Salt in the wounds

Its a good thing…

Each year, anglers pack their bags and head to Blue Bonefish Belize. The owner, Chris Leeman, is a friend of mine from our time guiding together in Alaska. Since he and his wife Mary acquired the lodge, I’ve had the privilege of putting together a group of anglers for a yearly trip. I consulted this packing list and thought it might be useful to publish it here.

In 2025, NWFFO and I will partner and curate a group of 14 Anglers. Our time spent at Blue Bonefish has fostered many cherished memories and developed many strong relationships. If you decide to join us, the same will be true for you. For those who secure a deposit, I will personally offer an hour-long Zoom consultation to help iron out the details and make your trip seamless.

The first item on the to-do list is to choose a date. Thanks to the tireless work of Chris Leeman and the NWFFO team, this is easy. For 2025, our date is 04/26-05/02.

The next to-do is to book airfare. It’s been a welcome surprise to see the price drop year after year. I usually fly with Alaska Airlines and use the miles I acquire on my card. Then I call Tropical Air (https://www.tropicair.com) and arranged an island hopper airplane from the Belize Airport to the island of Ambergris Caye. Bustling with excitement, the night before my plane leaves, I pack as follows:

WHAT TO BRING TO BELIZE FOR FLY FISHING

FLY RODS

A shop favorite is the Beulah G2 Opal series. These rods use titanium guides, graphene wraps, and AAAA Quark. Implemented by the owner and veteran salt guide James Shaughnessy they are designed for outstanding performance in the salt. Also of note are the

G-Loomis IMX V2 Salt. Winston Air Salt. You’ll want them in different weights and lined differently for easy access. Things happen quickly on the flats. You can’t be prepared enough. Rods should be no longer than 9 ½ feet in length. 9-foot rods are the ideal length for saltwater fly fishing. Fast to extra-fast action is the right tool for throwing tight loops in windier conditions. Lighter 7 and 8-weight rods work for bonefish and smaller tarpon found in the lagoons and smaller permits. While chasing permit, a 9 or 10-weight rod will help you get the extra distance needed and handle a heavy fly required to get down quickly to the fish. Adult tarpon requires a heavier set-up; 10 and 11-weight rods will give you the backbone needed to tangle with these 30-80 lbs leviathans. 4-piece rods are perfect to travel with. You can either place it in your checked luggage or carry it on board and place it in the overhead bins on your flight to and from Belize. 

• Bonefish/Small Tarpon 7/8 Weight rods

• Permit 9/10 Weight rods.

• Tarpon reels 10/11/12 Weight rods

FLY REELS

Saltwater fly reels need to be anodized/corrosion-resistant and have fully sealed drags. A reel with a high-quality, smooth drag and plenty of backing is ideal for the long runs inshore saltwater fish are known for. Reels need to have 200 yards of 20 lb backing for permit and bonefish and 250 yards of 30 lb backing for tarpon.

Check out the Hatch 7+ for a fantastic performing all-around saltwater reel. 

Also, the Sage Spectrum is serviceable, #8 for Bones 1 and #0 for Permit.

FLY LINES

A tropical-weight forward floating fly line will cover most scenarios you will encounter on the flats. In some cases, a tropical weight forward 10ft clear intermediate sink tip line will help give a little edge on spooky Permit and Tarpon. My personal favorites would be the Scientific Angler Magnitude clear floating tip textured. Or the Rio Elite flats pro. Keep in mind those clear tips help to keep you stealthy, but they also make it difficult to tell where your fly is. Practice your cast and follow the fly with your eyes as the line turns over so as to have a good idea of where you’re at.   

LEADERS & TIPPET

Bonefish – 9 foot 10 and 12lb tapered leaders. Tippet – 8, 10, and 12lb fluorocarbon

Permit – 9 foot 12 and 15lb tapered leaders. Tippet – 12, 15lb fluorocarbon

Tarpon – 9 foot straight piece of 40/50/60lb fluorocarbon or hand-tied Bimini twist 20lb class with a 40/50/60lb fluorocarbon bite tippet

CLOTHING/SUNGLASSES

For clothing, you will need clothes that dry quickly and are comfortable in hot weather. Light colors that stay cool and don’t spook fish are important. A long-sleeved fishing shirt and long pants are recommended. A hat with a dark bill that won’t reflect light into your eyes, good polarized sunglasses in amber/brown, a glass cleaning cloth, sunscreen and sun proof lip balm are also vital. These days, everyone wears a buff around their neck to protect from the sun when needed. Also, bring a rain jacket and rain pants.

BOOTS

If you plan to do some wading, bring neoprene wading shoes or lace-up wading boots with wading socks – any shoe that will keep sand and coral out should work. Normal wading shoes will work in a pinch. In the boat, a comfortable shoe with no laces to catch the fly line is acceptable. Most pros will go barefoot so that they can feel the fly line on the deck and avoid stepping on it. I fish in my socks to avoid burning my Oregonian whiter-than-white tinder feet.

