9/28 - 10/9: 

The Sixth Trip to Alphonse Island

I'm never certain if this will be the last or only another one in a long string of visits to my favorite salt water fly fishing destination in the world.  It was another solo voyage again.  Sue opted to stay home and baby sit the doggies.  She's not a likely returnee here given that she prefers new adventures to ones that are "old hat".

Aside from the cost of the resort and the flight and the difficulty getting here, there's not much to find fault with this place.  While the number of accommodation units could clearly hold close to a hundred souls, I'm guessing there were under 20 of us in residence on this off week in late September and early October.

Wish I could say the fishing was best ever, but it was close to normal.  We had the "neapiest" of neap tides this week.  It's not worth going into a long explanation about that phrase, but trust me, a week when the lowest tides are too high and the highest are too low do not result in the "bestest" of fishing conditions. 

That being said, I did have some modest success.  Released my largest ever Bluefin trevally - maybe 25 pounds, close to my biggest bonefish - roughly 8-9 pounds, and a good number of nice sized "rainbow runners".  Love that name for the Spanish mackerel.   Aside from lots of bones, the other fish species, sizes, and numbers were at best, nominal.

Nicest part of the trip was scoring the #10 bungalow which gets us closer to where we want to start casting every day.  Thanks to Lanese Lubbe of the Alphonse staff who is our contact for booking here.  She's the best travel helper we've ever come across anywhere in the world.

Not much else to add. There's our standard clunky video of the trip below.  And lastly what will likely be seen as a really boring video of me casting, hooking, and playing to release a good sized bone. 

 

The only reason for this last video is that since I tend to fish all alone (and shoot the clips myself), it's the first time I've ever seen what it looks like to play a decent sized fish from an untended camera.