Acklin Island Bahamas Bonefish March 2022
Dem Bones, Dem Bones
Acklin Island, Bahamas March 2022
Having gotten my first taste of flyfishing for bonefish in 2015 I was eager for more. With mixed reviews on the health of the fishery at Christmas Island (let alone the pandemic shutdown) and the nosebleed lodge rates of the Yucatan and Belize, I was intrigued by the possibility of designing my own trip. Along comes a book on “DIY Bonefish” and I was, pardon, hooked on the Bahamas as my next fishing adventure.
Love these remote terminals.
Acklin Island in the lower Bahamas appeared to be the perfect location: remote but assessable through domestic airlines, plentiful bonefish, geared to the do-it-yourself fisher and affordable. So, despite the lingering uncertainty of the pandemic, I planned a long week for the end of March 2022 and retreated to my vise to replenish my bonefish fly box, not that it was needed. As I could not recruit a partner in crime, I planned a solo trip.
Big sky, big flats.
The location: Acklin Island is located about an hour south by air of Nassau. It is undeveloped with a population of perhaps 250 souls in three communities focused predominantly on subsistence fishing. I booked a week at Salina Point Bonefish Lodge owned and operated by Felton Rolle. It said it catered to the DYI fisher and would drop you off at various parts of the island and pick you up at the end of the fishing day. Seemed perfect!
When you found them it was off to the races.
The fishing: Bonefish are hard and IMHO if anyone says different, their lying. It’s more like hunting and much like hunting, when you finally find the quarry, someone with a modest amount of skill can bag a fish. The key is finding the fish. It was not quite as easy to find them on the tide series I selected, the neap tide. But when we did find them, we found large schools of medium to large bones that were more than willing to spool you. Unlike other Bahamian destinations such as Andros where deeper water requires a boat, Acklin is wade fishing with large expansive sand and mud flats. Once you pick your location for the day you are fairly committed. And if the fish are not there, you are pretty much screwed or in for a very long walk. Another factor during my stay was the wind with a constant 15-20 mph breeze. That makes for challenging conditions for both seeing fish and casting. It was hard to tell whether these were typical conditions, but the previous week the winds were consistently above 30 and everyone was stuck on the beach.
Over the course of six days, I, and a group of 5 other guests fished a series of keys and islands on the west cost of the island and north of the lodge. We waded up to 5 miles a day and while the fish seemed to be scattered due to the low tide series, I did catch fish; more than I deserved. My 8-wt. matched with a floating line was a perfect match for the windy conditions. The typical Bahamian bonefish patterns, mostly shrimp, all worked, and the fish were not especially picky. It was all about finding the fish. We saw a lot of barracuda and black triggers.
Running into this crew of boyhood friends made the trip.
The accommodations: Salina Point Bonefish Lodge provided comfortable accommodations, good food and the owner Felton Rolle, a Pastor, is an excellent host. The lodge is about an hour south of the airport. There is fishing out the front door. First, despite the glitz of Nassau, you must remember that Acklin is remote and largely like any other fishing experience in lesser developed countries. And like similar destinations, some things do not work as anticipated. In this instance, the transportation and other arrangements to the flats each day was a bit of a circus with broken motors, vague communications and the like. The best antidote to the situation was simply to shift your context to island time and marvel in your surroundings.
A totally unexpected bonus were my lodge companions for the week: a group of close friends from the northeast that had fished Salina Point several times in the past. Snafus with boats and the fact that I was a single fisher threw us together. I was sort of adopted into the group and to large extent their camaraderie made my trip. A different group with a different attitude could have made for a very different trip.
So, would I go back? Yes. As I write this up perhaps six months after the trip, I find myself becoming excited about returning and using my lessons learned into another epic bonefish adventure.
A brief video of the trip.
