The Joulters or as the natives say, da jodders is an amazing place. These are huge flats off the north end of the island which are over 20 miles long. Tommy Key, Dennis and I headed up there yesterday as the weather forecast looked pretty good. We went to the very north end of the Joulters as Tommy wanted to look for some permit that he said were in that area. I will have to give it to him he knows the area as we started to pole this certain flat covered with turtle grass in no more than ten minutes we spotted four big permit. Problem was we had on a gotcha and they didn’t want any thing to do with it. By the time we switched to a crab pattern they were gone and we never found another one.
Tommy figured the tide was about right and the bonefish should be coming out of this channel onto a big white bottom flat. We anchored the boat on the edge of this flat and as if on cue there they came. He said the best approach was to wade out on the flat a ways and just stand there. He was right as school after school of bonefish came on the flat from deeper water. At one point all three of us were hooked up.
On the way back the east side was pretty rough so we ducked behind some cays going into this big channel. We got in there and it was dead calm. Again we anchored on the edge of a flat and looked for tailing fish. Tommy said he saw some tailers and I asked how far. He said about 500 yards or a half mile or something like that. I told him I wanted some of the same drugs he was on. We humored him and walked way out on this flat and sure enough there were tailing bonefish all over the place. Also these fish were bigger than the ones we got into earlier in the day. There were about a dozen fish in this one particular school and they were all big. It was a long cast and I made one extra false cast and the double haul worked perfectly—-too good as I flock shot the whole herd. Tommy was making some snide comment about screwing up that school when I saw them turn back and at least six fish were charging the fly. One more long strip and I was hooked up. I looked at him and said “now what were you saying about screwing up”?
It was quite a day and glad we went yesterday as it’s raining today and looks like it will rain all day.