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				“Island of the Silver King” From April until August, swarms of tarpon and only a handful of anglers visit this little-known Mexican destination. Saltwater Fly Fishing Magazine By Phil H. Shook A fly fisherman can easily imagine worse fates than being stranded on Isla Holbox in the Yucatan-provided, of course, that he was stranded with a couple of stout saltwater outfits. On this tropical island perched on the cape separating the Caribbean from the Gulf of Mexico, visitors sleep under palm-shaded palapas, ceiling fans run on the sun's power, and shower heads are crafted from conch shells. Golf carts provide taxi service on the unpaved streets of this seacoast village, and open-air restaurants offer fresh seafood and idyllic views of the fishing fleet. In recent years , an increasing number of visitors have been fly fishers. They make the two-hour-plus drive from Cancun to the little port of Chiquila, and then take a half-hour ferry ride to a beachside hotel on Isla Holbox. The 27-mile-long island is reached by driving through a remote and sparsely populated part of the state of Quintana Roo. Once on Holbox (pronounced Hohl-bosh), visitors will find that flamingos easily outnumber tourists. These days, anyone arriving on the island with a 12-weight fly rod has either already heard of Capt. Alejandro Vega, known locally as "Sand Flea," or can find him at the Holbox Tarpon Club, a short walk down the beach from town. Here, Vega, an accomplished guide and panga captain, runs a charter service that gives anglers a front-row seat for the island's april-to-August tarpon migration. Drawn by swarms of sardines, tarpon form 70 to 180 pounds can be found in 8 to 30 feet of water just off the white beaches. Vega and his partners position fly fishers within a double haul of these fast-moving, hard-fighting Yucatan tarpon. Not since the once-heralded fishing in the Gulf of Campeche and on the Tamesi and Panuco Rivers of Tampico has a Mexican destination inspired such excitement in tarpon anglers. And in this case, fly fishes are benefiting most from the discovery. On a trip last June, my partner Mark Somers and I fished for three days at Isla Holboz, and each of us got dozens of casts at cruising fish. We jumped three fish between 70 and 120 pounds and released one estimated at 110 pounds. We also enjoyed watching other anglers fighting tarpon. While it was nice to have a little company, the biggest turnout was no more than five other pangas, virtually all of which held fly fishers sight-casting to the roaming schools of tarpon. Tarpon by the Ton The daily routine at Holbox calls for the guides to arrive just before dawn to pick up anglers in front of the beachside villas. The run down the coast can take from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on where the tarpon decide to hang out. The hunt begins at sun-up. On an ideal day, light winds and flat-calm seas make it easier to spot tarpon from a distance. Twelve-weight rods and intermediate lines or sinking shooting heads are perfect for delivering the goods to these fast-moving targets. Dark, Keys-style tarpon flies on size 4/0 or larger hooks work well. The Black Death, Vega's favorite fly pattern, has proved extremely effective at Isla Holbox. In the first hour or so of light, single fish start turning up. Then pods of fish began rolling on the surface, followed by larger schools of up to 20 fish that are sometimes stretched out like a chorus line. Once the guide locates the bigger concentrations of fish, he positions the panga so that the angler on the bow can make an accurate 60- to 90-foot cast to intercept the school. Once we began casting to fish, Vega reminded us not to lift the fly line out of the water until we had stripped in almost all of it, since these tarpon often take the fly right at the boat. Several times when tarpon appeared on all sides of the boat, Vega urged us just to drop the fly in the water. He was skilled at spotting approaching fish and getting us well positioned to make a cast. "See the black backs," Vega would call out when he spotted tarpon coming into range. Most of the strikes came at almost point-blank range in clear water and in plain sight of everyone in the boat. When one or more fish peeled off to chase the fly, everyone in the boat could feel the excitement. "He's coming, he's coming.strip.strip.strip.faster, faster, faster," Vega would implore. Thinking rationally while watching a 100-pound tarpon charge up and engulf your fly takes some practice. We learned early on, through trial and error, not to strike a fish when it appeared to swallow the fly, but to wait until we felt the hit. When my turn came on the casting deck, I had the advantage of these lessons and an almost perfect setup, with eight large tarpon suspended in the clear water about 60 feet away. All I had to do was land the fly near the pack and start making long strips. I will never forget the image of that fish charging up and inhaling the fly right in front of me. "I think he ate it," I heard Somers say just before I felt the jolt of the strike. Seconds later, the fish blew a hole in the water about the size of our panga. After all the fly line had cleared the deck, Vega said, "Okay-now set the hook." What followed was a two-hour