By: Andre Van Wyk

Living on a tiny tropical island in the Caribbean may have some disadvantages. I just never figured out what they were. For a Natal South Coast fishing addict the Cayman Islands were and absolute paradise. Crystal clear 29 degree flat calm waters year round, fantastic exotic species to fish for and only working 3 maybe 4 days a week makes for a rather perfect existence for a 22 year old!

Not that work ever kept me from the ocean in anyway as I worked as a fulltime charter boat captain so I was on the water everyday, work or not running snorkel and dive charters or fishing so life was all around a rather enjoyable affair. My best mate and I, another South African, Dylan Balfour spent basically all our free time fishing as much of the island as we could. From offshore trolling for tuna, Wahoo and barracuda to bottom fishing the reefs at night for snapper and grouper, to the crystal clear shallow flats for bonefish to the mangrove ponds and channels and estuaries for tarpon and kingies we did it all. The great thing about Cayman is that although a lot of people fish, it is mainly a subsistence type hand line affair in regular spots for little panfish. The game fish populations inshore on the flats and in the mangroves, although not radically abundant, went about there lives relatively unharassed by anglers.

Now Dylan and I both grew up on a steady diet of light tackle and fly fishing and being both of the adventurous spirit Cayman became our oyster. We spent days and days exploring the island, about 75% of which is uninhabited, looking for secret honey holes full of our favourite quarry, Megalops Atlanticus, Tarpon.

Once you catch, or should I say hook one of these puppies, as a fisherman you are changed forever. Blistering speed, unstoppable power and the aerial antics to put any tigerfish or largemouth bass to shame turned them into our prime target for a good part of the year. We started chasing them in the tiny mangrove creeks leading off the North Sound, a large coral lagoon with a lattice work of mangrove creeks and canals leading off it with everything from deerhair sliders on the long rods to soft plastics on the spinning sticks and top-water walk the dog lures when we came across schools of fish busting bait along the beaches. Most fish ranged anywhere from 1 to 30 pounds and in those smaller sizes the aerial show from these silver plated missiles is tough to describe. Fishing up under mangrove canopies we had numerous fish, upon hitting a fly, launch themselves three or 4 feet out of the water right into the trees and there would be a mad scramble into the mangroves to rescue our prized quarry to return them safely to the water to grow bigger and fight another day.

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