SOUTHWEST FLY FISHING MAGAZINE | JACK SAMSON The Search for Big Bonefish Bonefish weighing in the double digits are hard to find and hard to catch but that’s what makes the fish so special. We were several miles west of the small southern Yucatan fishing village of Xcalak, and on the bonefish and permit flats it was hotter than the hinges of Hades. A broiling May sun beat down on the four of us: me, West Coast fly fisher Will Bauer, and our two guides, Nato and Jorge. We had been fishing all morning and had caught more than a dozen small bonefish and two permit of about four or five pounds each. It was fun, even though the mangrove islands cut off any breeze from the sea to our east, which left us feeling distinctly parboiled. “Ever see any big bonefish here, Nato?” Will asked the head guide. Nato…READ MORE

FISHERMAN MAGAZINE | C. BOYD PFEIFFER Costa de Cocos Variety Pack My wife Brenda cast the spoon, the lure making a long low-trajectory arc through the Mexico sky, landing in the open water far from shore. She started to retrieve. I was concentrating on catching, or trying to catch, one of the large snook cruising the mangroves along the shore where we drifted. I shouldn’t have bothered. Minutes later, Brenda “whooped.” The light-spinning rod bent into an arc and the line started to sing. Barracuda! Running circles and half circles around the boat, the cuda swam, jumped, danced and raced along the surface, typical cuda action, but bringing new meaning to the word fun while fishing .. Brenda grinned, and played the fish.   It was her first barracuda during her first trip to Mexico, and our first experience at Costa de Cocos, the southernmost camp you can find on…READ MORE

MOUNTAIN MURMUR ONLINE | JEFF WOGOMAN Xcalak Hurricane Fishing As a rocky mountain trout guy, born and bred, my first foray into fly fishing in salt waters came through Cloudveil’s Angling product manager Ned Hutchinson. He’d set up a trip through Brian Hodges, local friend and destination fishing maestro. There are a lot of cliques in fishing, probably worse than the snowboarder/skier/telemarker rift that I think has finally been resolved, one love. But in fishing, that rift is still solid, it’s a war of latitude. In fly fishing, if you’re a trout only angler, the saltwater crowd looks at you like, well, like you’re still riding with the training wheels on. In salt water it’s all about throwing big lines big distances, battling big fish who will take you into your backing big time. Us trout guys horse 16” cuts into the boat all day and if it starts to…READ MORE