The American Airlines 737 taxied down the runway cut out of the jungle.  We stepped through the door, gave a quick wave to the locals on the viewing deck, and clambered down the stairs to the tarmac.  The Belizien government rubber stamped us and we were in.  As we loaded our luggage into the "cab", an early 80's Toyota held together with bailing wire and duct tape, the next driver - a total rasta dude - mumbled "da boogie mon ganna geh yoo".  Our driver drove the 20 min into town as if he believed it.  Mad accelerations around sputtering, rocking buses and delivery trucks, screeching halts for the sleeping policemen (oversized speed bumps)...   We stayed at the Great House in Belize City, out on a point with a lighthouse.  Its an old Colonial home with a dozen or so rooms and a good patio bar and restaurant.

Nearby we found a government-operated Belizean Crafts shop to continue our quest for inexpensive art for the bare walls in our Harlingen, TX home.  We chatted up the gals who ran the shop while picking up some primitive oils and a Kriol "dictionary".  Charlotte hails from tiny Placencia, our objective, and proceeded to tell us about it.  Small town, only about four families represented in the "business" (fishing guides, restaurateurs and hoteliers) community.  Be sure to say "hi" to her sister, Merlene who has a restaurant we should check out.  Cezanne had Charlotte fill out a postcard for Merlene and committed to deliver it.  Charlotte topped Cezanne's generosity by taking us to a Chinese bar/store down the street, where she translated (Belizeans speak English, but a very Rasta-like form) while we bought the ingredients for the ever-popular "Paanti Rippah" - that's coconut rum and pineapple juice.

Sara Randle, co-organizer, arrived just in time for the first Rippah, which turned out to be a mild, sweet, low-risk afternoon libation.... thank goodness.  All of Sara's previous Belize City experience had been with fairly respectable people, so she'd never tried the casino at the Princess Hotel.  Yep, the Russian dancers were still there, but the horse racing machine, on which Suzy Spitfire had delivered so handsomely last year, wasn't paying any long shots.  Collectively, we must have lost 200 Belizean quarters over the evening.

Much of the following day was spent at the B.C. airport, as we just weren't in the mood for the Zoo, any more shopping or Mayan ruins.  Much of B.C. gathers on the "waving deck" to watch arrivals and for the best airport dining in the world.  Get this:  wild boar was one of the Saturday specials.  Before long, our gang had arrived and we were on the twelve seat'er bound for Placencia, where the airport is new and really cute.  But the runway was last paved sometime around WWI.  It runs east/west across the entire width of the narrow peninsula.  The eastern end bumps across the one lane local highway and then drops off into the Caribbean and the western end is packed coral extending into a mangrove lagoon.  Placencia is situated on the southern end of the peninsula, its beach is configured like an "L".  The short leg is a sandy walk, which takes one past our six-room tropical paradise (Dianni's Guest House) then beyond the Moorings dock and related lodge and on down to Merlene's Cafe (yes, Charlotte's sister) where we were to eat almost all our meals.  The long leg is a paved sidewalk, with restaurants, craft shops, lodgings, bars, homes stretching for about a mile.  Placencia looks pretty good for a place which was pummeled by a hurricane just four years ago.

Sara and Steve, Blue Ribbon Flies, prefer Belize fly fishing trips over winter in West Yellowstone.  Can you imagine?  Eight of us:  three Michiganders, one New Yorker, a summer Montanan couple (2004 FFF Conclave acquaintances) and the two of us.  Half the group was there for their initial salt water experience; they would primarily fish lagoons and river mouths, where fishing from the boat was most productive.  Half, plus Sara and Steve, would join their guide at 7am daily for the 45 min. panga ride out to the flats.  Many keys dot the protected expanse of water within the world's second largest barrier reef.  And while several of the keys are bordered by flats, the wily permit (our quarry) frequents open water flats, unconnected to the mangrove islands.    Since the water is perfectly clear, the shallow flats are very obvious and easy to find, so long as the sun is high.  About 5:30pm, though, they become invisible (navigation challenge) as do other important features, such as fish.

