From “Undercurrents” in The Mission Issue 23: When Alex McLeod of Omnispool (manufacturers of the nifty Switchbox line management system) landed on the remote Seychelles island of St Brandon’s, he found himself in bonefishers’ heaven.  The gods were smiling on him and life was just peachy.  He relaxed. He dropped his guard.  Then things changed and, all of a sudden, the hunter became the prey.

St. Brandon’s. Having navigated across the deep blue sea for 36 hours we’d finally landed on the island and in what seemed to be the undiscovered middle of nowhere.  We had immediately got stuck into the most truly prolific bonefishing on the planet.

A few days later, there were four of us fanned out in an angled line that eventually arrived at a point where the huge flat we were fishing on dropped suddenly away into a deep inside channel. While the rest of us were busy picking off yet more bonefish, the guy closest to the drop off started whooping about a small pack of GTs cruising the drop off. His message was that we should vamoos over there.

“This big boy just hung there eyeing me as I readied the blunt end of the fly rod – a defensive toothpick that did not bring much comfort.”

The first guy up cast and hooked the biggest GT. More crazed hollering and then the second in line joined him and hooked the next one. While the rest of us waded over as fast as we could to get there, further screeching revealed that the other two fish in the pack were trying to take the flies out of the mouths of the hooked ones. Soon, number three was hooked. I eventually pulled up last to see the runt of the litter still plucking at trailing feathers.  I dropped a cast and we had four geets on at once.  The mayhem was memorable. GT Mayhem.  I don’t think any of us had experienced a day like it before, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

One of the fishermen, Huberto, had sighed earlier, as if in a daydream, that he was, “just all boned out” (fine in context). He even suggested that he was going to stop fishing.  I pointed out that it was very possible he might never have another bonefishing experience quite like this in his life and that he really ought to stop being so blasé and fish the flat to its end.

Read the rest of the encounter below in The Mission Issue 23. As always, it’s free.

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