Wonderful things happen in Belize, Central America. What a great place on earth. Every time we land in Belize City, we know that a unique adventure awaits us. What happens in Belize, apparently stays in Belize. The book has not been written yet. When you finally make it to Belize, we know you'll return home with your own action-filled journal and a strong urge to go back .
Thanks for helping to write the book.
Introduction:
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As you cruise the pages that follow, you'll find most everything you need to make a successful fly fishing trip to this tropical paradise. Getting into and around Belize is easy. Our destination section provides you with credible contact information for most any service needed to stalk Belize's prized game fish with a fly rod. Numerous travels to Belize have provided us with a wealth of Belize fishing knowledge. The contacts we've made continuously provide us with reel-time information. Every service operator mentioned in this site has more than proven their worth to us. If you can go to Belize often, you're lucky. If not, don't hesitate to call upon the services of our friends in Belize.
Belize Fly Shop is owned by The Trout Shop and sells only the best gear available. Sixteen years of being in the trout business has provided us with the luxory of having the best product lines in the industry. From the first time you hook a bonefish and it strips flyline off your reel at a rate of 20mph, you'll realize how important your equipment is. Bonefish are lightweights compared to permit and tarpon. Saltwater eats seemingly everything. Your gear has to withstand it. Bring your equipment with you. Little-to-no tackle is available for purchase in Belize. Your equipment will be stretched to the outer limits. If it breaks, you're stuck, especially if you are on a remote adventure (most of Belize is remote).
The Fishing
As the saying goes, "Bahamas is for bonefish, the Florida Keys is for Tarpon, and Belize is for Permit". One of the neat things about Belize is that you will encounter all three highly sought after species. Although Belize is a small country, fishing opportunities are large and varied. With only a short plane or boat ride, you'll find yourself in the midst of your own big game fish adventure. Tarpon outside of Ambergris Caye, permit from Ambergris to Punta Gorda, bonefish on the flats of the atolls, snook near the mainland; all within an hour or so plane ride....no reservations required. Fishing grounds are endless. Some of them have yet to be mastered.
Permit are found in abundant numbers from Ambergris Caye to Turneffe Island, from Whipray Caye to Southwater Caye, from Placencia to Punta Gorda. They're not easy to catch, but that's what makes fishing for them so much fun. It's not the catching that counts. Just being in Belize and seeking this paranoid species is worth your time. The thrill of the hunt will keep you going back to the world class flats of Belize.
Permit take a special place in the soul of Belize Fly Shop. Russell Thornberry, founder of D.O.P.A.P (Distinguished Order of Permit Angling Purists), describes his club members as "Fellow Sick-Os". You don't have to be nuts to chase Permit, but it helps. When you become an honorary member of D.O.P.A.P., you will have properly demonstrated an unnatural proclivity for self-inflicted frustration, disappointment, humiliation, and mental anguish during the guileless course of patrician piscatorial pursuits, inflicted primarily through unyielding consecration to the preclusive engagement of fly-fishing paraphernalia therein, and in as much as you have persevered with unwavering, single-minded pertinacity, forsaking all semblance of sanity and sound judgment, resultant in your fortuitous qualification for the Order's rare and exigent prerequisite through the imperious domination and subsequent liberation of a Trachinotus falcatus.Club membership requirement: Catch a Permit on a Fly Rod - the hard way.
Most fly rodders come to fly fishing for permit through bonefishing. They've usually spent untold hours on flats throughout the Caribbean, and other locations, developing their saltwater skills by catching and losing many, many, bonefish. The odd time the sickle fin of a permit would present itself for a brief moment and the angler will nervously make the cast, only to spook the fish by a variety of transgressions. He or she coughed, moved to quickly, cast too close, couldn't cast far enough: so many the little things that bonefish, in all their decency, will usually forgive an angler for. After catching hundreds of bones, and often times many more, the skills are fairly well honed and the angler is looking for a more challenging chase, where his or her skills will really be put to the test. Enter getting serious about fly fishing for permit! There are so few permit caught on a fly rod, when compared with the other traditional flats species, that many fly rodders tend to leave the permit to the hardened flats veterans, choosing instead to focus on the more easily caught species. This is a shame, because with a little bit of knowledge and yes, some luck, landing a permit on a fly rod is quite possible....Richard French, Belize Flats Fishing Expeditions
Not all the tarpon flats surrounding Ambergris Caye are fishable everyday due to changing weather conditions and currents, but generally speaking, Ambergris Caye provides good tarpon fishing all year round. The tarpon run from 10 to 100+ lbs.; the average winter fish is about 50 to 60 lbs. with the average summer fish being 90 to-150 lbs.....El Pescador, Ambergris Caye
Until the last decade, the fly fishing out of Ambergris Caye had been a well-guarded secret. However, when the quality of the tarpon and bonefishing started to get out, the area became a world famous fly fishing destination in just a few short years. Other than the heavily fished waters of Florida, there are few better places on earth to fish for tarpon than Ambergris Caye.
The numerous estuaries, inlets, and river mouths in and around Ambergris Caye tend to hold the brackish water that tarpon favor when foraging and breeding. The low salinity is a real magnet for breeding tarpon in particular. When the tarpon start to migrate out onto the flats and channels, sight casting to them is generally done in four to 12 feet of water.
At Turneffe Flats, Tarpon fishing is quite seasonal as tarpon are migratory. Tarpon numbers begin to increase in April or May and drop off in September or October with peak tarpon months being June, July, and August. Don't worry, permit and bonefish are plentiful. In one week in October, our camp landed fifteen permit, countless bonefish, and two tarpon.
Bonefishing at Turneffe Flats offers something for anglers of all levels of experience. Novice saltwater anglers can expect to see hundreds of bonefish providing a great opportunity to learn the basics of flats fishing. Experienced saltwater anglers find plenty of challenging fishing, particularly fishing to smaller schools and larger singles.
Bonefish are present in equal numbers throughout the year and they are on the flats most of the time. This differentiates Turneffe's bonefish from those in other areas, such as the Florida Keys, where bonefish only enter the flats in search of a meal. These are very lush flats full of crabs, shrimp and other bonefish foods. As a result, these fish can become selective. This can make for challenging fishing and the right tackle, flies, presentation and fishing techniques are all important.
Regardless of your favorite species, Belize will satisfy your fishing dreams. At Belize Fly Shop, we like them all. Having the opportunity to stalk the big three over a relatively small but diverse area is an allure worth targeting.
Thank you for visiting our site. We hope you have as much fun cruising our site as we did putting it together. Belize is a wonderful place. You will be glad you took the time to learn about it. When you have all the knowledge you need, don't hesitate to visit this tropical wonder.
Permit are found in abundant numbers from Ambergris Caye to Turneffe Island, from Whipray Caye to Southwater Caye, from Placencia to Punta Gorda. They're not easy to catch, but that's what makes fishing for them so much fun. It's not the catching that counts. Just being in Belize and seeking this paranoid species is worth your time. The thrill of the hunt will keep you going back to the world class flats of Belize. 
Not all the tarpon flats surrounding Ambergris Caye are fishable everyday due to changing weather conditions and currents, but generally speaking, Ambergris Caye provides good tarpon fishing all year round. The tarpon run from 10 to 100+ lbs.; the average winter fish is about 50 to 60 lbs. with the average summer fish being 90 to-150 lbs.....
Bonefishing at Turneffe Flats offers something for anglers of all levels of experience. Novice saltwater anglers can expect to see hundreds of bonefish providing a great opportunity to learn the basics of flats fishing. Experienced saltwater anglers find plenty of challenging fishing, particularly fishing to smaller schools and larger singles. 