Our guide, Daniel, was a really interesting dude.  Youngest of 13, he grew up on one of the tiny keys off Placencia.  He's one of the world's few light-skinned masters of the Belizean rasta-dialect Kriol talk.  Makes him seem/sound like a ventriloquist's dummy, in a way.  But, that's not all.  His sponge-like mind has absorbed all sorts of American TV speech patterns.  One moment he's a tall Texan, the next Yogi Bear or Frank Nitti.  Amazing.  Daniel gets very excited in the presence of permit, the ultimate fly fisher's quest.  The process:  Motor the panga (national boat of Mexico) up to a flat, kill the engine, coast into the shallows.  One fisherman mounts the foredeck with fly in left hand, rod in right and about 50' of line ready to fire.  However, the fishing hood ornament never casts.  Instead, Daniel poles the boat along the leeward edge of the flat till he (or Cezanne, as she has bionic eyes) spots some black sickle-shaped tails in the distance (feeding permit) or permit-created nervous water.  Water disturbed by swimming fish is tricky to read, as it could be rays, small sharks or 'cudas, box fish, trigger fish, parrot fish, needle fish, mullet...  the permit must be ID'd.  Permit spotted, like Navy Seals, we slither off the panga - fishing person and Daniel to stalk the permit.  Remaining person to haul the panga a hundred feet or so behind.  Daniel determines which way they are swimming (as they lead a life of random motion and extreme spookiness, this isn't easy or always accurate) and off he goes, with the highest speed possible, commensurate with the stealthiness required by the permit's proximity.  Person with rod tries to keeps up with him.  In thigh-deep water, it's surprising how fast you can silently move - a little swirl and coral crunching underfoot.  Shin-deep is loud at most any speed and ankle deep requires slipping each foot into the air and silently re-entering it with each step.

If the permit (usually groups of two to five fish) move rapidly down the flat, Daniel moves quickly to ankle depth and takes off in a mad sprint to get around them.  The ideal tactic is to position oneself upwind and up-sun (so you can see them) of the group directly in their general path.  If all goes well, they won't see us and will scrounge around on the bottom for small crabs, while we cast a faux crab into their path, just ahead of the lead fish.  There's a lot of chance involved in all this, but a skillful guide and accurate casts with silent fly landings really increase the odds.  Usually a 50-70 foot cast is called for, but a busy permit may swim to within about 15 feet of man.
 

They are so spooky:  clouds, frigate bird shadows, boat sounds, coral crunching sounds (apologies for crushing millions of tiny micro-organisms) sometimes the natural wave of a sea fan sends them off in a dead sprint causing emotional fisherman trauma accompanied by all sorts of Rasta-expletive.    Nothing does it quicker, though, than a fly line landing directly overhead.  Overshooting them is terminal.  Swirl, splash and the disappointed permit stalkers watch them jet off the flat to surrounding beautiful blue deep water.  The Placencia flats drop off as precipices to bottoms hundreds or thousands of feet below.  Pretty cool, huh?  If a permit takes your fly, it instantly runs, taking the fly line and backing off your reel at high speed.  Any tangle or kink at this point and the 15 pound leader will snap.  If the fish is still on at this point, the plan was that Daniel would sprint to the panga, rip around the flat, pick up the fisherman and head to deep water before the permit can saw the fly line in two on the finger coral growing on the cliff edge.  Fifteen or twenty minutes later, a lucky angler may photograph the permit.
 

Our first day was sunny and a rare windless one, ideal permit spooking conditions.  We each cast tentatively, anxious to gently present the fly.  The result of these "lobs" was cannon-ball kerplunks in the path of soon-to-spook permit. The wind did pick up in the afternoon, but then the permit were not to be found.  We learned the hard way, that if your guide puts on his rain jacket for the ride home the "tooris" should too.  We were absolutely soaked from hats to boots.  We sloshed our way past our cocktail sipping friends and into the shower.

One day we raced an ominous incoming rainstorm.  We had just enough time to catch up with and cast to school of permit (no they were not interested), climb into the boat, don the rain jackets and hunker down for a short speedy ride to an abandoned fishing hut on one of the mangrove islands (used loosely as the total dry land sq ft was about 300 feet).  We hopped ashore as the first drops arrived.  During the downpour we munched on a delightful lunch of conch fritters and coke (in glass bottles) on a rough hewn table, under a palm frond palapa.  Daniel took a 15 min 'lay up'.

Another day we stopped for lunch on a slightly larger island currently inhabited by 3 rasta fisherman and 2 "scooby doos".  They are friends of Daniels.  Our only regret of the trip is not taking a photo  of the senior member of the crew - but here it is in less than 1000 words:  Tall, ebony black, wearing t-shirt and long shorts; had most of his teeth; brilliant white dreadlocks and beard; matching white frame old school Oakley sunglasses.  Guess we'll have to go back.  We shared our chicken salad and Belikins - Belize's beer, they popped the caps off with their teeth - Daniel said they were being "rambo".  Off for more permit chasing - the fishermen think we are nuts - den yoo let dehm go!?!

