A trout fisherman’s foray in Caribbean flats.

BY JOE CUSICK

W hen we arrived at our cheap hotel in San Pedro, Belize — hot, sweating and overdressed — the first thing we did was pour ourselves shots of rum after long days of travel in the Central American heat.

Being from Montana, I’m used to standing in icy cold rushing water, where the chilled blood in my calves percolates into my upper extremities, forcing me to wear a sweater even on hot July days. Despite a tight budget, the dreary Montana winter inspired in me a craving for a new version of a sport I’d always loved. My friends and I booked our trip to San Pedro on a whim, inspired by rumors of catching warm-water trophy fish in the salty Caribbean Sea. I had no idea where these ocean fish might be, but my Rocky Mountain mindset simply figured, “Where there’s water, there’s fish.”

A quick internet search of “Best Flats Fishing” pointed me toward the extensive options on and around Ambergris Caye, the Belizean island that is home to the tourist town of San Pedro. We couldn’t afford a guide, and certainly not an all-inclusive fishing lodge, so our plan was to show up, walk around and pray to find the wandering bonefish—a hard- fighting ghost of the sea.

Back home in Montana, the rivers I grew up fishing are a destination of their own. My hometown of Bozeman in the southwest foot of the state is a tourism mecca, with a smattering of nearby luxury resorts and lodges that promise the experience of catching a trout on the fly. Being fortunate enough to grow up where people spend thousands of dollars to visit, I learned at a young age how to catch trout. My dad took my brothers and me out in his old wooden drift boat, showing us how to read the water for fish. He taught us how to choose flies for the time of day, season and temperature. These conditions, as well as other expressions of the river, tell an angler how to catch fish. They are difficult to teach at a resort and nearly impossible to discover on your own.

Sam Walter and I flew out from Missoula, Montana, and once in Belize met with Max Smay, a friend from Idaho who had already been rambling down the eastern coast of the Yucatán peninsula from Cancun.

Smay picked us up at the San Pedro airport in a yellow, smoking, exhaust-popping golf cart with bad brakes. The blaring sun revealed heavy bags beneath his eyes. After a night of drinking with a few local Belizeans, he’d lost his shoes and hat, cut and bruised his feet, and had ended up owing a man named Naz $60 for some forgotten expense the night before. He may have been even more exhausted than Sam and I were after our overnight layover in Atlanta.

After some rum and a change of underwear, we walked down the street to a local food stand for stew chicken and rice. The ramshackle stand was overlooked by the rich honeymooners and Jimmy Buffett-esque retirees soaking in jacuzzies at the nearby resorts. We ate our meals on a curb by the beach and watched the sunset as an ensemble of local Belizeans performed a baptism in the ocean. The next day we were ocean bound, and hoped the religious omen would bring us productive fishing.

We woke up late but with our minds set on fish. After getting Smay some used tennis shoes that could withstand the hazards lurking on the sandy ocean floor, we took our golf cart to the closest fishing destination we could reach: Secret Beach.

Secret Beach was not a secret, but rather a place where other tourists came to get drunk and sit around half- submerged cabanas in the sea. Locals haggled with tourists, convincing them to buy shots of rum and tacky trinkets. They reminded me of the gas stations around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks that sell bear-shaped keychains and pocket knives to tourists looking for proof of having visited that part of the world. We parked our cart and walked down the beach.

I still don’t know whether luck or skill dominates in fishing, but on this day, our stars aligned. We saw fish all day. Barracuda sat motionless, like logs submerged below the ocean surface. Schools of bonefish fed within the slight scope of vision that our heads allowed above the water’s surface. But spotting bonefish and catching them are two separate feats. Sam managed to catch two, but Smay and I came up short. Only the most subtle cast and delicate drop of our flies could get their attention before they spooked.

Eventually, I crested around the point of a dock in water up to my waist. I saw a school of fish and gently cast my line within a hula-hooped distance of these feeding fish. Strip, and I saw them chasing, strip again, and I felt the zing of my line being pulled out of my reel, burning the crook of my index finger. I had no idea how to fight these fish. I had too much slack, then too little, and the bone broke away. “No bother,” I told myself, and like many trout fisherman, I thought, “There will be other opportunities.” I pictured evening caddis hatches back home: clouds of insects filling the air, tickling my neck and crawling around my ears, a hot summer wind at my back. I pictured myself on the river, with pods of trout rising above smooth water. If I lost one, I was bound to catch another. They were everywhere. I hoped this was true with bonefish.

