When I first fished here at Belize River Lodge (BRL) back in 1989 one of my guides was Pedro from Guatemala. Pedro was in the process of migrating he and his family to Belize. He was a commercial fishermen converting to guiding anglers for the lodge – yes, a big change! I was the first person he ever saw fly fish.
Pedro and I hit it off big time that trip. Fly fishing was new to him but he loved it. I did my best to teach him what it was about. For me, I’d done very little saltwater fly fishing and bonefish and tarpon were completely new. But Pedro found me the fish and together we learned how to catch them with feathers and fur. We actually did pretty well all things considered.
Pedro and I fished together for years. All my trips to BRL. Pedro is 73 now and due to some serious health issues the last few years he’s not doing much guiding. However, when he found out I was coming, he found a way. There he was this morning. It was wonderful to see him again.
The last time I fished with Pedro was in 2012. Granny and I were both here at BRL and Pedro guided Granny into a monster tarpon at the mouth of the Belize River. We’ve shared some amazing fishing together the last 35 years and I could tell when we left the dock it was gonna be another good time.
The weather isn’t exactly perfect the next few days. While there’s no rain in the forecast, there’s a steady wind of 15-20 mph with gusts to 35. As much as we wanted to chase bonefish on the flats, after a few minutes of getting a thrashing from big waves outside the mouth of the Belize River, we opted to skirt around Belize City and head up to the Sibun River. Our target would be tarpon and snook.
Belize City has grown a ton since my early days here. It’s a bustling seaport and it was fun taking a flats fishing panga through the center of town. There’s a couple places that are home to baby tarpon and snook.
Pedro ran us up a dirty canal that butted up against a parking lot. As in most of the ocean these days, there was floating plastic all around. I thought he was joking at first. He wasn’t. Just as I got up in the bow a baby tarpon rolled. I made a cast and within a second I had the fish on. It was a baby tarpon alright. We’ll call him a ghetto poon. The cute little guy was fun and he got the skunk out of the boat. We pushed on past the heart of Belize City and made our way for 45 minutes up to the Sibun.
We put Granny on the bow first. I had her rigged with my new 12-weight Air 2 Max and the Scientific Anglers Intermediate Saltwater Taper WF12I. She had on a black fly, similar to the well-known Toad.
Up the Sibun puts you deep in the bush. The dense jungle blocks the wind. As you approach midday it gets beyond hot. I’m talking in the upper 90°s. Pedro took us to several of his normally productive snook and tarpon spots but it wasn’t happening. I surprised Pedro when I broke out my 6-weight and a trout size weighted shrimp pattern. We needed a few tugs to get our minds off the heat. Belize rivers hold all kinds of smaller fish species and I’ve always packed a light rod to fish for them. Within minutes I was holding an old friend, the unusual looking bay snook (Petenia splendida).
Not many anglers, especially when they travel all the way to Belize for the glorious game fish, get excited about tiny oddball fish. Granny and I on the other hand, are different. We embraced the action and caught a heap of these colorful little fish. Then out of the blue, Granny pulled out a bigmouth sleeper (Gobiomorus dormitor) !
I threw an exclamation on the “sleeper” because I’ve been after the sleeper for a few years. My friends, Paul and Jean Bruun have accidentally run into these fish on their winter fishing grounds in Florida. When I head down to FL (including two months ago) Paul has tried to get me on a sleeper so I can check it off my species list but we’ve had no luck. Three trips to exactly where they have caught a few sleepers and we’ve got nothing. But it was my lucky day. About a half hour after Granny caught hers, I landed my first sleeper. I’m getting very close to 500 species on the fly!
We “Curriers” are easy to please. Catching a bunch of bay snook followed by the elusive sleepers turned an otherwise slow day of Belize fishing into a memorable one for us. And to make it even more cool, Granny topped it off with this cichlid. I’ll need to look this one up (any help would be greatly appreciated), but I think it’s the redhead cichlid also known as the Quetzal cichlid (viela melenurus).
It’s a long boat ride back to Belize River Lodge from the upper Sibun. We called it a day shortly after 4 pm this afternoon. Granny and I popped a few Belikin’s and enjoyed the 90 minute journey. A fine day one was in the books with a great old friend.
As always, we enjoyed a fabulous BRL dinner family style around the table with the other guests here at the lodge. Tonight they served fresh snapper grilled to perfection. We topped that off with a delicious desert. Just like I said last night, we’ll be heading home a few pounds heavier but with big smiles to go with!
I Be sure to keep tabs on my IG at @jeffcurrier65
This was great! I’ve also been trying for bigmouth sleeper for years, with no luck. And I’ve never even heard of a bay snook. Way to adapt and make it a memorable day.
Yea, really the bay snook should be the “sleeper” because few anglers that come down here know about them and rarely see them because the little fellas don’t exactly go for the big snook and tarpon flies. I always pack the trout rod and some small streamers and big dries. Bay snook and the other cichlids are fun.