FISHING LICENSE

You will need to purchase a fishing license online before your arrival into the country. Simply click on the link below, enter your information, and print. We recommended purchasing a one week license for $50BZE/$25US.

Purchase License Here 

ESSENTIALS

• Sunscreen SPF 30-50

• Buff face shield

• Chapstick/lip balm

• Water bottle

• Sun gloves

• Dry bag or boat bag

• Chest or hip pack for wading

• Rain Jacket/ Rain Pants

• Fleece Jacket

• Wading boots

• Polarized sunglasses – copper or amber lens

• Lens wipes/cleaner

• Fly line cleaner

• Insect repellant

• Hemostat/pliers/nippers

• Hook Hone

• Knotable wire leader for barracuda 30/40lb

FLY SELECTIONS

Permit

• SS Merkin

• Bauer Crab – tan

• EP Spawning Shrimp – tan

• Avalon

• Ultra-Shrimp

• EP Crab/Sinking and floating 

• SS permit crab

• SS B-Turd

• Mantis Shrimp

• Squimp

• Strong arm crab 

Permit flies will range in hook sizes from a size 4-1/0 hooks, depending on the pattern. Also have a variety of sink rates with each pattern.  Most should be tied with large bead chain eyes or small to medium lead eyes.  You typically want the fly on the bottom quickly and in front of the fish. 

Bonefish/Small Tarpon

• Christmas island specials – tan/pink, tan/orange

• Bonefish Bitters – Tan, olive

• Squimp – Tan

• Gotcha – Tan, Pink, Orange

• EP Spawning Shrimp – Tan/orange

• Mantis Shrimp – Tan

• Bonefish Clouser – Tan/white

• Crazy Charlies – white, pink, tan 

You should have an assortment of bonefish flies in different weights and sizes.  Most flies should be on a size 6-8 hook.  Have some that sink quickly with lead eyes and some with a slower sink rate tied with bead chain eyes.  Some scenarios will also require a weed guard to feed tailing fish in the turtle grass.

Tarpon

• Tarpon Changer – chartreuse, white, purple/black, black/red

• Black Death

• Cockroach

• EP Minnow – white, tan/white, chartreuse/white

• Tarpon Bunny – purple/black, black/red, white

Tarpon eyes are situated on the tops of their heads and feed on prey that is above them.  So, when presenting a fly to a moving fish, you want it to stay up in the water column.  Your flies should have little to no weight on them.  Hook sizes should range from a size 2 all the way up to a 3/0 for adults.

After all this it’s finally time to hit the water. Here’s a few ideas that have helped me in the past. Pick your shots, starting from a macro sense in choosing a place like Belize, all the way down to a micro sense in choosing the right light to scan for fish. I think of a pie chart. Depending on sun light, 30% of the water at any given time has the right glare and conditions to see a fish. If you’re paying attention, you’ll quickly learn what those conditions are. Staying relaxed and alert is a natural juxtaposition in any sport, and fly fishing is the same. Ready position in the salt is line neatly laid out on the deck, fly in hand, with the leader out of the tip of the rod. Ideally you’re able to fire off an 80ft cast wherever directed within two false casts. Turning around to look at the guide pointing and helping them help you is critical. It’s a lot of little things that make the big thing happen. Opportunity meets preparedness, sunscreen smeared hands, heatstroke, and wind are strong adversaries. Buck fever is another killer. After days of travel by plane, boat, and automobile, there will come a moment when your guides voice will change, your eyes will strain, your muscles will tense up, and with any luck you’ll see a fish. Composure! Wind! Composure! Tangle! Composure! A boat mate is yelling, "Composure! It's your only chance in three days, and the tail is enormous. Composure! You flubbed the shot, and you may never get another. Composure." This is what it is to fish the salt. And back to the lodge to enjoy a Belakin, to gloat or sulk, to laugh and play, to make heroes of one another, to fish.

A FEW SHOTS OF THE PLACE

We’re All The Trout

We’re all the Trout

By Matthew Allen Thornton

Life’s not always easy, you know? Before I could form a proper sentence, my folks split up, before I could even talk. I grew up not knowing my real father. Out of that came aggression and fear. I didn’t know how to act, really, how to be. A boy raised by a woman, something deeper than time, some sort of instinct led me outside. Innumerable days were spent chasing lizards, hunting birds, and burning up the energy of my youth. As I grew, so did the darkness of my past. It turned into more aggression. I was angry. I didn’t fit in with kids who had parents. We were poor and broken, half a family at best.

At age five, Mom married my stepdad, David. David was definitely in over his head. Coming along, marrying a woman with two kids, and we were wild. My sister hated him. I was glad to have a male role model, but was still full of the ramifications of my early years. Things began to stabilize in our outside world but trouble stirred in the current below the surface.

