July, 2026

7/6 - 7/10:                  

A second return to St George's Caye this year

The trip wasn't a complete disaster - but it was close to that.  When Sue & I travel together we have to board the two dogs in what we assume will be a very comfortable environment - which means planning well in advance of the trip to assure that they have a good home away from home.

That also means that once the dogs are booked and we are booked, there's not much chance of turning back or canceling out.

So we were unaware of what the weather conditions were going to be like when we arrived at the island.  As you've likely guessed, they turned put to be pretty awful.  Rain was scheduled each day of the stay along with raging winds which stayed at 20 plus miles per hour both day and night.  Couple that good news with the influx of an ocean full of Sargasso weed and the fishing alone was about as unpleasant as it gets.

The wind prevented us from paddling across the strait between our island and Shaka Caye which kept us off the best bonefish flats in the area - and caused Sue to opt out of fishing altogether.  (She kept busy with reading, solving puzzles, and doing a thorough clean up and maintenance of the island's cemetery adjacent to the villa where we stayed.)  That really was a good project.

We made the best of the situation by overeating and still being able to get some exercise walking to the far end of the island and back every morning.

My bone fishing was rotten at best until the last half hour of our last day there.  But I did hook a number of three to five foot long tarpon (on tiny bonefish flies) almost daily and again at night off the resort's dock did manage to hook a few more tarpon on clousers.  Came nowhere near landing any of them but did get 2- 4 jumps from a handful.

So we can't call this close to a successful trip.  A couple of days into it, I pretty much gave up and called the airline to change our flight to an earlier one, which they did - and despite the additional cost we flew home and picked up the dogs a couple of days early for them too.  So I suspect they at least were happy about that.

Here are a few odds and ends clips of the trip:

 Main Fishing Page, , Eagle River Access,  Local Ten Commandments, Successful Fly Patterns