience on the water and an ideal way to solidify a lasting memory of a place we will undoubtedly return to in the future.
Dinner was exceptional as anticipated and the six of us gathered around the table to enjoy Molcajete, a traditional Mexican "surf and turf" served in a bowl made from volcanic rock. Our molcajete featured more octopus, shrimp, flank steak and local cheese followed by an equally palatable flan for dessert. We shared stories of the week, recapped our last few hours of fishing and made loose plans for the next adventure before disbanding, packing up and turning in for the night. The shuttle bus ride back to Cancun the following morning was a mixture of silence, contentment and undoubtedly a little fatigue, all culminating in what seemed like a pretty quick jaunt to the airport. It's an odd sensation to have a trip go by both quickly and slowly at the same time but if you've ever had the experience then you know exactly what I mean.
The Cancun airport was a pandemonium of people coming and going, long serpentine lines at ticketing and a general air of malaise about having to depart the Riviera Maya. We wound our way through security unscathed to arrive at our gate, where we found some of the group of women from our first night at the Marriott who were just returning from their week in Xcalak. The tone gradually shifted from melancholy about going home to excitement over long days mutually shared on endless flats. Tarpon were jumped, large permit hooked, and many bonefish landed after long, searing runs. At the heart of it all, a resounding gratefulness abounds to be surrounded by friends and comrades while fishing. Fish are certainly pretty awesome, particularly the strong exotic ones that occupy sunny flats in tropical settings, but it has always been the people who make up the lion's share of memories. When all is said and done, fishing is fishing, but I think for those of us on this trip and others, it remains our favorite lens through which to explore the world around us.