December at Andros South started out with a visit from our friends at St. Peters Fly Shop, who put together a great group of guests for this trip. They spent a week with us and enjoyed all the island could offer. Grant Houx and his father Mike own and run St. Peters Fly Shop and along with Roger Northen, Jim Schmehl, Pete Weber and Ted Thompson they comprised quite the group. Just Pete Weber alone would leave you in stitches for hours. Some of the things that guy came up with were beyond hilarious.
Pete also spent every waking hour chasing after fish – he even brought along a tiny ice fishing rod to catch bait for cuda and other toothy critters. He ended up giving the ice rod to Elias Sisler, son of our manage Ric, at the end of the week and he has already caught fish on the rig!
Roger Northen and Pete Weber have been on a few trips with Deneki and it was nice to see both familiar faces show up on the bus. We last saw them on atAlaska West on the Kanektok a couple years ago. By the end of this week we also welcomed back Dan Montgomery, Kent Taylor and Brian Logun. All three of these guys have done multiple trips with us to our other operations along with Andros South as well. Kent and Brian are from Georgia and Dan is originally from Tennessee so all three have that southern charm about them. They’re all nice guys until they get a fly rod in hand – then it’s down to business with not much fooling around.
The fishing this week was quite good with the guys having shots at all kinds of bonefish situations. Singles and doubles on up to huge schools of bones were available through the week. A couple of the guys got into such good fishing for bones in the first couple of days that they ended up trying to search out more elusive prey so they did not have to deal with so much casting and fish fighting. We also saw a couple of pretty nice fish brought to hand this week which made for lots of conversation and heckling at dinner each night.
Also during the week the cuda fishing was quite good and with guys like Pete on the prowl the cuda were probably feeling a bit taken advantage of, to say the least! Dan Montgomery had a run on big fish during his stay with us. He landed quite a few really nice fish as he took to the bonefish game like he had been with us the entire fall season. He put the whack to them, so to speak. Kent and Brian did well also but both had moments of frustration that led to heckling from the other guy in the boat. What would we do without the peanut gallery?
The weather this week turned out to be pretty nice overall which surely played a large part in why the fishing was so consistent. Low winds, clear skies and mild temps made for consistently great conditions for both angler and bonefish. Happy bonefish equals happy angler!
The weather held into the second week of December which helped Keith Turner and his son Keith Jr catch a bunch of fish on the short trip they took. Also this week we welcomed Scott Baker-McGarva, our head guide from BC West, to enjoy a little R&R on the beaches and flats boats of South Andros.
The two Keiths had a nice time together and were quite funny to be around, giving each other ribbings and generally messing with each other at all times. They were both new to bonefishing but picked it up very well. In no time they were catching fish and some nice ones at that. Keith Jr’s big fish of the week made the lodge computer screensaver as one of the biggest fish yet this season. They both tried for and caught cuda as well which gave them some exciting stories to tell at dinner. As we saw the two Keiths and Scott off to the airplane on the final day of the trip we knew the next round was soon to begin and the next bonefish landed would be in the year 2011.
Good bye 2010!
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