|
Enchanted
Isles
Home
UPDATED!
Isla
Vieques
Vieques
Welcome Page
Vieques FAQS
The Information
Page
Hotels
& B&B's
Air
Transportation
Ground
Transportation
Car & Scooter
Rentals
Real
Estate Services
Bike Rentals & Tours
Rentals
by Owner
For Sale by
Owner
Restaurants &
Bars
Wedding Services
Photographers
Fishing in Vieques
Water Sports
Scuba Diving
& Snorkel tours
Legal Svc/Attorneys
Ask Judy!
Classified Ads
In
the News
Vieques Videos
Bio-Bay
Beaches
Food
Shopping Q & A
Map of Island
Downloads
Tourism Brochure
Church
Services
Vieques Humane Society
History
of Vieques
Advertising Rates
About Enchanted Isle.Com
Help News
other links
Periodicals
The Writer's Loft
Fish Stories
MONTHLY
What's Happenin'
MONTHLY
Living
& Working
Vieques Now/Ahora
Vieques Events
MONTHLY
Photo Galleries &
Travelogues
Janet's Picks
Underwater
Photography
Christmas in Vieques
Visitors Galleries
Pictures of Vieques
2000
Weblogue
Webmaster's 2001
Trip
Alec's
Photo Collection
Harry's Photo Gallery
Michael's Travelogue
Vieques Wild Horses
|
By GREG BREINING
April 20, 2007
Solitude and the Sea
THE turtle-grass flats of the Caribbean are a looking-glass world, shimmering
films of light and life that hide as much as they reveal. Such a thin slick of
fresh water in the mountains might hold a nine-inch trout. But in saltwater,
shallow water can yield a bonefish as broad as a bowling pin with the power to
strip 100 yards of line. Or a man-size tarpon dressed in silver-dollar scales
that gallops across the water like a bronco.
We were prowling the shallows of Isla Vieques, the old United States Navy
bombing range that sits six miles off the eastern end of Puerto Rico, one
morning late last month. On Ensenada Honda, a sweeping bay of mangroves,
beaches, reefs and flats on the island's southern shore, there was not another
fisherman in sight.
I was poised in the bow of a small boat with a fly rod in one hand and a
shrimp-like fly in the other. The guide, Gregg McKee, danced a ballet on the
stern platform with a 21-foot graphite push-pole, propelling us over the flats.
We scanned the water for feeding bonefish and permit, two of the three most
prized game fish on the flats. The third is tarpon, and they might show up
there, too.
But in a sense, we were also looking for more than mere fish. We were searching
for the spirit of the Florida Keys of a half-century ago — before the crowds,
before the fast boats, before the sophisticated tackle and the high expectations
— a place that exists these days only in Francis Golden watercolors and in the
imagination.
A trickle of anglers, seeking that spirit, have learned of these rarely fished
waters off Vieques — enough to keep two fishing guides in business.
I first heard of the possibilities a year ago when I first met Mr. McKee. “It's
like Key West 50 years ago,” he told me.
This was the drill as we fished: Mr. McKee, with sharper eyes and a better
vantage, would call out the position of a prowling fish — 12 o'clock for
straight ahead, 9 o'clock to the left, 3 o'clock to the right. I would point
with the rod to confirm. He would correct a bit, then tell me to cast. As I
whipped the fly-line back and forth, he would shout, “Drop it!” — hoping that I
would land the fly in front of a feeding fish.
Wind-ruffled chop broke the sea bottom into pointillist moon jellies, feeble
boxfish and flying eagle rays.
“The wind can be your friend, but not often,” Mr. McKee said. “But it is your
constant companion.”
The day before, Mr. McKee and I had been fishing the north of the island when a
baby tarpon — a mere 20-pounder — snatched the fly and headed toward the
mid-Atlantic with the vigor of a quarter horse.
“Clear your line, clear your line, clear your line,” Mr. McKee yelled as loose
coils flew through the rod guides and made the reel sing. Then, the line went
slack.
