Decision
When you
one day get the green light from your wife, you find that your bank
account is on the positive side for once and even your boss promises
that you can have two weeks of work. What do you do? You pick up your
phone and start calling all your friends to find out who's ready to
go on a DIY flats fishing expedition.
In the
end of 2015 I had this situation and got my friend Saku excited about
the trip. He had never fished saltwater/flats before but he was ready
to try it right away. We did some research for a couple of weeks and
ended up choosing North Andros for our destination. We wanted a DIY
destination that would no break the bank but would offer some great
flats fishing for different species. The decision was easy after a
friend of mine told me about a place called Hanks Place located in
Fresh Creek. He told me that they could give us a package deal
including room, food and a skiff. After that it was just a matter of
contacting Hank to book us the room and start making plans on how to
get al the way to Andros from Finland.
Hank
turned out to be very patient and helpful as we had to use his
knowledge a lot to plan our flights to Andros. After some sorting we
finally got out flights in order and we were set to go the 1st
of February 2016. Now all we had to do was to get the gear ready and
wait for couple of really long months.
Trip
On the
2nd
of February we found our self on the airfield on North Andros.
Because everything about the place was new to us we had by mistake
taken our flights to an airport situated a long way from our hotel.
So our Andros adventure started with a long ass taxi drive down to
Fresh Creek. Live and learn!
Finally
after a couple of hours on a extremely crappy road we got to our
hotel. As was to be expected out hotel was not a 5 star resort but
our room was big enough for two, clean and with nice big beds and
running hot water. This was all we needed for a two week stay. We
found out that the room was next to Hanks restaurant so not a long
way to get some dinner after fishing.
Our skiff was old but the engine had been maintained frequently so we were really happy with it. Everything had a real Bahamian feel to it and even though things seemed to be a bit shabby, we were excited to be there and to go fishing with our own skiff for the first time.
Our skiff was old but the engine had been maintained frequently so we were really happy with it. Everything had a real Bahamian feel to it and even though things seemed to be a bit shabby, we were excited to be there and to go fishing with our own skiff for the first time.
Fishing
As
it is with all things new we had to get to used to the skiff fishing
and the tides on Andros. I say tides because even though I had a tide
table for Fresh Creek with me the times of low and high tide inside
the creek had a timetable all of their own. This took some getting
used to but after a couple of days we got the hang of it and started
finding fish. We mostly did fly fishing for bones, barracudas and
jacks but we also brought a spinning rod for difficult days and some
night time trolling.
I
had been reading a lot about the great fishing for bones on Andros
and those stories in my mind are accurate but it still was very
different than I expected. The weather in early February did a number
on us as we first had a couple of very nice and hot days with mild
winds but the last part of the trip was in pretty cold and windy
conditions. The weather was the biggest factor why we were having
difficulties finding any fish with heavy clouds, cold, rain and high
winds. But on the good days the fishing was just awesome. We found
nice sized bones cruising on very shallow waters and they were hungry
as hell. Pretty much every fly worked as long as the presentation was
ok.
There
were no really huge schools of bones in the creek or the surrounding
flats but there were a lot of small groups of bones coming and going
with the tides which were easy to spot.
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| Fighting hard |
 |
| Biggest of the trip |
 |
| First Bonefish ever for Saku! |
There
were also a lot of huge and I do mean huge barracudas on the flats
that gave us some headache by stealing our hooked bones and not
taking anything artificial we tried to get them to eat. Also a lot of
smaller sharks were always cruising at the flats with us but that's
the name of the game and usually that just means there should also be
some bones around.
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| Always C&R |
 |
| A cold morning in the creek |
At
the end of the day we usually did some trolling for anything big that
might like our flies and lures. We used our small skiff and trolled
just in front of the lodge where at the right time a lot of big horse
eye jacks, tarpons, barracudas and groupers swim into the mouth of
the creek to feed.
We
managed to catch a couple of very nice jacks, smaller barracudas and
a really big grouper that almost spooled me right after the take. My
friend was just able to turn our skiff around so we could chase the
fish before the line ran out. In the end everything went our way and
the grouper ended up as dinner. It was the first grouper I have ever
caught and I have never ever fought a fish that strong before. Very
cool stuff!
 |
| Our skiff |
I
think that's enough of the stories and I'll just let the photos speak
for themselves. Enjoy and thanks for reading.
  |
The warmest day and also the best day fishing
|
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| First Jack of the trip |
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| One of the coolest flats I have ever seen |
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| The big guy that almost spooled me |
