Big Hole River 1780 cfs
The Big Hole seems to be a roller coaster flow the past few days ranging from 1500 to 2000 cfs. The visibility remains about the same. There were a couple wade fisherman above the house yesteday chiucking streamers and picking up a few fish.
This is the story told to Linda, my roving reporter on Andros directly from Art’s mouth. I only had to a wee bit of editing.
THE PENTACOSTAL PREACHER AND THE SHARK:
The anticipation of a trip to the Joulters is always an exciting prospect and a day like we had with Clifton our guide, who is also a full time Pentacostal Preacher, turned out to be more than we hoped for. He took us to a place he called “Herman’s secret spot and swore us to secrecy. We parked the boat and waded the flats for qwuite a ways without seeing anything and then the sight we encountered before us was unbelievable. We could see bonefish tails in every direction oa far as we could see. Thre were literally thousands of then=mn. We immediately got into them and started catching fish and as it turned out the average one was 7 pounds. They were all huge. The second one I caught turned out to be the boner of a lifetime…a 10 pounder ….backed by a 9 pounder. Then the most amazing thing happened. I hooked a bone and played it out real good…had the fish circling me when all of a sudden a 5 ft shark appeared and instantly all hell broke out. When it looked like the shark was going to get the fish I yarded on the line to break it off to let it go. I was too late. The shark was already on him. Then all of a sudden there was a huge geyser of water and swirl of mud. The preacher started screaming words like I never heard in any church before then started running toward the shark and immediately jumped on the beast and started beating the shit out of him kicking and punching til the shark must have figured the wrath of god was upon him and fled for his life. I think that’s where the precher turned guide. Clifton turned around and looked for the fishwhich was headed in the opposite direction by then, chased him down and caught the guy with his bare hands and brought him back to me with that huge Bahamian grin. My special fly along with a short piece of chomped off tippet was still in his mouth. I couldn’t even speak. Where was my video camera?
The day continued with 15 bones over 6 lbs. I had gone to heaven and didn’t even have to die to get there. That’s my story and I’m stickin to it.