fish-fighting seminar conducted by a Yucatan tarpon with a big girth. I was using a stout 12-weight rod with a 16-pound class tippet, and I did everything I could to keep maximum pressure on the fish, hoping to wear it down quickly. But after jumping three times at the start of the fight, the fish decided to make it a long and difficult battle in water 30 to 50 feet deep. As the first hour ground into the second, Vega and Somers offered encouragement, other panga captains dropped by to watch, and the fish just kept rolling toward Havana. As the second hour wound down, I finally felt the fish throwing its head around, giving me hope that I was taking some control. At one point late in the fight, I was able to flip the fish head over tail in an effort to disorient it. I thought that I had the fish whipped, but the last 15 minutes were the spookiest. At one point, the tarpon did its impression of a tuna, going deep in about 30 feet of water. All I could do was keep the rod in a tip-to-grip bend and try to put a few turns of fly line back on the reel. In the final few moments of the fight, as the fish and I both tried to summon a last bit of energy, I did everything I could to steer the fish to Vega, who was poised with the gaff.. Vega lip-gaffed the fish at about the same time that the tip of the fly rod snapped. After shooting a few photos, we spent a good amount of time reviving the fish at boatside. Over the next two days, Somers got a number of shots at fish, getting solid hookups on two large tarpon that unfortunately came unbuttoned during the aerial part of the fight. Backcountry Bonus In addition the action in open water, we also enjoyed sight-casting to juvenile tarpon in the network of estuaries and mangrove creeks in the interior of the island. Entering through small passes only a short distance from the big tarpon grounds, we motored slowly through narrow channels to a series of backcountry lakes where, besides baby tarpon, we saw sheepshead, snappers, and barracudas. Our first group of juvenile tarpon was cruising lazily, tight to the edge of a mangrove shoreline. When they formed a line and eased over a patch of sand, we would try to drop the fly lightly in front of the lead fish. If I landed the fly too close, the little tarpon would scatter, though they'd soon regroup and offer another opportunity. Once, after spotting a dark back moving toward a small opening in a mangrove channel, I dropped the fly at the intersection and watched as the fish saw it, charged up, and pounced on it. What we first thought was a baby tarpon turned out to be a 27-inch snook. After it made several heroic jumps, I had to snub it down to keep it out of the mangrove roots. Brought to hand at the boat, the voracious robalo, coughed up a 10-inch barracuda that it had recently captured in the lagoon. Later, after pushing mangrove branches out of the way along a narrow creek, we entered a small lake where I spotted a baby tarpon cruising slowly in open water. It snatched my dark streamer fly and instantly was in the air, eye-level with us. A New Destination Credit the partnership between Vega and Bill Marts, a globetrotting fly fisher and outfitter from Spokane, Washington, with putting Isla Holbox on the map. In 1995, Marts met Vega at a marina in Cancun and struck up a conversation with him about tarpon fishing in the area. Marts wanted to know if there was a fishable population of tarpon at Rio Lagaritos, a national park in the neighboring state of Yucatan. Vega said the fishing was okay in the park, but told Marts to come try the fishing where he lived, on Isla Holbox. So Marts arranged to meet Vega at Holbox, and then hosted several trips there in the late 1990s. On his first trips to Holbox, Marts and his group stayed at a small motel in the town. They discovered that while tarpon were indeed present in the local waters, air conditioning had not yet arrived on the island. Since then, AC units have made their way to Isla Holbox, though many of the beachside villas still rely solely on ceiling fans. Despite encountering high winds and tough fishing conditions on some of the early trips, many of the fly fishers landed tarpon and were intrigued by the island. At the same time, Vega added boats to his fleet and began exploring new areas around the island. "The commercial guys would tell him about the tarpon they were seeing when they were fishing for lobsters," Marts says. By then, Vega, who splits his time between gliding and teaching English at the local school, had added GPS and a trolling motor to the hunt. In the process, he has become an expert caster and one of the most skilled fly-fishing guides in Mexico. "I love this game," he often says after a successful day on the tarpon grounds. According to Marts, Vega also brought a strong sense of responsibility for his home waters, recognizing that itiis a fragile fishery that must be treated with care. "Sand Flea and his boys want to make sure there is a future and they want to be careful with the fish, " Marts says. The guidebooks stilll say that travelers must be willing to rough it a bit at Isla Holbox. For lucky fly fishers, roughing it is exactly what happens when they come tight to a Holbox tarpon. Phil Shook, one of our contributing writers, is a veteran of many trips to Central America. April/May 2003