Today I fished with friends Rich Roth and Dave Moller. Our guide was another new FlyCastaway guide for me, C.J Cronje. He’s 21! We started in the rain today here at Providence Atoll. It’s the first time we’ve experienced any sort of weather since we got here ten days ago. We hoped it would brew into a storm to change the surface waters of the flats from too hot to cooler but within an hour the rain dissipated.
We maintained the cloud cover for at least the morning session but it was glassy calm. So calm that on the way to the north flats we ran into a school of feeding milkfish. Milkies are difficult to catch algae eaters but when you get one its an amazing battle with a great looking fish. We put Dave in charge and he tossed milky flies at several schools for the first hour but no luck.
Next we settled on a flat and the guys walked and looked for GTs. Being this calm we could see any disturbances within a mile and there were a few waking GTs here and there. But the guys simply couldn’t get close enough for cast without spooking them. I wasted my time trying to catch the occasional tailing triggerfish. They are even spookier that GTs so you know how my luck went.
Our morning was tough. C.J walked the dickens out of us. Dave and Rich are both in their 70’s however the miles on the flats didn’t seem to phase them. I hope to be in the same shape at their age. By lunch, other than my daily yellow lip emperor, we had goose eggs. C.J. parked us near coral and had us all catch a fish to change our luck. It was easy to get one because there was a massive school of these Russell’s snappers.
As we ate our lunch looking over the side was like looking into an aquarium. There are so many cool tiny fish around coral heads. Every color fish you can imagine. For me it’s a lot of “what ifs”. For instance there were some electric orange fish and same in blue. I thought, what if those fish got huge. How cool would that be? About then I spotted a fish worth trying for and I got him. It’s the goldbar wrasse (Thalassoma hebraicum). Another new species for my list. And unexpected!
After lunch was back for the GTs to the same flat we had our butts handed to us on during the morning session. We did some walking but it was so glassy calm that our waves from each step quivered across the flat about 100 feet every step. It was borderline hopeless. But before we got back in the boat, I found one cooperative crab fly eater tailing. It was my first white-spotted pufferfish (Arothron hispidus). Two new ones today!
It was close to 5 PM and I could see that Dave and Rich were about done. Young C.J. however probably never is. He very much reminds me of me. Especially when I was in my 20’s. C.J decided to let the three of us chill while he poled us along very very gently. There was a GT tailing in the distance. Undoubtedly the GT was looking for crabs and I had my 9-weight with a crab in hand. And look – miracles do happen in fly fishing. C.J poled me in range and I landed a cast without spooking this beautiful fish. My first GT of this entire trip.
After the battle with that spunky little GT, the flat was finished. The commotion that fish caused with his long runs against my 9-weight disturbed every fish within a mile. We were about 40 minutes from the Maya’s Dugong so C.J. pointed us that way and we were headed home. 15 minutes in we passed the same school of milkfish we tried for in the morning. It was too much to drive on by. We stopped and Rich took the bow this time.
Having Rich in the bow was a good move. In 2022 we fished together and it took him literally five minutes to nail a milkfish (its a very good story by the way). At that time I was jinxed by milkfish so it was fun to watch his success. Well, guess what, today it took Rich one minute to hook up. Two casts and he had a nice milky in the air!
Milkfish are famous fighters. They have a forked tail like no other fish which gives them speed beyond belief. Some say they don’t accumulate lactic acid in their muscles so they are very tough to tire (recent studies say this is not true). Regardless, it takes an experienced angler to win a battle with a milky and Rich put the heat on this guy.
After about 10 minutes Rich had the fish to C.J’s net. There was a little more chaos but in the end the fish was landed. I’m not sure how many milkfish Rich has caught but I’ve been there for two of them. All I can say is, “That’s impressive”.
We had a slow day overall. All the action came in micro spurts and most in the last hour. But that last spurt was incredible. And amongst it all, I came away with two new species. I believe now I’m at 484.
It was an all-round slow day for most. The only angler to catch lots of fish today was Brian. He followed my techniques yesterday of casting blind to every coral head. It paid off and he landed a nice bohar, a honeycomb grouper, a bluefin trevally and best of all, he sight fished and landed his first ever yellowmargin triggerfish. Time for dinner and sleep. Back at it tomorrow!
Be sure to keep tabs on my IG at @jeffcurrier65
That goldbar wrasse would look great on a coffee mug! Congrats on the two new species, cool species to look at!
Oh boy would he ever. I dream of painting all the different species some day. Thanks for following along Kevin!