Fishless in a pretty place

At least I didn’t get skunked.

For three weeks last month I enjoyed the balmy warmth of the Bahamas, drove on the wrong side of the road, ate a lot of conch, and cast a lot of flies.

I’d never been fishless in prettier places.

In my defense, the trip wasn’t specifically designed for fishing. It was a family vacation, but I just happened to pack along an eight-weight rod and a box of saltwater flies. It would give me something to do when I wasn’t being dad or grandpa.

And what a grand place it was to fish.

We spent the first week in a house on Eleuthera located on auspiciously named Bonefish Bay. I didn’t hook a bonefish there, but in the lingo of guides on the Yellowstone River, I “moved” a lot of fish. By the end of our stay there I had apparently moved every bonefish out of the bay.

The kids left after a week and Barb and I moved on to Exuma. We had a whole day to kill in Nassau between flights and spent it in the company of a cab driver who went by the name For Real.

He was recommended to us by his brother Wallace, who had driven us to the airport on Eleuthera. For Real quickly spotted us at the airport in Nassau. We wondered what kind of description Wallace had given him.

He drove us into town, past Sean Connery’s old house on the waterfront, which the actor had purchased shortly after the filming of “Thunderball,” and into Nassau proper. For Real showed us the exclusive resorts on Paradise Island, the ultra-touristy old town, and then took us “over the hill,” where the living is anything but grand. “This is the ‘hood,’ ” For Real told us. “You wouldn’t want to be here after dark.”

We weren’t. By sunset Barb and I were on a puddle-jumper flying to Exuma, famous for its turquoise waters. And its bonefish.

Which I saw.

And moved.

I even had a couple of follows on a No. 6 pink Gotcha given to me by a guy I met there from Connecticut who’s fished out of Cooke City.

But again, no reel-screaming hookups, just lots of time spent casting to shadows.

I saw some big stingrays, some small sharks, and a few barracudas cruising the edge of the flats where I was wading. Nothing, however, wanted to eat my fly.

Oh yeah, I didn’t get skunked. On the last day of our stay on Bonefish Bay, something had grabbed my fly, a beautiful little tropical fish with black stripes and bright yellow fins. It looked like it had escaped from an aquarium, and it fit neatly in the palm of my hand.

I hoped the little fish was simply the harbinger of bigger things to come. Instead it turned out to be my entire catch.

It mattered little. I’d never before been fishless in such beautiful places.

Parker Heinlein is at

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