January 2007 – Bone fishing in Los Roques, Venezuela
Wading calf-deep in the crystal clear waves
washing over the flat expanse of a barely-submerged island,
Jose Mata is peering ahead, searching for any tell-tale
green-grey shadows among the turtle grass and coral.
I walk beside him, rod gripped in both hands, glancing
nervously to left and right like some greenhorn recruit
in hostile territory. Mata, my fishing guide, has the eyes
of a sparrow hawk. He straightens his arm like the minute
hand of a clock. “Fifteen metres right…cast…
nice. Now strip…strip…stop. They’re coming.
Strip, strip, strip, set the hook, set the hook Jerry.”
The next few seconds are a blur as the line whips through
my fingers and screams off the reel at an alarming rate.
All I can do is hold the rod high and clear as the yellow
plastic fly line trains out across the sea, followed by
coil after coil of white Dacron “backing”, the
thin twisted line that pads the reel.
A fierce cross wind bows the line and the sun glints sharply
on the wave tops. Rod, line and forearms are taught as the
fish ends its first fierce run. Reel-in, stop, another short
run, a little less frantic this time. Faster reeling now,
as the snub-nosed fish starts to tire. Soon it comes to
hand where a quick jerk of the hook releases it back to
the wild.
The wind is a constant in the Los Roques archipelago, a
sprawling collection of mud flats and islands, a half-hour’s
flight from Caracas, that has earned itself an international
reputation for the quality of its bone fishing. There was
a time when anglers used to regard the marlin as one of
the sea’s ultimate challenges. Today it is the lure
of the bonefish that whets the appetite of fly-fishers everywhere.
This ancient species, far too bone-filled and gristly to
compete for a place on any menu is, pound for pound, one
of the strongest game fish around. Its ecological niche
seems secure and the catch-and-release sport it provides
anglers from all over the world ensures its coveted status.
“A few people started coming here about fifty years
ago but it is only in the last fifteen to twenty years that
Los Roques has grown in popularity,” says Chris Yrazabel,
one of two partners who run Sight Cast, a boat-based fishing
operation that takes anglers to scores of islands among
the 350 or so in the archipelago.
Within half an hour of landing on the sleepy main island
of Gran Roque we are skimming across a heavy sea to one
of the outer cays. After losing my first two fish I adapt
to the way the hook is set quickly with a yank of the line
and an hour-and-a-half later I have a tally of 10 bonefish
between three and seven pounds, all before lunch.
The fish are caught while wading for miles across mud flats
and hardened so-called “pancakes” – submerged
shallows over which the bonefish roam at ankle-depth in
large groups. Their presence is sometimes betrayed by the
flash of sunlight on tail and dorsal fins as they break
the surface. An approaching group may allow time for no
more than a single cast before the stripping-stopping-setting
routine is repeated. A poorly placed fly can scatter the
whole group.
Jose Mata has few words of English but his mood is betrayed
in his mannerisms. As fish take fright he waves his hand
dismissively while summoning a mouthful of phlegm from the
far reaches of his lungs. He spits in disgust. A couple
of hooked and landed fish later and he is whistling. “Nice
cast Jerry,” he says.
Why he calls me Jerry is a mystery that I seek neither
to resolve nor correct. In fact, by the end of the week
I find myself calling him Jerry too. “Bones Jerry?”
I ask pointing to some amorphous dark objects in the waves.
“No, Jerry, weed,” he says.
If the bonefish seem a little too easy we move off and
try our luck with a different species. For the best part
of twenty minutes we stalk a good sized Permit feeding on
crabs but the fish remains tantalisingly out of reach. At
various stages small lemon shark approach and sniff around
our feet but the only time I feel some alarm is when we
disturb a large sting ray in its territory near a protruding
clump of mangrove. The fish gives chase and we scatter –
as much as anyone can scatter when wading in treacly mud.
The big ray returns grumpily to its lie, flapping its brown
leathery wings. “Have you ever been stung by one of
those Jose?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
“Did it hurt?”
“Yes.”
You need good protective boots for flats wading, strong
enough to withstand the abrasions of coral, rocks and the
spines of sea urchins. Equipment must be rust resistant.
The salt water has the corrosive qualities of weak battery
acid.
Near the “gate” to the reef not far from where
the hulk of a wrecked cargo boat sits on top of the coral
is a good spot for luring the barracuda that like to patrol
this natural thoroughfare. A large fish pounces on a heavy
lure trolled from my fly rod. After a short fight that is
nothing to match that of the bonefish, the barracuda comes
to the boat. This one is not returned. Neither are the jacks
and tuna that feed the boatmen’s families.
A horse-eye jack strips a hundred yards of line from my
reel and fights hard before it is brought to shore. Only
the tarpon continue to elude my best efforts, breaking the
line, every time I hook one.
In a brackish lagoon under a fierce morning sun we hunt
tarpon and snook, a cod-like fish that Mata says makes good
eating. With only three small snook, all returned, we begin
to wade back through shallow water over deep silt beds strewn
with the rotting, waterlogged branches of dead mangrove
wood. In this almost primeval world we see large snook in
a spot so overgrown that casting is impossible. So Mata
fashions a club from a branch and beats a fish over the
head.
For all our modern gear, we find ourselves resorting to
the most primitive methods. Imagine grown men clubbing the
koi carp in your ornamental pond and you can picture the
scene. Mata seems more delighted with this fish than with
any of those we have caught with rod and line.
Within three days I’m spotting the odd fish ahead
of him, but it remains a rarity. Still, he is not infallible.
Once we change the fly quickly to pursue a Permit that turns
out to be a piece of dark weed.
Most of the people who fish here are Americans like Gary
Whipple, a former oil company executive, who is taking a
few days fishing with his son before doing some business
in Caracas. We share a breakfast of arapas, the doughy bread
buns that seem to accompany every meal in Venezuela. Our
table overlooks the waterfront where pelicans are diving
for minnows while terns try to steel their catch and bonefish
home in on the feast from below.
Visits by Americans have fallen off recently, he says,
due to criticisms aimed at the US by Venezuelan president
Hugo Chavez.
Politics and fishing are intertwined in Venezuela. Anything
that deters the influx of American anglers is damaging to
the fishing operations in Los Roques. My own visit, however,
could not have gone more smoothly. Getting to Venezuela
involved a change of flights in Paris and overnight stay
in Caracas. But a speedy transfer from the airstrip at Gran
Roques allowed the fishing to start soon after landing.
Unlike most other game fishing, bone fishing is still maturing
as a sport and new methods continue to emerge from the US.
Popular flies are the Clauser minnow and small crab patterns
but the hottest fly of the moment is the “gummy minnow”,
a recent innovation that is not really a fly at all, but
a small rubber minnow pattern.
Peter McLeod, managing director of Aardvark McLeod, a specialist
UK-based company that organises all kinds of game fishing,
says that fly fishing for bones and other saltwater game
species is expanding steadily. “It demands different
equipment, different flies and different methods than most
freshwater angling,” he says. “But once people
get hooked on this kind of sea fishing they come back time
and again.”
My visit was organised by Aardvark McLeod, www.aardvarkmcleod.com,
tel +44 (0) 1980 840590. Air France runs daily flights from
Paris to Caracas.
