It all began ominously. As I stood on the bow of the skiff trying to tie on a fly, I noticed a subtle gray shape move into the periphery of my vision. Like any anxious angler, I had to look even though I assumed it was just a barracuda. I was wrong. It was a massive bonefish, about two rod lengths away from our boat, and there I was, totally unprepared. I looked at Alvin Green, our guide, who had also noticed the monster bone (a fish of at least 12 pounds), and calmly said, "Al, I thought you were supposed to keep those things away from me until I was ready." He just laughed and said, "Yeah, mon, sorry 'bout dat. I'll try to keep us off 'im so you kin cas' at 'im when you're ready."
The sight of a giant bone that close did nothing for my knot-tying abilities, and after what felt like three hours I finally managed to attach the fly to my tippet. Green, true to his word, kept us off the fish without spooking it, although it continued on its course directly away from us and into deeper water. I never got a shot. But that was the first bone we encountered along the famed Middle Bight of Andros, not 10 minutes from the dock at the Mangrove Cay Club. It wasn't even close to the last one we'd see.
Location Is Everything
Everyone has heard the old real estate broker's adage that the three most important aspects to any property are location, location, location. This is definitely true for the Mangrove Cay Club, which occupies an ideal spot right on the southern side of the mouth of Andros' Middle Bight. It sits just minutes away from Moxey Town and the local airstrip, and you can actually see some incredibly productive bonefish flats from its dock. This vantage point allows anglers easy access to both the west and east sides of the island and to miles of mangrove-lined flats in between.
While Andros is often viewed as one big island, it's actually a mass of smaller islands covered with mangroves and divided into segments by countless natural channels and canals. The Middle Bight is basically a warren of flats and mangroves that bisect the island.
 | This maze of shorelines and cuts provides literally hundreds of miles of fishable water, as well as easy access to the west side of Andros. It even offers shelter no matter what direction the wind blows. |
Best of all, the water holds a bounty of bones, from countless fish in the 3- to 5-pound range to numerous larger ones - including double-digit fish - especially in the winter months. If that's not enough, the west side has resident schools of tarpon in the 40- to 100-pound class, and Mangrove Cay has an excellent permit fishery just around the corner that few people know about. If you want to head all of 5 miles offshore during the summer, you can even tangle with tuna, dolphin, mackerel and jacks. Combine that with the atmosphere of one of the premier bonefish lodges in the Bahamas, the cooking of chef Ike Moore, and the hospitality of Liz and Alton Bain and there is just no way to go wrong. And in case things do go awry and the winds won't back off, the Bains have even devised a "plan B": They run guests down to the southern tip of Andros in their 26-foot catamaran and let them cast at bones while wading on the protected flats of the Water Cays.