Earlier that morning, Mr. McKee directed my cast to two bonefish. Hungry ones.
Both raced to the fly, and one hit hard.
In my excitement I committed the unpardonable sin of the freshwater
fly-fishermen. Instead of hammering the hook home with my line hand, I raised
the rod tip as if fishing for a dainty trout. The flex of the rod tip, which
would protect a lightweight trout leader, utterly failed to set the hook in the
tough mouth of a bonefish.
“You lifted the rod!” Mr. McKee cried. “The trout strike — the bane of my
existence.”
I had just affirmed the old saw that the angler is the weak link between the
guide and the fish.
MR. McKEE, 39, was a guide for 10 years in the Florida Keys. There, a
half-century ago, fly-fishing for tarpon, bonefish and permit was born. The
sport's legends, including Stu Apte, Billy Pate and Ted Williams (yes, one of
the world's best fly-casters played left field for the Boston Red Sox in the
off-season) began catching these tackle-wreckers on the fly.
“That was right at the point where the tackle started catching up to the fish,”
Mr. McKee said, as fiberglass rods replaced bamboo. “I think it would have been
a really cool time to be fishing up there.”
For someone like me, who digested every Sports Afield and Outdoor Life magazine
published during the 1960s, this new saltwater sport seemed exciting. It was
fishing on the frontier — not only of technique, but also of place. No one else
was out there.
The angler Lefty Kreh reminisced in a short essay for www.midcurrent.com that he
was fishing with his 14-year-old son in 1966 in the remote Marquesas Keys west
of Key West when his 30-horsepower Johnson — the top technology of the day —
broke down. It was two days before a Cuban fisherman found them and towed them
home.
No longer. The fish are still there. But so are legions of anglers.
“It's called the Tarpon Highway, and they come one right after the other,” Mr.
McKee said. “But you have to get in line. It seemed like every year I got out to
my favorite spot a half-hour earlier, until I was going out in pitch black. And
there'd still be somebody sitting there.
“In the middle of June, there were so many people down there, by the time those
tarpon made it to Mallory Square, they could tie their own flies, they had seen
so many flies.”
Three years ago, Mr. McKee vacationed on Vieques. As the island-hopper banked
for a landing, he recalled:
“I looked straight down. I could see shallow water. I could see grass flats. I
could see little palolo worm mounds. It was as clear as a bell that day.
“These flats — they stretch from Mosquito Pier to way out here to Punta Arenas.
Seven miles of flats right here! And one thing I didn't see was another boat.
“I said, ‘I'm home!' This is the place. This is what I've been looking for, a
step back in time.”
He shipped his boat and hung his shingle, doubling the number of guides on
Vieques.
“Word is getting out,” Mr. McKee said. In February, he worked 27 days.
Eleven o'clock,” Mr. McKee called out, jerking me back to the present. I
pointed. Fly line in the air.
“Drop it on this next one.”
I did. The fly sank, and the fish struck and raced off. A loop of line jumped up
and caught the rod handle. I fumbled and freed it just before the leader broke.
The reel screamed, and suddenly the line went slack.
A permit, Mr. McKee said.
“Hang on, hang on, we're not done yet,” he said. “It's going to happen. I can
feel it.”
But it didn't. Not that day. I reeled up my line knowing that I'd managed to
hook and lose one of every species we were after: tarpon, bonefish and, now,
permit.
VIEQUES lacks fishermen, not fish. Bonefish and permit swim the flats. And
Puerto Rico generally is known for big tarpon.
In January, Francisco Rosario, a guide from Hormigueros, on the main island,
took a client on Puerto Rico's west coast to a tarpon that measured 78 inches
long and 48 inches around — and weighed an estimated 225 pounds. Had such a fish
been killed and weighed, instead of released, it would have shattered the world
fly-rod record.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Rosario said, “Anywhere you go around Puerto Rico,
you find big tarpon.” What accounts for Vieques's lack of fishermen is the 60
years the Navy used most of it as a bombing range.
