Four of us (Phil, Mike, Steve and Vernon) fished at Tobacco Caye, Belize from July 3-8 with guides Bruce Leslie and Ian Cuevas from Placencia. Tobacco is a 5 acre caye on the barrier reef about 12 miles from Dangriga. It sits on a 1/4 mile wide break in the reef and tarpon and lots of other fish stay there and wait for food. A typical day of fishing was up at 4:15 for a cup of coffee and fishing in the channel by 5:00. We'd go in for breakfast around 8 and then either go back for tarpon or go look for permit. We usually ended the day with tarpon in the channel for dinner. The fishing for the 6 days can best be described as slow although we all hooked or caught tarpon and each of us cast to many permit each day. We also caught plenty of nice sized jacks, bonefish, and bonita. There were some blackfin tuna around that Mike and I fished for but we kept dropping them. We saw hundreds a tarpon in the channel which ranged from 30 pounds to close to 100. They did not really cooperate much and stayed out of range most of the time, but if we or they came close enough it was almost an instant hookup. For example, the one fish I landed was in a group of happy, lazy rolling fish. I made one cast, one strip and saw a fish flash and I missed him. Two more strips and I missed another and a few more strips and I hooked one. Pretty cool to have 3 eats on one cast. From past experience and Bruce's comments that is pretty typical in the Tobacco channel. This time the fish just stayed out of rnage most of the time. We also saw schools of a hundred permit under the boat several times and we assume they were feeding on shrimp. Also schools of dozens of large horseeye or cravelle jacks. They are a blast to catch but a pain when you cast into a school of happy tarpon and hook a jack. The permit fishing in the flats around Tobacco was excellent but just like permit everywhere its always a surprise when one eats. We saw many permit everyday and got excellent shots at 15 to 20 each per day. Only 3 eats for the trip and Vernon landed the only one. The weather was typical for the summer. Hot and humid with torrential rain that would last for an hour or more followed by sun. When there was no wind the humidity just about killed us. The accomodations and food were ok but nothing fancy.


Tobacco Caye


Steve with tarpon


Phil tarpon


Cabins


Mike and Bruce with big horseeye jack


We bought lobster from local fisherman to barbecue for dinner


Plenty of big cuda around


Cabins with the reef in the background


The bar


Sunrise over the reef


Vernon tarpon


Vernon with a permit. We saw some 25 pound permit.


jack cravelle


Fishing the channel