Saltwater Flats Fly Fishing in Mexico

Cory Glauner
March, 2017

I was excited when Kent Goodman (who has been fishing here for years) asked me to come along on this fishing trip, as I had never gone saltwater fishing in my life. I had no idea what to expect, so he helped me gear up and let me borrow a lot of his stuff. We knew that the weather wasn’t going to be great when we arrived, but hoped for a few good days of fishing towards the end. And that’s just what happened.

Don’t Trout Set!

P.S. I did take this picture of me with the mounted permit in the lodge and sent it to my buddies back home as a practical joke. They called me a number of bad names… LOL[/caption]

We struggled the first few days through wind, rain and just general all-around tough conditions. I caught a few bonefish, some ‘cuda, jacks, snook and got a strike by a good tarpon (DON’T TROUT SET!), but no shots at permit, and then the weather got better.

The last few days were amazing. By then, I kind of felt like I knew what I was doing, I wasn’t trout setting anymore, and everybody in the group got shots at permit (I got 6 really good shots but no takes), and two of the guys in our group caught one. I slayed the bonefish, and caught a pretty good lemon shark on the second to the last day, and that was amazing. Wow, bonefish fight hard! I even went snorkeling on the reef on the last afternoon.

One morning John and I were fishing with Jose and we poled a flat next to an island that was just perfectly beautiful. I was up front, and didn’t do a great job of looking for fish because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the scenery. The colors were vibrant blues and greens against the white sand of the beach and the green trees above that. Highlighted against the green foliage was a flock of flamingos…. it was postcard perfect. That 20 minutes was worth the price of admission, even though we didn’t even cast to a fish.

All in all, flats fishing was absolutely what I thought it would be and more. Not only was the location and the fishing great, the lodging, staff and owners were amazing. And, while I didn’t catch that permit I was after, I did catch Permit Fever and I will be back!

If you’re looking for a classic fly fishing trip where you can catch a number of species and get away from winter back home…. and that won’t break the bank, this is it.