This is our second day at Los Roques, Venezuela. Weather is beautiful, town is quiet. We're a little bit a head of the tourist season. We're all getting lots of shots at bonefish on the pancake flats and the migratory tarpon are beginning to show in the harbor. Yesterday we jumped one that went about 60 pounds - we're going back there today.
The one thing I was reminded of yesterday was to be barefoot on the deck. I thought we were wading so I had on my flats boots and then we found some baby tarpon along the mangroves so we fished from the boat and I was constantly standing on my line because I couldn't feel it. I finally stopped, took off my boots and fished barefoot, much better. After a while I put on socks because the sun was pretty intense and didn't want to get burned. This is much like snook fishing, they appear and you have to cast quickly. Being ready on deck, fly in hand, line under control and ready to go. It's easy in the breeze to have the fly tangled around the standing line or the line sliding off the deck, there's a thousand things that can go wrong and it will go wrong. You don't get a second first chance.
We found a flock of flamingos. It was a nice contrast from the Pileated Woodpecker that Barry photographed at home last week in the snow. 