INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

This is Chris, with the latest events at Steppingstones.
Imagine the scene. Sue and I as night falls, sitting by the windows of our office, which look out over our beach, intent on our laptop screens. It’s a dead still night with a bright full moon, the water is flat calm and very quiet. I hear a soft hiss, and I say to Sue “What was that?” She thinks it’s starting to rain. That hiss again. “That’s not rain” I say, and lean forward in my seat to look down. I see the most amazing sight. A white wave of thousands of tiny fish in mid air flying out of the water onto the beach. Behind them the water is boiling. “It’s the blue runners” I shout, leap up, run downstairs, grabbing my light rod as I go.
What a scene awaits me as I race out onto the beach. A carpet of fry, all identical lying all the way up the beach, with sheer mayhem in the foot deep shoreline. Hundreds of blue runners are tearing through the mass of fry provoking even more to jump out of the water in terror to escape the murderous jacks. So a quick cast with my tiny Swim Shad (colour does not matter in this game, these runners will hit anything that moves), and bang, straight away I’m in!
Now I’m not going to pretend this was an epic fight lasting half an hour. No, it was a stubborn struggle for a couple of minutes, line taken off my reel, careful to keep the fish away from the dock, and then in he comes. Maybe ¾ lb. OK not a monster, but real fun on light gear. So straight out again, three turns of the reel handle and bang! In again. Another mini fight of two or three minutes and another tough little blue runner comes in. Same size.
All the time this is happening I am being showered with fry, blue runners are flying in all directions and the calm sea is whipped to foam. But I know the deal. Don’t stop, keep casting. So I do and bang! Well, you get the idea. This goes on for about ten minutes with fish hitting my little shad as fast as I can get it into the water.
However, all good things come to an end, and just as quickly the shoal is gone and peace returns. I can see the same process being repeated further up the beach but to reach them would require a short wade through the high tide. This is not a good idea because the mass of dead and dying fry will have attracted sting rays in to clear up the mess, and sure enough a couple of rays appear, lurking. Wading in poor light with them around is not smart. I know from personal experience. But that’s another story. This one is not finished yet.
We are left with a carpet of tiny fish 2 inches long, dead on the beach. Sue says that looks exactly like the fish we used to eat in France in a dish called “friture” I say “What are we waiting for?” So we collect a bowl of these little fish, Sue rinses them to get rid of any sand, egg and flour, hot oil et voila- Friture!
A mound of these, served with slices of lemon, they were delicious. Heavenly. We were delighted. Free food, straight out of the sea. A genuine taste of the Mediterranean from five thousand miles away.
This type of attack happens from time to time. There is no way of predicting it, you just have to watch out for calm water and large amounts of fry in the area. Usually when the blue runners come in they attract other, bigger predators in also looking for a free meal. It’s a ten minute festival of fun. If it happens during the day, the shoal can be followed up and down the beach. It seems a pity that so many fish have to die, but I suppose its nature’s way of sharing its resources around. The blue runners get fed (ok so do we) but so also do the rays, the crabs, the birds, etc, so I guess everyone ends up satisfied.
A happy end to another day in Paradise.

Hi everybody. Sorry for the long silence, but regular readers will know that we have been very busy doing the annual renovations, painting, decorating, besides looking for lost ducks, building our iguana habitat (I’ll talk about that at a later date) and all the other things we have to do.
Our wet season, nominally May to November, is also the low season for holidays, including anglers. Quite why this should be so is a mystery to us. Ah but the rain… well yes it does rain here, spectacularly. Yes 14 feet a year. BUT. Most of it falls at night while we are tucked up in bed.
And while we are talking about rain, consider the upside. Yes, rain does have a significant upside for anglers. Monkey River floods, every baitfish for miles around comes to feed in the coloured water and guess what? So do the tarpon and snook. Small wonder then that the wet season is the prime time for both these species.
Anyway the self named “ Four Old Fogies”, Roger, Ted, Alan and Adrian from England defied convention and came out to stay with us for a week, in October, announcing on arrival that none of them had ever caught a bonefish or permit before and wanted to remedy that situation.
My heart sank. Bonefish, OK we have loads of bones grazing around our offshore cayes and reasonably competent fly fishermen can (and do) catch them till they never want to see another bonefish. I understand however that that feeling wears off very rapidly when one is back behind a desk on a cold wet day in London, Chicago, Quebec etc
But as everyone knows, permit are elusive, difficult and above all fickle. Permit can become an obsession. To locate them down here is a near certainty, to get within casting range a few times in a day is probable, to hook a fish is an achievement. To land it, well, permit take grave exception to being hooked and are likely to take you on an extended tour of the surrounding cayes before coming to the boat
That said, Southern Belize has one of the world’s highest populations of permit running well into double figures, so the prospects are very good especially when you are in the boat with one of our guides who know where the permit are likely to be on a given day. Even so, permit are not a fish to cut your warm salt water fly fishing teeth on. So this was a challenge for the Four Old Fogies.
So to the good news. The bones duly cooperated and the guys all had a great time chasing bonefish around. One boat managed over thirty bones in one day, and reckoned they could have had many more.
And the bad news? Well both boats found permit, but getting a fly in the right place at the right time proved very hard.
So one boat went off trolling and came back with the usual haul of barracuda, kingfish, snappers etc. The other boat went looking for tarpon and duly landed a number into double figures including one from our “secret lagoon”. It was that boat which hooked a tarpon on a lure in Deep River and got towed 2 miles up the river before the line parted. The lure? Yo Zuri Crystal Minnow of course. No I don’t have shares in Yo Zuri (but wish I did)
So the week wore on with bonefish, more bonefish, tarpon and more tarpon until the last cast of the last day up Monkey River saw one of the guys hook into a log. The log then started swimming upstream. Some minutes later a huge snook came to the boat and was weighed in at 21lbs 12oz. This is the best ever caught by one of our guests, and the lure? Well what do you think? Correct. Yo Zuri Crystal Minnow again.
So the week ended on a high note. Bone fish ambitions satisfied, but despite some close calls the permit won the day and will await a future occasion.
Coming soon: Chris and Brian in the secret lagoon.