Looking Back: Deep Water Cay

Poring over the photos from this past week in The Bahamas, the still-tender line burns on my fingers help make each memory more vivid. Though my ears have since calmed from the wind's persistent hum, my half-unpacked bag still elicits sunscreen and salt spray. The bonefishing experience at Deep Water Cay is hard to describe. Steeped in generations of angling and guiding history, the flats are still perfect and the fishing still fairytale. Still, I did my best to absorb every element.

The last day dawned much calmer than those before. Casting amid lighter winds seemed graceful and effortless. We were quickly on large schools of bones, and tight in to them again and again. It was amazing. That last day on the water was drawing to a close as the tide ebbed. I was afoot across a vast flat, the late day sun in my face, surrounded on all sides by tailing bonefish. It was so beautiful, so ideal as to almost seem surreal. Those glittering tails and dorsi glittering in the sun, stretching out to the horizon. One last chunky 5-plus pound fish ate my mantis pattern, and churned off toward the sun with backing peeling off my reel. That's how I'll remember this trip, and what will fuel my ambition to return.

I've now transitioned back to Wyoming and Colorado for a while. It's snowing today. I wiped down my 8- and 9-weights; cleaned the lines and reels, and re-packed them. Seven more weeks until Belize.