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Post Hurricane Report on Pesca Maya Lodge
Ascension Bay, Mexico
By Dennis Morgan
My wife, Jana, and I spent a week at Pesca Maya; Nov. 12-18, 2005. We were only the second guests to visit the lodge since Hurricane Wilma hit the Yucatan in October. There had been one guest there the prior week.
We flew into Cancun on Friday, Nov. 11. Devastation in the area was widespread. Nearly every tree in the area had been broken; there were brush and debris piles all along the roads. But the extent of recovery was impressive given the magnitude of the hurricane. One advantage was that the normally crowded Cancun airport was nearly deserted.
We were picked up at our hotel on Saturday afternoon by the Pesca Maya van. The road from Tulum to Pesca Maya was still closed due to hurricane damage, so we went down the central Yucatan highway and took a dirt road through the Sian Kian Biosphere to a point roughly west of Punta Allen. From there we had a short 10-minute ride to Pesca Maya.
The hurricane destroyed the four guest cabanas closest to the ocean and damaged the roof on the central dining palapa. The remaining cabanas were in good shape, but the beach was very littered. Lodge owner Rogerio had a crew in the week we were there to begin demolishing the four cabanas, re-roof the palapa and clean the beach.
 We were housed in a very large modern home just north of the lodge. The kitchen/bar facilities were also moved there until the cleanup could be completed. The home was beautiful, and the room we were provided was very comfortable, with a great view of the ocean. One plus from the hurricane is that when all the new work is completed, they will have a much larger beach, as the storm deposited a lot of sand there. The plan is to build four to six new cabanas further back from the water, and to put a stone wall around the palapa to protect it from future wave damage.
 Fishing for the week was generally very good. I spent four days primarily bonefishing, one day seeking tarpon/barracuda and the last day doing a little of everything. The waters to the North of Pesca Maya were quite dirty due to runoff from Boca Pailla (hurricane effects). I'm not sure how long it will take for these to clear up. Waters to the west and south were very clear.
The weather was not ideal. Winds were strong with 25 to 40 mph gusts, and most days had cloud cover at least part of the day. The combination made bonefish hard to see in the deeper flats. Nevertheless, my guide Manuel took me to a number of very shallow flats where we could spot the fish by their tails or from the water they pushed. Each of the four days, we saw at least 100 bonefish, and I had the opportunity to cast to many of them.
The fish were very spooky; Manuel said they had been that way since the hurricane; he was not sure why. They were also very unpredictable. One fish would ignore a fly cast three feet in front of it; the next would spook if the fly hit six feet away, and many spooked just from the shadow of the fly line. I am not an experienced bonefisherman, with only one prior saltwater trip and one day of bonefishing. I often struggled to see fish but got better as the week went on. I hooked 30 to 35 fish in the four days, and landed 25 to 30 of them.
I was pleasantly surprised by the size of the fish. The smallest I caught was about two pounds; the typical fish was probably two to three pounds, and I landed several over four pounds, including one that was five to six pounds. I had a larger one break me off.
Most of the bonefishing was done while wading the very shallow flats. We spent some time fishing deeper water from the boat, but the wind made it hard for me to see those fish. Manuel had no trouble; he had eyes like a frigate bird. He was a superb guide. He was very patient when I couldn't see the fish or when I messed up a cast, and he worked constantly. His English was quite adequate.
I did learn one thing that might be useful for others who fish with guides for whom English is a second language. Most of my first day I struggled to see the fish. Manuel would say, "Ten o'clock; 50 feet." I'd look but couldn't see it. Early on the second day, after not seeing the first two fish Manuel spotted, I pointed to a small mangrove and asked Manuel how far away it was. He said 40 feet. It was more like 60 feet. After that I knew to look quite a bit further away than his stated distance and that helped. Next trip I'll know to calibrate that right away.
I mentioned this to the lodge owner and suggested he might do some distance calibration with his guides. This was further reinforced later in the week when the assistant guide on the boat, whose English was pretty poor, spotted a fish and called out, "Ten meters." It was about 70 feet away. I pretty quickly figured out "ten meters" was the only distance he knew in English.
I spent one full day looking for tarpon and barracuda, blind casting into the mangroves. While we moved three small tarpon, none hit the fly. Similarly with barracuda. We saw a lot of large barracuda on the flats during the week, but most were out of casting distance.
On the last morning a cold front that had been moving in for a couple days turned nasty. The winds were very strong, the temperature dropped, and it was spitting rain. Manuel suggested we spend the morning looking for permit or barracuda. We went north of the lodge into a lagoon that was quite cloudy. I blind cast for about 30 minutes with no success. Manuel spotted a fish about 150 feet away moving from the mangroves out towards our boat. As it came closer, he realized it was a permit.
He handed me my permit rod. By then the fish was tailing about 25 feet from the boat. The cloudy water was a help; in clearer water I doubt we'd have gotten that close. I made one cast directly into the wind. The fly landed about 18 inches in front of the fish. I let it sink for a second, then started to strip. The fish hit the fly on that first strip. Twenty-five minutes later I landed a 20-pound permit; my first. It was ridiculously easy given their reputation, almost surreal. We spent the last afternoon bonefishing a shallow flat. While we only got a couple of fish that day, one was my largest of the trip.
Another angler arrived at the lodge on Monday, Nov. 14. This was his fourth or fifth trip to Pesca Maya, and he was hoping to get a grand slam. His first day, he got a small tarpon and a number of bones, but no permit. Over the next few days he reported seeing about a dozen permit and casting to most of them, but they would not take the fly.
My wife thoroughly enjoyed the week. She does not fish, but spent one day with me wading the flats, and very much enjoyed spotting fish and birds, including flamingos, roseate spoonbills, all kinds of herons, ibis, cranes, ospreys and fish eagles. She also spent some time snorkeling. She said the hurricane had done a lot of damage to the reef, and the water was a bit murky, but she still saw fish. She spent one day on a boat trip to visit Mayan ruins and another half-day looking for dolphins. She spotted a mother and baby dolphin. The rest of her time she read on the beach.
Food was very good. Breakfast was made to order. Dinner was fresh fish, chicken, beef and lobster. The chef is great. He made fresh ceviche as an appetizer almost every day. My only wish would have been for more vegetables/salads with dinner. Lunches were uninspiring but adequate; typically sandwiches, chips, fruit and a cookie.
Overall, I was very pleased with this trip. An experienced bonefisherman could easily have hooked 30 to 40 fish per day on several of the days. Landing a permit was something I had not expected. It would have been a very satisfactory trip without that, but it certainly added a highlight to that last day. - Dennis Morgan.
(Postscript: Morgan booked this trip through The Fly Shop at 800-669-3474.)
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