After growing protests, the Navy vacated in 2003, turning more than half the
island over to the Fish and Wildlife Service as the 17,673-acre Vieques National
Wildlife Refuge. Most of the refuge, including vast miles of empty beaches, is
off-limits because contractors are still clearing unexploded ordnance.
As a result, this island of two small towns and fewer than 10,000 residents
remains rural, even somnolent. You awake to crowing roosters.
Punta Caballo got its name because a herd of horses — descendants of the Spanish
paso fino breed — run wild on the beach. Mangroves, sparkling beaches, coral and
grass flats stretch for miles.
The next day, I tried my luck with the other half of Vieques's guide corps,
Franco González. This native Puertorriqueño learned boat building in
Kennebunkport, Me., but returned home to discover that there wasn't much demand
for his trade.
In Maine, however, he had learned to use a fly rod. About nine years ago, as
people asked about fishing, Mr. González began taking clients out.
As Mr. González and I waded through a knee-deep turtle-grass flat, a small boat
of local fishermen bucked big waves as they ran east. Otherwise, we saw no one.
“This is my favorite kind of fishing,” Mr. González said. “Wading — it's a bit
of a hunt.”
Indeed, it reminded me of stalking the autumn woods for ruffed grouse: long
periods of watchfulness and anticipation, punctuated by sudden action for which
you are rarely prepared.
He offered a realistic evaluation of Vieques fishing so far this year — plenty
of wind, erratic presence of fish, especially tarpon. “We've had a lot of long
days on the water,” he said.
Before long, we spotted two feeding bones, perhaps 70 feet away. Despite the
brisk wind, I dropped the shrimp fly right between them.
A hard strike and the bonefish did what it is famous for. It swam far and fast
in the only direction it could go in a foot of water — straight away. I regained
the line, and the fish ran again. After a third run, it was spent.
Mr. González cradled the fish and unhooked the fly. “Probably tipping seven
pounds,” he said.
We had our chance at several more, but soon the mood changed. The fish
absolutely ignored my casts, and after an hour we gave up.
“Right there at the end,” Mr. González said, “they were basically almost mocking
us.”
Yes, they were. Thankfully, on the flats of Vieques, there were no witnesses to
tell the tale.
VISITOR INFORMATION
VIEQUES can be reached from the main island of Puerto Rico by air or ferry.
Vieques Air Link (888-901-9247; www.vieques-island.com/val) flies from San Juan
International and from Isla Grande (just east of San Juan); Cape Air
(800-352-0714; www.flycapeair.com) also flies from San Juan, a 25-minute trip.
Round-trip fares start at $92.
From Fajardo, a 90-minute drive from San Juan, you can take a 90-minute ferry
ride to Vieques for $2 (787-863-0705).
Puerto Rico requires no license for saltwater fishing, but that will change
within a year, according to the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and
Environmental Resources. A seven-day license will be $7 for United States
citizens who are not residents of Puerto Rico.
For fishing guides, contact Gregg McKee at Wildfly Charters (787-435-4833;
www.wildflycharters.com) or Franco González at Caribbean Fly Fishing Company
(787-741-1337; www.caribbeanflyfishingco.com). Both charge $300 a half-day.
For dinner, the paella ($20) and lobster (market price) are specialities at
Topacio Caribbean Seafood (Highway 200, Pueblo Nuevo; 787-741-1179) on the
outskirts of Isabel Segunda. In Esperanza, whole red snapper is $24 at Bilí (144
Flamboyan Street; 787-741-1382), on the waterfront.
For lodging with a kitchen, there's the Crow's Nest (Highway 201; 877-276-9763;
www.crowsnestvieques.com), midway between Isabel Segunda and Esperanza. Rooms
are $104 to $135 a night, with breakfast.
A more spartan room at the Tropical Guest House (E41 Apolonia Gittings, Isabel
Segunda; 787-741-2449; www.viequestropicalguesthouse.com ) is $65.
|
is
On-Line
Questions
about Vieques?
Read about Vieques and Culebra in the October 2000
issue
Click Here!
|
