Cozumel

[Greybeard]

My wife and I are headed back to Cozumel for a couple of weeks. It'll be our third trip in 5 years - we like to relax on back of the island and explore local restaurants during the evening (away from the tourist section). This time I'm planning to do some fly-fishing. I've fly-fished for about 50 years but always fresh water.

The research I've done indicates there are three flats or lagoons on the north side of the island and supposedly there are bonefish there year round, baby tarpon, snook, bonito, mangrove snapper, trigger fish, barracuda, and shark. My plan is to take a 4 pc 9 wt rod I'm building along with Clousers and various shrimp and crab imitations I am tying. I've read that wading shoes and polarizing sun glasses are a must and a long sleeve shirt and a hat are needed (sun screen can only do so much).

Here's the deal. I feel like a babe in the woods. We've got a B&B where we stay and the owner has never steered me wrong on anything in the past. He has set me up with a guide at a fair (but not inexpensive price) but he apparently doesn't communicate in English well. I asked a bunch of questions about specific patters and whether he provided equipment and the response was pretty much, you will do fine.

The B&B owner has also connected me with a "cheap fishing buddy" - a local he knows that will take me out for gas money and a tip. He suggested I go with the guide first, find out where to go, how to fish, and then go with the cheap fishing buddy. Given the communication issue here I'm thinking there may be less difference between the two than price would suggest.

Has anyone fished Cozumel? I'm new to saltwater fishing and figure that in general fishing the flats will be similar everywhere but Cozumel will have its unique elements worth learning. I have no idea what safety issues to be aware of besides the sun and not drowning. What about surf fishing on the back of the island? I saw another thread where folks were using woolly buggers in the surf successfully! When I've been swimming it seems there are fish everywhere.

I'd like to do as much fishing as I can in two weeks. At $220 for half a day or so, I'm not going out every day for sure. I may go 3 or 4 times max. At $50 for el cheapo fishing buddy, I could go daily. Ditto for the surf fishing but with the wind I have a hard time thinking that's going to be fun except on very calm days.

Bottom line - we'll arrive 3/31 and depart 4/13 and I'd like to go as prepared as I can be and I figure I'm starting from scratch. Thanks.

Greybeard

ps - the B&B owner has wireless service so you might find me asking questions or hopefully posting pictures from there.<g>

[Arkansastroutbum]

I have been down there twice. Fishing in the lagoons is good. Alex Euan is a great guide and speaks good english. He charges $300 for a full day and has many many years guiding experience. http://www.cozumel.net/fun/fly-fishing/ ... that is his website. I would highly recommend going out with him. Take flats boots or scuba boots and you will be all set.

Some pics from my last trip down there this past December:








As far as surf fishing goes... walk the beaches early in the am and look for snook right off the beach.

Have fun-

[Greybeard]

Thanks for information, I appreciate every bit of it. If you don't mind a couple of more questions -

What patterns and what size hooks did you tie them on?

I'm also curious if there is anything special about the leaders and tippets I should bring?

Greybeard

[shorthaul]

Greybeard---ive never been to Cozumel but went further south to Belize---I would suggest that whatever tippet that you take, that you shouldnt be satisfied that its new---test every spool and be satisfied that you dont have a bad spool like we did. There werent any fishing supplies in San Pedro and luckily we found a guy with a spool of 6# xt and used that all week. Take plenty of what you decide to bring , you may not be able to get it there.

[Greybeard]

Thanks for the recommendation - I've been thinking about exactly what your talking about...but what really surprised me was you Chris Smither quote. I'm always surprised to find others that know and like him. The wife and I try not to miss him when he comes to town every year.

Greybeard---ive never been to Cozumel but went further south to Belize---I would suggest that whatever tippet that you take, that you shouldnt be satisfied that its new---test every spool and be satisfied that you dont have a bad spool like we did. There werent any fishing supplies in San Pedro and luckily we found a guy with a spool of 6# xt and used that all week. Take plenty of what you decide to bring , you may not be able to get it there.

[Thunderthumbs]

Sent you a PM

TT

[Arkansastroutbum]

size 6 crab patterns... tan... nothing fancy at all. Size 6 or 8 crazy charlies & gotchas: crystal flash/white, tan or yellow all worked some as well. Small clousers, white with sparse flash worked well my first trip down there two years ago.

[Ron Mason]

I have not fished Cozumel. I fish further south in Ascension Bay. The hardest part of all of this will be seeing the fish. Bonefish are near invisible until you develop an eye for them. Like others have said tan gotchas are hard to beat in 8,6 & 4. I like to have some tied w/ sili legs also.

[Greybeard]

Well, my wife just loves Cozumel and since I never want to disappoint her, we just returned from a 3 week vacation there. I took fly-fishing and fly-tying gear and a stack of travelers checks with plans to go fish the lagoons again. I learned a lot...but alas, still have not caught a bonefish. We stay at a B&B where the owners are into scuba diving and last year they hooked me up with one of the owners of the diving outfit that likes to fly fish for the bones. Let me say I was pretty ignorant about what constituted a guide at that time. For what seemed like a very modest fee ($200) I got a 30-40 minute boat ride from the coletta to the lagoons and 5-6 hours of casting along with some pointers like, "cast to the rocks" and "look for silver flashes" and "you can see their fins above water when they feed, sometimes". It was a lot of fishing for the money but as I've come to see it wasn't a 'guided' trip.

This trip I figured I'd get out 4 or 5 times and made arrangements weeks before leaving. It didn't happen. To make a long story short, I finally got out once during the second week of the trip with a local from the same scuba outfit that also fly-fishes. I lost count of how many mangrove snapper I caught but I only connected with one bonefish and that was done casting blind (I never saw it before hand). Well after many promises to go back out, the shop finally suggested another local who actually does this for a living. What a difference!

First, we used a smaller boat and actually got it in the lagoon. We spent several hours scouting and never casted blind - this guy was a genius at spotting the fish and we cast to them. At one point we moored the boat and went wading. My previous experience was just wading. This time, it was different. Ricardo knew the lagoon and the fish and he found several pods of fish for me to cast to. It was as much hunting as it was fishing. I got a real appreciation for how spooky the bonefish are and how important a good presentation is. By late in the morning I was understanding the process a whole lot better - even though my Spanish was only about as good as Ricardo's English. It appeared that my flies were not quite what the bonefish wanted (pale pink/brown Crazy Charlie's).

I think if I'd connected with Ricardo the first week, I'd have had a lot better chance to catch a fish. First, Ricardo made a point of getting me on the fish and second, with my tying gear there, I could have tweaked the patterns some to get a better imitation of the juvenile crab that the bonefish were eating. Ricardo's charge was only $50 more than the other guys but the difference was one was a trip out to go bone fishing and the other was a guided bone fishing trip.

It looks like we will be going back once or twice in the next 16 months and I know who I'll be contacting to go fishing. For what it's worth, this is some really interesting fishing, especially when your reference is fishing along the East Coast for bass, bluegill, and trout. The bird life that you'll see is amazing, the water is warm and shallow (you can wade for miles), and I've never seen a crocodile while fishing in my backyard pond.CZM_fishing1.jpgCZM_Fishing2.jpg

[Doug Poudre]

Sounds like an incredible trip.