Xcalak, Mexico – When choosing a companion for an excursion to bonefish heaven near this little-known enclave in southern Yucatán, may we suggest a white heron. Or at least a reasonable facsimile.
It works something like this.
Where mangrove roots frame a shallow lagoon, perhaps the diameter of a couple of long city blocks, schools of bonefish circle like carousel horses in front of a Denver angler mesmerized by the spectacle.
How many bones, or even the number of separate pods, never can be fully determined. The only thing that matters is they keep coming and that on nearly every pass, a fish separates to grab a shrimp imitation as if it is the last morsel left on earth.
Another circuit, another cast, another bonefish pulling a ridiculous amount of line against a stout drag. Finally, arms heavy and perhaps even a teeny bit bored, the angler tries to make some sense of it all. Off in a far corner, a deeper channel beckons the fish to the open expanse of Chetumal Bay and relief from this nonsense.
The reason they do not leave soon becomes apparent. A heron, ghostly pale and a yard tall, is positioned at the neck of the passage; perhaps from some primordial chip fused to the brain, the fish plainly fear it. So they twirl again, each time showing a little less interest in the fly, until finally, both fish and fishermen grow equally weary of it all.
So it is with bonefish at a place most American anglers – infatuated with highly publicized operations in nearby Ascension Bay and Belize – have never even heard of.
The centerpoint is Xcalak, a tiny village of Mayan descendents interspersed with Yanqui beach homes that is the last knuckle on the final finger where the Yucatán Peninsula trails off toward Central America.
It is not surprising that bonefish here are thick as ants at a picnic, and with so few anglers to shoo them away, almost as persistent. What defies rationale is that, between two bookends of Ascension and Belize, they also are bigger.
Yet here they are, 3 or 4 pounds instead of 2 to 3. Frank Praznik, a Fort Collins fly shop owner, has witnessed the disparity at the three locations and can find no explanation, except that it is true. Nor can Dick Anderson, a flats veteran from Leadville.
“Not just bigger, but dumber,” Anderson said of the two finest traits any bonefish might possess.
Add to this a heady mix of permit, baby tarpon and snook, along with a certain sense of discovery, and one finds all the ingredients for a prime saltwater flats getaway.
Permit, a species that might thwart an angler for a lifetime, cruise in broad schools inside a barrier reef that catches the surf a mile offshore and along the several channels leading into the broad expanse of Chetumal Bay.
Baby tarpon, occasionally up to 40 pounds, prowl lagoon nurseries tucked inside interior mangrove thickets. Snook, seasonal and sometimes temperamental, can be almost anywhere.
It is a place where world-class diving awaits just offshore on the famed Chinchorro Banks, where emerald rivers flow underground beneath layers of limestone and the ruins of ancient temples lure visitors on sightseeing trips.
Locals believe these Mayan spirits still prowl the land, drifting among them in the form of friendly animals. If this is true, then surely one of them is a heron.
