Xcalak
The Fishing
The Guides:
Our guides are the top guides in the area. They have fished these waters for decades and have the patience and skills to guide an expert or beginner. (sometimes us experts need more patience than a beginner!)
We have 4 regular guides that we use exclusively. These men are handpicked from the growing number of "guides" in the area. We are well aware that the guide is the single most important part of a fishing trip. The boats are the typical pangas used in this area of the world. The guides use a handmade wooden pole to pole the boats across the flats and can spot fish that are invisible to us Gringos. By the end of the week most people are able to start spotting fish on your own. my goal is always to spot one before the guide does. Usually the only time I do this is when the guide is eating lunch!
The Fishing: 
Chetumal Bay is larger than Ascension Bay, in fact it would take over an hour just to cross it. There are flats on the ocean side that are quite close while interior bay flats can be 45 minutes away. There are thousands of acres of flats and just a few boats. The fishing pressure is extremely light. The flats range from hard white sand to silty muck and everything in between. Most of the lagoon flats off the bay are mangrove lined. You can stalk bones as they travel in and and around mangrove shoots with their backs out of the water! Large schools of smaller fish are unsuspecting and pretty easy to fool, while the larger singles and doubles a little more challenging but generally if they see a fly ( providing you haven't spooked them with the cast) they will eat it.
Anglers target bonefish and permit that roam the skinny waters. The bonefish average 2 - 4 pounds. There are fish up to 8 pounds that can be found on the deeper edges and on the oceanside flats. You can walk the shore in front of Tierra Maya and find an occasional bone or permit sneaking around close to shore. (Never walk the beach without a fly rod in your hand!)
Permit are also present on the flats in good numbers. I wish I could say they are eager to the fly but even without pressure permit are difficult to fool. Some say it is the eyesight, some say it is their sense of small. The average
size is less than 5 pounds, but 10-pound fish are caught occasionally
every year. Tarpon are scattered in the lagoons and on the oceanside and
are found baby size to over 100 pounds.
You will fish extensive backwaters and bays, lagoons along with the oceanside flats, providing a good variety of fly fishing opportunities. There are barracudas, jacks, snappers and many other fish that are in abundance in this area.
Xcalak
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