We celebrated that night by roaming the streets of San Pedro drinking Belikin, the national beer. We danced with a few elderly women at a tourist bar called Palapa and counted our blessings for a good day on the water.

The next few days, we walked in the same flat, far, and with little luck. I caught a few snapper by blind casting into light blue submerged pools in the darker reef and wherever else I saw abandoned fish traps with pelicans diving into the water. We found a broken paddleboard, and Smay stood on it while Sam stabilized the vessel, a feeble attempt at spotting fish. We saw a cruising tarpon pass by, and with frantic yelling and casts, we scared the fish off immediately.

Trout fishing supports a level of hope, even after a day of not catching fish. Walking or floating along bends in the river and casting into deep troughs and drop-offs below the water’s surface are enough to stimulate the angler’s mind: “There must be a fish in this next hole.” The ocean is not this way. The first step in catching our targeted fish was seeing them, and we burned our retinas on the water’s reflection.

After hours in the hot sun, we walked onto a failed building foundation with a rock masonry ledge. We got a better view into the blue rippling water of the gusty flat. We walked slowly and with determination. Finally, with keen eyes, we spotted distinct shimmers in the water, brighter than the dancing ripples reflected by the sun. We cast into this mystery. I felt a tug, set the hook and pulled in my first bonefish. It was small, but a hard fighter. This would be my only bone of the trip.

Another day, we hunted for fish on the eastern edge of the island, driving up the coast toward the northernmost end of Ambergris to Rocky Point. We awakened at 4 a.m., packed extra water and a cooler of Belikin, and headed up the coast.

Our drive took us down a bumpy road through the jungle. A tangle of lush green brush and coconut trees surrounded our narrow roadway, and we passed old, abandoned resorts—now ruins in the jungle.

We reached a point on the coast with a wadable reef break. Despite our earlier bad luck, we excitedly started fishing. Watching the rising waves reach shore, we searched for any fish we could find that might be feeding on creatures tumbling in the surf. Smay and I stood in the waves, catching countless reef fish while blind casting in any deep pools we spotted nearby. Then Smay spotted it, a large tail splashing around in the break.

“Permit!” he yelled.

“Where? Where?!” I responded. Then I saw it. A huge disc-shaped fish splashing in the waves. A fabled fish for any angler, the permit thrashed its forked tail while aggressively feeding.

We could barely tie on flies with our trembling fingertips. We cast at the fish, sending sloppily presented flies nearby. I got a tug. But it was a small reef fish. I shook the fish off my line. Smay got a tug. Another reef fish. Damn, we’ve never wanted to catch a fish less in our lives. We kept casting, pulling in nuisance reef fish as we watched the feeding giant troll away as the daylight emerged.

Walking on foot makes flats fishing infinitely more difficult.

Perhaps it is solely designed for rich doctors, dentists and lawyers who are able to afford guided trips with experts of the sea. The fish in clear water can see you just as well as you see them. They have fewer places to hide, meaning they are more willing to run. Unlike the trout I know well, they don’t fight against a strong river current, and therefore their entire focus is on feeding or avoiding predation from sharks, birds and foolish anglers.

We sat on the hot beach among plastic rubble, sulking in defeat. Regardless of your location in the world, fishing is not catching. Like many days spent on the rivers in Montana, I was happier to be casting and not catching than sitting at work or being trapped inside on a cold winter day.

We continued to fish hard on our last day, walking our original flat. Smay caught a decent barracuda. We watched a crocodile slink along the surface of a mangrove swamp. We were in a foreign and exciting place, drinking rum and beer with sun-scaled faces, free to walk and explore as much as our bodies would allow. That was just as important as fishing.

I fish for trout. I cast into smooth pockets of water behind logs and large boulders in mountain rivers. The ocean is a different beast than my home rivers. It is a large, living and mysterious body of water I cannot understand. But I will be back again to fish in the sea. On our trip to Belize, perhaps we weren’t the ones dodging tourists as we are at home, but rather the tourists that fish tend to avoid. Their glassy eyes could see us coming from 3,000 miles away.

Joe Cusick currently lives in Missoula, Montana, spending the winter months dreaming of fish and trying to write, mostly to no avail. Although he may never achieve his goal of writing like Harrison, McGuane or Proulx, Joe lives like a Westerner through fly fishing for trout and hunting for wild game in his home state.