Snake Guides: Bahamas Day 6

The final day broke gray. I went through the ritual of downing my coffee, lacing up my boots and heading down to the dock. It was apparent that the guides all knew it was gonna be a lousy weather day...the rain was coming. ET put the screws to the Beavertail Skiff and shot us over to a flat adjacent to the lodge, fishing us close to the door for a quick getaway when the ceiling dropped on us. I lost the game of rock, paper, scissors to CA which meant that he was up first on the casting platform. (He has an uncanny ability to beat me with rock every time.)

ET pushed Craig for his allotted 30 mins, getting a few shots at bonefish close in...which is the only place we stood a chance of seeing them with the steely light bouncing off the water. When my turn to take the deck came we hadn't gone far when ET hinted at raingear. I stood on the deck with the wind at my back and the rain pelting me and watched a shark fin cut the top of the shallow water. I decided that taking casting practice while standing in the deluge was a good idea so I fired off 3 or 4 shots and was grinning under my hood because I'd actually came pretty close to hitting him in the wind and rain at 70ish feet. As I stripped the 4th cast back, a wake peeled off from behind the shark and tracked my fly. I heard ET say "Stop It!" which wasn't a scolding, but rather instructions on how to fish the bonefish that had been following the shark and was now tracking my fly. In the rain.
But I'd already lifted up to recast and by then the bone had disappeared under glare.

A few minutes later the rain slowed to a drizzle and I looked back to see two bonefish tailing behind us. ET said the water was too shallow to pole through so I bailed out and followed them on foot. As luck would have it, the second fish turned and started my way. At 60' I pasted a cast out and would have been completely out of luck if the fish hadn't sped up, tilted and wagged his tail out of the water right where I knew my fly to be. Tailing fish, strip set, fish on.

That was to be the end of the show as the dark clouds gathered and thickened across the entire horizon. The winds kicked up and we beat a hasty retreat back to camp where a fresh pot of coffee was brewed and the skywatching ensued.

Two hours of coffee later the rain slowed again and I grabbed my 6wt and headed off on foot to the snapper hole where I found some willing eaters. Thinking that the weather might subside for the afternoon, I made my way back to camp and suggested we go out and find some alternate species to pass the time. ET, CA and I headed to the sharking grounds with a bucket full of chum.

After we'd bloodied the water and CA got his shark fix taken care of for the afternoon, the rain stopped and we traded the 10's for the 8's and got back to the business of bonefish. Through a combination of poling and wading we ended the day with a few more bonefish to round out the trip, which, in my mind, was just gravy.