The guides were disappointed by the 'lack of water'.  Our low tides were really low, exposing entire flats that are usually under water.  Most of our high tides were also low - not covering the 'boulders" (dishwasher sized hunks of coral thrown up on the flats by the last hurricane).  This low water was tough on the fishing as the permit don't feel comfortable coming up onto flats in skinny water.  Despite this we did find fish and our casting really got hot as the week progressed, with each of us averaging about five bonafide fly presentations daily.  Driving the message home, after a week of great shots, trying every crab fly known to man, on his last fish Bob placed a perfect shot, landing one under the nose of a tailing fish at about 70', and was (as they say) given the tail.  We never did get one.  Steve got one the first day and the New Yorker nabbed one in the lagoon on the last day.  Killing time to high tide daily, we cast at many disinterested tarpon in romantic cayes, caught bones, 'cuda, jacks and snapper on the flats and devoured Marlene's lobster salad sandwiches.

On the last morning we were again met with low water on the high tide and though we walked the flat for an hour, squinting into the early morning sun we did not spot any permit.  So Daniel took us to visit his buddies on a shrimp boat - a  85' trawler, with a huge boom off each side.  Off the boom is a wooden "door" and a mass of chain.  The shrimpers drag the apparatus along the sea floor - about 200 feet down, the chain raking and scaring up all the critters on the bottom.  They are then swept up in the trailing nets (a gate at the end of the net allows for larger fish to escape - theoretically anyway).  Every 5-6 hours they pull the nets up and dump the contents on the back deck - we climbed aboard just after the most recent catch had been expelled - wow - what a diverse menagerie of squishy, wiggly, flapping creatures.  Cap'n Something (we never did catch his name, although he confessed to also being a Robert) identified about 20 different types of fish we'd never seen before - including a toadfish which really does look more like a toad than fish.  There were surprisingly few shrimp though.  He said he gets about 40 lbs of shrimp on a good pull - out of about a pickup truck load of everything else.  (waiting for the plane the next day we read a scathing article on the shrimping industry in the local paper - they are all Costa Rican owned boats that have fished out the Costa Rica sea bed - of course Cap'n had given us an earful on the negatives of shrimp farming - so.....)  Anyway, we tried the local version of fishing - hand lining.  you take a piece of styrofoam with a hundred feet of 100 lb monofilament line wrapped around it - on the end is a hook with chunks of shrimp heads or 'by catch' fish, and a mini-donut sized piece of lead.  You flip the mess off the stern of the boat and let out line until you are near the bottom - the water is so clear you can see at least 50 feet down.  Once you see or feel a bump, you give the line a jerk and start pulling it up hand over hand into the boat - Bob, Daniel and Cezanne each caught a few small jacks and snapper.  Cap'n then showed us why he is da boss mon as he pulled in a 30 lb red snapper.  We left the crew to their sorting and headed off to look for more permit.

Placencia is an ideal spot to visit.  You may say, "... but, Belize is the most expensive country in Central America."  True, but it's the least expensive country in the Caribbean.  From Placencia all sorts of day trips are offered:  Monkey River panga cruise, Mayan ruins visits, all sorts of snorkel and scuba adventures, kayaking among the keys, fabulous sail chartering (stay away from those flats)... what a place.  Lodging and meals were excellent and about the same price as Sand Point, Idaho.  Fun shopping along Placencia's sidewalk - we picked up some cool carved masks (you better not be reading this, Lexi) and a surprise for Dad's upcoming birthday.  Merlene's daughter, Yoli (would you believe she used to live in the BC Okanagan?) has almost completed an elegant palapa-styled bar across from her mother's cafe - out over the water.  Our big farewell party christened Yoli's new place:  ice chest of Belikins, a few liters of One Barrel rum, with our various hosts contributing a huge whole baked snapper and platters of BBQ'd ribs and chops.  (Meat and construction materials are purchased from the Mennonites, two hours inland.)  Abiding by Alexander's Rule of Punta-Rock (never, never dance with a Belizean woman) the tired fishermen called it a day, while our hosts headed for live music and dancing till three.

Great time.  Back home with the girls - they've had their fill of the Smith Ranch Kennel for a while.  Picked up the scooter and took our maiden voyage yesterday.  All checks out.  Now we just need to learn how to pole.  Off for some fishing...