STORY by COLLEEN PITRONE
PHOTOS by JESSICA FISCH
On Andros Island, two world-renowned bonefishing guides bring success to their sport.
Shadows appear in the low waters of the flats and bights, spots of darkness against stark white sand. Silver fins and tails jut just above the surface of the water, a behavioral pattern of the slender grey fish. They seem vulnerable; being so visible in the crisp, shallow water. But when a bonefish takes the fly, the fight is on.
Instantly, the strong fish takes off, and an experienced fisherman knows to let it go, the line pulling from the reel with a high pitched buzz. The fish runs until it tires, when the give and take truly begins. The fisherman starts reeling when the fish slows, keeping the line taught and holding the nine-foot rod high so the tip bends in an ark. When he feels the tug from the water, the fisherman takes his hand off the reel, allowing the bonefish to speed through the water as it struggles to get off the line. The fish begins to fade yet again, tiring from the fight. The battle continues, the fish running and being pulled in, until the fisherman can finally reel in his prize.
The bonefish flops in the water, its scales shining bright, still attempting to avoid capture. Satisfied, the fisherman removes the hook from the fish’s lip and lowers it into the water, his hand over the slippery, thick belly. Moving the fish back and forth in the water, the fisherman revives the stunned fish. Eventually, it darts off, heading back into the flats.
On Andros Island, this scene is a common one. Fly fisherman from all over the world travel to the large Bahamian island with the relatively small population, where fishing lodges are abundant, in order to catch and release the elusive fish. Bonefish are abundant on the island due to the fertile fishing grounds in the numerous flats, mangroves, creeks and cays.
In addition, the island has become the bonefishing capital of the world with the help of two prominent men within the fly fishing community. For years, Charlie Smith and Rupert Leadon have dominated the bonefishing industry due to their personal and professional successes. Independently, the two rival patriarchs have helped establish Andros as a bonefishing hotspot while maintaining their larger-than-life families.
The Godfather’s Legacy
Charlie Smith is a man of many names. His son Eddie calls him “Daddy.” His son Steve calls him “The Big Father.” To his other 22 children and select family friends, he is simply “Dad.” In addition, he is referred to as “The Godfather Crazy Charlie,” “The Master of Bonefish,” or just “Crazy Charlie,” after the flyfishing fly he designed and marketed of the same name.
According to Charlie, he built the first bonefishing lodge on Andros Island in 1968, paving the way for the sport and making a name for himself and his family in the Bahamas. Today, at 71, he runs his second successful lodge and still takes clients into the flats to hunt for bonefish.
Charlie was born in Grand Abaco, Bahamas in 1936. He began fishing at age 6, using a hand line. After a stint in the US Navy on Andros, Charlie got a job at an Androsian club where he fished, cooked and played music.
He became a professional fishing guide when he started Charlie’s Haven, a lodge on the water’s edge in Behring Point, Andros. It wasn’t until years later that he found his true haven in the Bang Bang Club, a fishing lodge he started on his private cay.
The lodge is well known throughout the bonefishing world, and everyone from corporate bigwigs to prime ministers seek out the Bang Bang when they want a weekend full of fish. At the club, customers can enjoy a secluded trip, as the lodge is the only thing on Pot Cay, the 80-acre island located in the middle of the North bight of Andros.
On a hot day in October, Charlie returns from an afternoon of leisure fishing to the club, where he also lives.
“You work a little, and you play a little, and it makes life much easier,” he says as he hands his son Eddie a bucket containing three large Red Snappers, their scales the color of coral. Charlie says he goes out on the water daily to catch them for his son Andy.
He steps from the skiff onto the dock of the Bang Bang Club. His polarized sunglasses cover half his face, their frames electric green. He sports a long sleeved fishing shirt embroidered with the logo of his son Prescott’s lodge in Stafford Creek, Andros.
Walking into the club, he passes a wall of photographs of himself and clients. On the walls are also photographs of his 24 children and 30 grandchildren, all of whom he taught to fish. Beneath a photo of Charlie and one of his sons, two bonefish have been stenciled on top of each other. Black outlines surround chips of green glass, creating a mosaic within the lines of the fish. The top outline is perfectly horizontal, a 180 degree representation of the prized fish. The bottom fish is just slightly off, a ten-degree difference noticeable only by the curve of the tail
This one we kept, says Charlie of the top stencil, indicating that they didn’t release the fish. The crooked fish was a result of the catch and release aspect of the sport, he continued, laughing as he described his run from the dock into the house, tracing the fish while it thrashed about.
