Pluggin away in Laguneroville

If I were doing truly detailed blogging, I would have written more about Scott and Serena. They are a friendly couple I met in Boca de Sabalos two weeks ago. They are ex-Peace Corps folks who have lived through some wierd shit in strange places of the world, so now the difficulties of living in Nicaragua half the year do not faze them at all. They have put together a brilliant half-here/half-home type of lifestyle in which they keep doing enlightened philanthropy, but very selfishly (which is the only way I would believe it, with the powerful aid of the Invisible Hand). I learned a lot about them travelling with them, and then also when they let me use their guest room for a night when it turned out that all the rooms on the island (all four or five) were taken. Their deal is such a surprisingly economically excellent balance that I think I´d like to write a piece on them in order to inspire rest of us who might be trapped in treadmills of work, single countries and residences, etc.

Anyway, the BEST thing about them is that Scott fishes. With his detailed advice (he has the fisherman´s memory for certain patches of grass or rocks that nobody else would even notice), I got into big rainbow bass on practically my first effort in Solentiname. What a hoot! Even after a week of fishing for them I still couldn´t help laughing to see a giant kissing gourami on my line. They strike hard, pull like stripers, and taste great with garlic butter or on a skewer with peppers and onions.



Overall, the Solentiname Islands are a kind of kayak fisher´s paradise. Imagine dozens of islands with shallow rocky saddles between them teeming with fish. It rains a bit, but not for long; you´ll hit some wind and big chop in any exposed area, but that just means you can have a blast surfing back -- and all the while you know that the water is warm as bathwater. The little hotels all have perfectly serviceable rock beaches, and since everybody goes everywhere by boat on these roadless islands, you fit right in with the locals. If you´re as lucky as I was, you can fish up your own lunch and dinner every day and present it to the cook. Fried mojarras (like perch), lagunero con salso or al ajillo, or en brocheta . . . not bad at all.

The only rub is that the water is quite murky and as a result fly fishing is practically useless. I gave the long rod a little time, but couldn´t stick with it without some reinforcement. The way to get them is with plugs, fished in a certain secret way that I don´t feel comfortable posting in the internets. I spent many happy hours trolling and casting plugs. However, the thing I really don´t want to publish on the internets is this: I fished bait! Having broken down my boat on the last day, needing some rest, I went ahead and followed the local example of hunting up some freshwater crabs in the shallows and then plunking them off the dock. I was really just aiming for some lunchtime mojarras, but I´ll be damned if a four-pound lagunero didn´t take my bobber rig for a little ride . . . wheee!


Now that I´ve had enough fun and enough rest, my plan is to go back down to Boca de Sabalos and take one more whack at a tarpon-powered Nantucket sleigh ride. Should be able to put in a few hours tonight and then a whole morning tomorrow before starting back North. As John McPhee pointed out, it´s not patience that drives most of us fishers; it´s hope.