What can I say about that west side country that I have not said before. For one Hank said he will never talk to me again. Actually he had a really good time in spite of his little complaints about his age and how black people don’t camp. He did mention several times that at 70 years old it’s the first time he has ever camped.
The weather and the journey down there and back was perfect as you will see on the pics.
As soon as we got there we took to set up camp. A little advise is check out your equipment before you go. We had two tents, one had no poles at all so we tied the top to a cedar tree kinda like a tepee and I took that one. Morton and Hank had this huge tent that took a bit of time just to figure it out. We started to count sleeping bags and came up one short.
After camp was somewhat set up we headed toward tarpon creek. Morton and I were checking out the mouth of the creek and Hank went inland a little way looking for good snapper water. In less than five minutes he started hollering, tarpon, tarpon, and go figure there he was hooked up with a tarpon. The big fish headed out of the creek to the open sea and when Hank cranked on the drag it broke off. He was laughing like crazy. Just after that he started catching grey snapper at almost every cast. Now he was getting unbearable with threats to stay out of his fishing hole and now I show you how to catch fish. He came into camp with about 20 grey snappers.
Morton hooked some big bones up that creek where it splits into small channels but they are really hard to land in those conditions. We went to a big flat just around Nor West Point and found some big bones and cudas but no tarpon.
This morning very early Morton spotted some tarpon rolling around the mouth of the creek. He got a couple shots but no hookup.
There was a little incident over there that got quite tense for a few minutes but we kept our cool and they left.
I should have started this the way the trip started. We were no more than 5 miles out of Andros Town when I noticed in my mirror Hank pulling off the side of the road. I pulled off when I could and waited and waited but no Hank. I found a place to turn around and there they were on the side of the road with a broken axle on the boat trailer. Luckily Hank’s friend Allie lives just down the road and his other friend Mitchell lives nearby as well. First Allie comes with his backhoe and then Hank borrows another trailer from Mitchell. At this time I’m thinking this trip is off. Allie tells me no problem mon we get dis ting go no time—and they did. Pics of that also. In less than an hour we were back on the road headin to Red Bays.
My friend Gerald in Red Bays was waiting for us along with smiling George. He’s the one with the turbin type hat. Both of them are a wealth of info about the numerous creeks and bights on the way down to Williams Island. They know where there are lots of tarpon but they never fish for them just because they are not good to eat so why bother. They live off the sea so their after lobster, snapper and such. They told me of a creek that is loaded with tarpon and big bones. I found it on the map and can’t wait til next trip to check it out.