| December 2006 |
 |
Feliz Navidad from Vieques.
A
few weeks ago, my wife Amanda and I drove our Jeep down to a
small beach house just past the Bravos neighborhood here on
Vieques. The place was under construction and the owner wanted
some updates before she started renting it for the season. While
Amanda, the rental manager for Island Real Estate, was shooting
photos, I checked out the beach. It was a little breezy that
afternoon, but the place had a promising shallow flat right out
front. On a calm day I could imagine a renter casting to
bonefish just twenty paces from the front door of this place.
What interested me even more was the small arroyo, a rainwater
fed stream, running through the mangrove trees on the property’s
edge and out toward the ocean. This looked really promising and
I watched its dark surface for a long time.
There are dozens of arroyos all over Vieques. Most are steady
trickles from the mountains but a few turn into real torrents
during the rainy season that can take out roads and bridges.
This particular arroyo at the rental house was one of the
trickles, with banks no more than eight feet wide. It was
covered with a tunnel of red mangroves that made it impossible
to see more that thirty feet up its path. The branches
themselves were loaded with nesting snowy egrets, a magnificent
bird whose breeding feathers were once highly prized as fashion
accessories. In the early 1900’s their plumage was actually more
valuable in weight than gold, and for that they were shotgunned
in their nests by the ton. This Vieques colony has been thriving
for some time since egrets have long been a protected species
throughout the Americas, and plumed hats are over a century out
of fashion.
Just beneath the egret nests, every few seconds, I saw a dimple
on the water’s surface. That told me a fish of some kind was
lurking below. Since this was a freshwater creek leading to the
saltwater, I had an idea of what it might be and really wanted
to catch it. I went back to my Jeep and grabbed a 5-weight fly
rod, perfect for freshwater, and the smallest fly in my box, a
#8 shrimp pattern. On that morning the arroyo actually
dead-ended on the beach, half way to the ocean. Less than
fifteen feet of sand separated it from the surf. A high tide or
heavy rain would push through the small sand bar and bring the
arroyo together with the sea. This made a perfect spot to cast
and I stood with my back to the surf, aiming my fly less than
thirty feet up the narrow path in the mangroves. My first shot
went five feet above the water’s surface and into the branches.
I needed to rediscover my trout fishing skills for this. The
second cast snagged a leaf two feet lower but a slight twitch of
the rod tip shook the fly loose and into the water. I gave the
floating line a few short strips and saw a quick yellowish flash
under the surface. The line came tight and I lifted the rod to
pull my catch away from the submerged mangrove roots. At that
moment, the small fish came flipping across the surface and a
few seconds later landed at my feet under the pressure of the
eight pound tippet. It was a perfect baby snook, less than a
foot long, yanked from its freshwater nursery of the arroyo.
Snook are actually a saltwater game fish, one of the most highly
prized, and finding juveniles in freshwater is not uncommon
Similar in many ways to largemouth bass, they lurk deep in the
mangroves where they wait and ambush their prey with violent
strikes. They’re easily distinguished from other fish by a very
pronounced black line running from head to tail that gives them
their Florida nickname of “Linesider.” Several species of snook
are common throughout the tropics and all of Florida, with the
very largest growing in excess of fifty pounds. They’re a hard
pulling fish that can also make impressive leaps into the air in
an effort to shake loose a hook. Even more impressive are a
couple of their fillets covered in garlic butter being taken off
a 400 degree grill. Their pure white meat is so prized and
delicious that you can’t legally buy them anymore in the States
or here in Puerto Rico. Snook have been listed as a protected
game fish for decades now to protect them from over-harvesting.
If you want to experience a grilled snook fillet, and trust me
you do, you have to catch one yourself.
Two of those white fillets coming off my grill someday were
exactly what I was thinking about as I popped the fly from the
little snook at my feet. I turned him over a few times, admiring
his perfection, before shoving him back to the security of the
freshwater mangroves. Back up in the arroyo there are no
predators and he’ll grow. After a year or so and a few more
pounds, the right high tide or rainstorm will open his nursery
to the sea and he’ll head out and really start to get big. Eat
or get eaten will be his motto for the next few years in order
to stay alive in the saltwater. Hopefully, he’ll spawn many
times in those years. Then I’d like to meet him again, out in
the ocean on my boat, after he’s packed on about a dozen pounds.
Maybe he’ll fall for another fly up near Laguna Kiani on the
western tip of Vieques, like many of his cousins have before.
And since I rarely keep enough ice in my cooler, he may get
lucky that time, too.
Capt. Gregg McKee,
WildFly Charters
