Despite high winds, grey skies and heavy cloud coverage, the bonefishing out of Providenciales has been excellent. The unfavorable conditions did make it more difficult to spot fish but the good news is – when the fly or jig is placed properly, fish make a blitz and practically fight over it. On the small island, there isn’t a better guide than Capt. Arthur Dean of Silver Deep. Fish with him for a few days and you will swear that the man was raised by bonefish. In addition to the difficult conditions, the tides during my stay were abnormally high so the trick was to fish the areas that flood last.
Our method was to work mangrove shorelines and look for the obvious – tails, wakes and cruising fish. Because the majority of the fish we saw were deep among mangrove shoots, we did have to jump off the boat and weave our gear in and around the branches until the fish swam into open water. For fly gear, we used 8 weight rods with matching reals and a leader that tapered down to a 10lb. tippet. The flies the fish seemed to jump all over all had pearl rubber legs that were tipped with pink. On the conventional side, we used lightweight spinning comos lined with 10lb. test with 1/4 ounce chartreuse jigs and clear grub tails. We fished half days because of the weather conditions but still managed to release on average 7-10 fish on all three days.
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