At around age ten, things started boiling over. I was on a bird-killing rampage with my Red Rider BB gun. I was experiencing emotions of remorse. Not knowing what to do with my power, my rage, or just any of it. David, was working hard as ever to financially support the family and had no time to show me, but it was still great to have him around. He was young and trying to figure out how to carve out a living.

Ultimately, we moved to Oregon where David remembered, maybe from his youth and his youthful angst, that he would burn off the energy in New Zealand by mountaineering and fly fishing. Which to him meant climbing up on his belly and dabbing a fly for a large trout. Maybe he saw the same thing in me that was in him all of those years, that is maybe in all of us. That causes us to enact suffering and then in the same moment experience joy and elation.

So he began to take me fishing. We didn’t talk much back then. We never really did. We just aren’t that family. Maybe it’s our lack of blood relation or maybe just a style thing. Regardless, there on the banks of the Santiam River, I got to experience what I needed most. I got to see my idol, this mountain of a man, David, melt into a little boy. To play again, to whiz line & hurl deceptive bundles of feathers and fur into moving water. To try to trick a pea-brained animal by triggering its prehistoric instincts.

I’m older now and after having thousands of wild trout dance for me, I’m looking for the through line. I have decided that we’re all the trout. We’re all the suffering. We’re all the bugs. We’re all the river. We’re all the mountains. We’re all the air. We’re all the panic & glory. We’re all the ego, all the soul.

I am so lucky to still have a choice. So grateful to still have a choice. I’m so wanting to listen well. To enact restoration just like those that came before me.

Bringing home the wilderness

This is a new way of being. Not just today but always. It can not be learned but it can be experienced. Through love, through discipline through wilderness emersion. 

You feel the wild call. It can hardly be captured by words. The binary fails to articulate. The life threat. The smallness of self. The humility taught through experience. Go, get your ass handed to you by a steep cliff, a rock wall, by a rapid or a wave. You may in that moment only for a second understand humility. Embody it. Know it through body. Which is the only way to really know anything. This is not a revolution of idea or intellect, but a revolution of whole being. At onement with yourself and all creation. Stop attacking anyone, for anything, least of all yourself. Sit, near a river, breath, and be and play and laugh and cry and sing and dance and sweat and shout with all the you are. The tender moment, being broken is what brings the change. Is where the power of impermanence thrives, shines, emerges, shows up. Decentralized experiential hive mind. Lay haggard on a mountain side, close to death. Swing yourself to total physical depleation. Then listen to your body there. You’ll come to know yourself in spirit and in truth. To love yourself without distraction.

The revolution is at hand. The revolution is within.

Faith And Fishlessness

Yesterday, after a long hike on a secret river, I came to a run, deep, bouldery, and fishy. This was my third trip to this hidden gem and I'd been skunked each trip. Gin clear water, the need for exercise, and fabled monster steelhead keep me coming back. This particular run was as far up as the Boom dog and I have ever been. My past failures ever present in my mind, I swung the run casually, no real ambition, just kinda watching the line get swept this way and that, willing it over and around the rocks. The occasionally obligatory hang up. Half way down the run, right where the fast water meets the slow I sloped out a tired, half hearted double spey and watched the fly get swept under, trail out of site. Mid swing, half a second before it straightened, three hard heart throbbing tugs and “hoot hoot”! Her scales glinted in the sun as the fish came fully out of the water. I swear, we made direct eye contact. She looked at me as if to say, " theres no way in hell you’re taking my picture". Turned her head and bombed down stream. In a split second she was a couple hundred feet down stream. I clumsily gave chase, slipping, thrashing about and trying to gain some ground. The power of her fin wins again. That fish spat my hook. Left me stunned and staring at the boom dog, asking him what happened?

Maybe I should have risked braking her off. Maybe I should have battled to keep her in the run. Honestly, I think I gave up hope that I would hook a fish. Kinda forgot I was fishing and just acted as if I where hiking and practicing casting. I missed it. I had her, she shook me, I missed it. After three decades of fishing, I should have known, I should have stopped that fish. Sometimes they just get away and there's nothing you can do. This time I think I could have managed a little better. With a little more hope, with a little more poise. I want a nice calm even tension. To live the paradox that I love. To expect but relax. A faith in fishlessness. Cast swing step, hope, believe, feel disappointed, feel gratitude, feel cold, feel wet. Love the animal but chase it and pierce it. Let it go, catch it again then let to go. Spend time money and energy, on a bush plane on a jet boat and get there and stand there and get nothing and be happy. Hike for miles, even days to find the right spot, get nothing, do it again. Check the tide charts, up at 4am, travel travel travel and when the moment comes, your mesmerized by the place. How to stay present? breath deep, in the chest and the belly. look around though thick forest in tepid water, you stand, observe yourself. Bring a friend, laugh and play.