Posted on March 26 2009
Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve written about the three most conventional fisheries on South Andros – our east side creeks, The South and The West. Today we cover the most unusual of our fisheries – our inland wading.
When you look at a map of South Andros Island, you realize that the majority of our island is comprised of bonefish habitat – dry on a low tide, wet on a high tide, covered with mangroves and rich with nutrients regardless.
There’s a whole lot of water in the middle of South Andros that you can only get to on foot. Those east side creeks that we’ve written about connect eventually to the flats in The West and The South. These creek systems are vast and complex, and extremely shallow. As you head inland, there are some huge, complicated systems of creeks, ponds and lakes that are flooded on a high tide (which means bonefish eat there), but that, due to mangroves or just shallow water, aren’t accessible by boat.
How, you might ask, do we get to these flats? We walk. We can glide through shallow water, or just tromp through the mangroves, to get to some gigantic systems of inland flats that are just stuffed with bonefish. Depending on the tides, we might even encounter some very large schools of bones that are literally landlocked, waiting for the next high tide.
Depending on your interest, your fitness level, and the number of rum and tonics that you enjoyed the previous night at The Slack Tide, you can walk with our guides for an hour or a day to have a look at these inland flats.
Sometimes the fishing on these inland flats is mind-numbingly easy – if you encounter a big school of fish that’s land-locked and hungry, you’re about to get very familiar with your backing. Sometimes, due to the extremely shallow water that we encounter inland, the fish can be a little twitchy and hard to feed – as you would be if your back was literally out of the water.
Fishing inland is really different from any bonefishing that you’ll do elsewhere, and it’s a great way to spend a day.