Lucky Dog Flyfishing

We’ll skip the weather day to post a few pics… Let’s just say fishing in 25+ knots of breeze is tough… a good guide and a tough wife go a long way.  Here are the pics:

As most of us would agree, travel days can feel so long they sometimes get two posts…

We boarded the Flamingo Air nine-seater twin engine Cessna bound for Mangrove Cay. Wouldn’t you know, Bahamian rush hour on the tarmac; but eventually we made it to Mangrove Cay for a short van ride from the airport to Swain’s Cay Lodge.  Looking around the van upon climbing in, we quickly realize the van was larger and held more than the plane we just landed in.

Mangrove Cay is like most other Bahamian islands with one main road that provides access to most of the islands, lodging, any restaurants and stores.  That said, I wouldn’t bring your spouse who was looking for 5 star restaurants and Rodeo Drive type shopping (or even Macys for that matter); What you will find is more to the tune of Conch Bars that have two things on the menu: Conch Salad & Kalik… The shopping consists of a few of the local ladies who weave reeds into bags & mats, as well as a few seashells turned into works of art.

Greeted by a helpful staff at Swain’s Cay Lodge, we quickly unpacked, grabbed a Kalik and started rigging for the next day’s fishing.  Settled in and mostly rigged we headed over to the ‘deck’ over looking the Swain’s Cay bonefish flat, with the barrier reef & the tongue of the Atlantic in the distance.  Short work was made of the introductions and we, the new guys at the lodge, had been sufficiently & ritualistically hazed questioned to at least be allowed to stay on the island for one night. As with most other fishing lodges I am sure most of acceptance would be based on humility and not out fishing everyone else.  Little did I know, the fish would deal us our humility and we needn’t worry about our tall tales of double digit days of double digit bones…

As something special, and a first from what I understand, Cheryl and her staff had arranged for a local band to perform. And perform they did.  The lodge was at capacity and several local families and friends had come to the lodge for dinner.  What a great beginning to our week, we had made it, found a great place, met great people and we started the week with a party on the Swain’s Cay Beach Front.  But the important question still loomed, “How would the fishing be?”

Stay tuned! I hoped to have a few more posts up shortly!

Travel Days are never fun, no matter which way you shape them.  They are a means to an end that we endure to put us on fish in new and exciting locations.

Things you don’t want to see at 5 am while checking into your flight:  And so this one began:

“Please see ticket counter representative.”

My heart sank – this couldn’t be good.

Luckily whatever the problem was resulted in exit row seats for both flights. Maybe these ways were going to work out in the end, but more on that later.

Much the same as we have for past trips, we used Yellow Dog Fly Fishing to help us decide and book our trip.  What I didn’t realize was how many fans YDFF has.   A stranger approached after noticing a Yellow Dog Sticker on my bag.  She turned out to be a high school classmate of Ian at YDFF.  It is probably a testament to the personality of Ian and most of the folks at YDFF since ‘Linda’ felt compelled to come up and introduce her self. Great conversation and we talked like old friends…

After two flights of battling large haired & gorilla shouldered exit row cohabitants not to mention the hung-over 19 year old spring-break-going lacrosse player passed out half in my seat, we made it to Nassau.  So much for the means not requiring endurance.

We swiftly navigated Bahamian Immigration & Customs to wait for our island hopper over to Mangrove Cay.  Unfortunately during this layover we lacked the savvy of others to find a more adequate hangout than the Nassau Airport. With a 4-hour layover, the Nassau Airport won’t keep you busy… My question is: “What do you do with three hours in Nassau?”