We were delighted to plan a fly fishing trip for author and journalist David Profumo to the Yucatan last year. Here is his account of an enjoyable few days.
If I had one week left in life to go fishing, I would head straight for the tropical flats which have entranced me ever since I first saw the light, back in the Bahamas in 1990. I adore the complex experience – the hustle and bustle, the high-speed sport, the occasionally insane heat, the species variety, the sigh of the skiff over turtle grass, the camaraderie, the snowbroth of beer from your cooler…So when Peter McLeod secured an invitation for me last May to visit Mayazul, a recently opened lodge on Mexico’s Ascension Bay I leapt at the chance like a tigerfish snaffling a barn swallow.
This was the fifth fishing establishment I had stayed at in the area, which is a vast wildlife preserve with some 350 species of birds – roseate spoonbills, sulky pelicans, great rookeries of frigate birds. At Playa Blanca, I once even caught a black fish hawk that went for my ‘cuda popper. The Bay abounds in fish: I caught my first permit hereabouts in 1994, and once boated a vast snook from a secret lagoon to which I was taken blindfolded by the guide. It is known as the Grand Slam Centre of the world, for the chances it affords an angler to land on fly in one day all three species of the flats Holy Trinity – bonefish, tarpon and permit (hawks don’t really count).
My buddy Jamie Barshall and I arrived from Cancun docking at Punta Allen, a funky little lobster-fishing settlement where the store still sells cigarettes individually. You might describe it as a one-horse town with no horses. They were holding their annual Permit Fishing Tournament, and there were grizzled flats bums from all over the States roaming the alfresco bars. Our lodge, though, could not have been more of a contrast: it was laid-back but spiffy, with just four double rooms, ace air-conditioning, imaginative and exceptional cuisine, and (a rare opportunity for the thirsty hack scribe) an impressive, self-help free cocktail bar. We tackled up frenziedly, four rods apiece. Jamie was proud of his newly imported Chinese wondersticks – in fact there are fine Sage outfits on loan here – and over a vast G&T we met our four fellow guests, all hotshot Americans who were intent on one species alone: Trachinotus falcatus, the glorious permit.
This fleeting phantom of the flats is spooky, powerful and something of a cult trophy – the saltwater flyfisher’s Holy Grail. Frequently hard to see (you search for the dark line of a fin, or a large eye) they are astonishingly picky when it comes to artificial patterns; the great Tom McGuane once said it was like trying to bait a tiger with watermelons. Saltwater legend Lefty Kreh hooked just three on fly out of the first three thousand he cast to. Techniques have improved since then, but accurately throwing a weighted crab into the wind at short notice remains a challenge (for me, anyway); I have only ever landed a dozen in total, and even when your approach is as smooth as can be, the palometa usually spurns your overture like some heart-breaking blonde on a barstool.
Imagine my surprise and delight when, on our first morning fishing out of a panga with Carlos and Jose (there are two guides to each boat here) we spotted a school of smallish permit happily browsing along a bay. After twenty minutes of glutinous wading, I felt a tap-tap and – Judas Priest! I was on. At around eight pounds, this was not a huge specimen, but every palometa is a kind of trophy. The successful fly was an off-white Enrico Puglisi Spawning Shrimp; we scarcely used anything else all week, though another favourite you should carry is the original tying of Bob Veverka’s deadly Mantis Shrimp.
I have to say that the conditions throughout our stay were unfavourable – there had been a month of winds, visibility was poor and the tides extremely low – but even so we saw several specimens in the twenty-pound range. Getting your fly to them was a different matter, though. The fish tended to be moving fast, as was the boat, and one day the only successful presentation I made was a piece of lunchtime orange to a shoreline iguana. Our party managed just four palometa in the week, but from the numbers I saw I feel sure this would be as good a place as anywhere on the globe to target one of these fabulous fish. There are also some resident baby tarpon (sabalito), and a few large migratory lunkers along the reef, though chances at these increase later in the season.
Mayazul is operated by Nervous Waters, a company with a fine reputation for detail, and it is immaculately run. The ubiquitous Argentinian manager Pablo, himself a former guide, dealt coolly with all eventualities, and would welcome us back at the beach with a tray of cocktails, whilst the smiling Carmen offered a cold towel, and caretaker Juan washed down your gear and would machete you a fresh coconut on request. If you weren’t quite out of gas, you could step right off the beach and cast for bonefish (and we did) or else loll together on the verandah and tell fish tales beneath the frizzling palm fronds and knock back a sundowner accompanied by home-made pastrami or corn chips with baba ganoush. Outstanding! We were in excellent company, and the cocktail menu included Spook Him (tequila, lime and grapefruit soda) and Toothy Critter (gin, hibiscus and tonic): purely in the spirit of journalistic enquiry, I felt obliged to work my way through the entire list.
If you concentrate on permit, you might make just a few presentations a day – but there is much to be said for forays after the gorgeous bonefish. Sprightly, secretive, and resplendent in his tailored suit of mirrors, Albula vulpes is one of my favourite of all quarries, and although I have chased him in ten different countries (and been lucky enough to land several of those double-digit, lifetime fish) I never tire of the sport they afford. Jamie and I had good fun when the permit opportunities were slow, and took a dozen modest-sized bones out of one shoal, though his Chinese stick snapped spectacularly in the process. Bonies can be so obliging at times – or, in the words of a certain US guide, ‘hornier than a three-peckered goat!’ – and one morning, when we managed to escape the wind in Laguna Santa Rosa, we picked off plenty of singles between us. They are such beautiful creatures.
On our last day, we were drifting over a series of ‘blue holes’ – strange, upwellings of fresher water that resemble subaqueous volcanoes and attract a variety of marine life – when Jamie, up front and scanning, made a perfect cast with his pink raghead crab, and in the moil of azure water he hooked his first ever palometa. This was the fish we had come for, and mighty were the celebrations that evening. Whatever else happens, I can guarantee you will enjoy a party at this splendid place in the sun.
David Profumo is the long-standing Fishing Correspondent for Country Life magazine, and has fished in more than forty countries. His memoir The Lightning Thread. Fishological Moments and the Pursuit of Paradise. is published in paperback by Scribner.
If David’s account of permit fishing at Mayazul Lodge has piqued your interest, or you would like more information on fishing in Mexico in general, please contact Olly Thompson or Alex Jardine, alternatively call our office on +44(0)1980 847 389.