Yucatan Peninsula - My eyes are telling my brain that a fifteen pound Baby Tarpon just ate a Monarch Butterfly off of the water’s surface in the backcountry of Ascension Bay, in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. In the same instance my brain is telling the muscles in my arm to deliver my fly two feet left of the butterfly. The fly lands softly and sinks, the Tarpon gulps the butterfly and submerges. He sees my offering immediately. Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t have taken my fly away from him once he saw it. He grabs the fly, I set the hook, and he goes airborne instantly shaking every muscle. His elongated body is a massive pliable mirror reflecting everything into a blur of wild silver flashes.

Within an hour I am catching two pound bonefish, one after the next. The guide looks at me after the forth one and tells me this is a Baby Tarpon flat, and that he’d never seen a bonefish in this spot. “How long have you fished this spot” I ask. “Diez y ocho anos.” Eighteen years. There are no answers to the many mysteries of flats fishing. Each two pound bonefish becomes more precious than the next.

Why not look for Permit on the way back to the lodge? Which is exactly what we do. I see a twenty and a twenty five pounder swim head to tail across the bow of the boat. I take my best shot into the wind. It is not enough. I smile, shrug my shoulders and reel up, it is time for a Margarita. This was only the first day and I saw and cast at the super slam.

My Margarita is accompanied by a fresh ocean breeze. I get just the right amount of sand in my toes and sit back and listen intently to the waves breaking. Two Margaritas later this meditation is finally interrupted as other anglers return and crazy stories of the days events begin to fly. An “almost” Tarpon here, a landed Permit there, an iguana in the boat competes with stories of fishing in Mayan canals and dodging a rain squall only to find a school of forty five Permit. All I can think is “what will tomorrow bring, what about the rest of the week!?”

This is Ascension Bay, home to variety, mystery, and a pristine environment. To explore the bay is an immersion into an enduring environment tamed only by the Mayan culture. Since then only a few fishing lodges and locals have called these waters home. The fish that swim the bay now are the descendents of the fish that time and evolution put here eons ago.

Beyond the fishing my week is full of wonderful sights. Besides a plethora of Iguanas I see Fox, three kinds of Turkey, Crocodiles, Deer, Boa Constrictors, Guinea Fowl, and more. At night we walk the beaches by the light of the moon looking for Sea Turtles laying eggs on the beach. During the day it’s back to exploring flats, mangrove rivers, and skinny water bays. Fishing with Mexican guides I soon learn the essential Spanish; “Macabi, Sabalo, Robalo, y Permita”. Bonefish, Tarpon, Snook, and Permit. “Cerca” is near, “lejos” is far. The language reminds me of my immersion in this foreign land, and keeps me comfortable in the knowledge that my guide lives here and works annually over these waters. The guides are also the protectors of these waters and the surrounding jungle.

Mayan ruins stand sentry over Ascension Bay and I am reminded constantly of the past here. The waters and jungle remain in the form the Mayan culture used, and their historic, if not tragic and mysterious past is ever present in one’s journey here. Ascension Bay seems to be in very good hands presently. The United Nations contributes to the Sian Kan Biosphere which is nearly two million acres encompassing the bay. The locals understand a lively hood here comes from the life here and they watch over their resource. An angler can leave Ascension Bay and feel very, very comfortable in the fact that it will be here in it’s natural state for them to fish again and again, and for their grandchildren to fish when they have grandchildren of their own. Ascension Bay is a testament to a fishery gone right and has a future that looks as blue as the sky and water in and over the bay.