Sitting on a stone wall overlooking Lucy, Juicy and Judith, his three pet sea turtles, Charlie sips a Budweiser. His face lights up as he describes what he loves about bonefishing -- the run one gets from a bonefish, and how after fishing for so long, he can tell the size of the fish he has on his line before he brings it in.
When discussing his life, professionally or personally, Charlie is certainly not modest. Proud of what he’s accomplished, the Bahamian will make sure to tell you that he is 71 and “still guiding strong,” that “If you go in the boat with me, you’re gonna catch fish,” and that he was the first Bahamian to build a fishing lodge and the only one to build “the world’s greatest fly.” He says that he’s certain that he breaks every bonefish record without guess.
Charlie’s legacy will continue long after he’s gone. On Andros alone, two of his children have developed their own bonefishing lodges, with other Smith children working behind the scenes. After describing the beloved wives and children that have been influential to Charlie, he presents his secret to how he’s made it this far.
“The only way to live is to love,” he says. “Just keep loving and then die loving.”
Finishing his beer, he moves on to where his famous flies take shape. He sits, puts on a pair of glasses (one of the only indications of his age), and hangs a piece of thread from the fly vice, a contraption of wood and metal that holds the pieces of a fly together. A hook is placed into a clamp, and the spool of thread hangs below it. He slowly loops the thread around the hook before laying down a piece of flash, a shiny thread-like material used on flies. He loops the thread over that, adds small beads for eyes, glues the end, and cuts the thread. A Crazy Redheaded Charlie is complete.
Originally, the Crazy Charlie fly was created for a guide trip where he was taking out two prime ministers. He had no crab to use as bait, so he tied flies the night before, and a legend was born.
Today, the fly is marketed and sold around the world, but Charlie will tie you your very own in the den of his lodge, calling out the names as he finishes. Crazy Charlie, Charlie Popper, Bang Bang Charlie and Charlie’s Green Machine are some of the common names for the many varieties he’s created.
Walking from the fly-tying den out onto the pool deck, it seems that the lodge has seen better days. Damages from past hurricanes have taken their toll on the land. The swimming pool sits empty, branches and tree limbs littering the pool deck and other sidewalks. Almonds in their shells lay in piles near the dock, over time they’ve fallen from the trees on the island. Paint is peeling from a violet guest cabin.
When hurricane season is over, Charlie and Eddie will begin an overhaul of the land in time for the true bonefishing season, which runs primarily from February to April.
“I’m gonna pretty this place right up,” said Charlie.
In each guest cabin, new beds and air conditioning units will be added. A fence will be installed around what will be called the Sunset Deck. Floors will be repaired and walls will be painted. In addition, a protection pen will be built for Juicy, Lucy and Judith, so they will be safe in bad weather.
Repairs will be complete in a matter of weeks, and then heavy booking will begin, bringing clients to the island where iguanas run wild and coconuts, guava and almonds can be eaten off the trees.
The Burden of a Smith Sonn
At age 40, Prescott Smith is successful with his own lodge in Stafford Creek, Andros. While he learned to fish from him father, he became a fishing guide because he saw it as a way to change the environment for the better. His worries about the future of fishing and tourism on his home island have become the burden he must bear.
He sits in his house, located on the Stafford Creek Lodge, surrounded by evidence of a love for fishing. A poster of the Nassau Grouper hangs on the wall next to photographs of his guide trips. His baseball cap is embroidered with The International Game Fish Association. Fishing faceplates cover the electrical sockets, and salt and pepper shakers are painted with the word Bahamas and pictures of fish.
When asked what he likes about the sport, he describes fly fishing as an art, a connection between the fisherman and the rod that isn’t achieved with spin fishing. It includes mental relaxation, yet an adrenaline rush. The fly rod itself is like a lasso, he says.
“You feel the line, and it’s like a bungee cord, or a kid playing with a yo-yo.”
While he is obviously passionate about the sport, he says he only started the lodge because his brother Andy began to tire of the environmental battles that Prescott now faces.
“Bonefish are more important than many Bahamians realize,” he says as he describes the fish as the thread that can pull everything together, bringing tourists to Andros who will develop a passion to protect the environment.
He worries that the interest for bonefishing is “spreading like wildfire.” This means the sport is growing on other Bahamian islands rather than Andros, which leads to defunct lodges.
Fourteen years ago, he started the Bahamas Sportfishing Conservation Association in an attempt to bring tourism to the island. The non-profit organization was started in 2004 and includes twenty officers throughout the Bahamas and the United States who face challenges like insufficient resources when building conservation projects. Prescott’s main goal is the conservation of the ecosystems and Bahamian fisheries, and protecting Andros Island, which he sees as “the untamed spirit of the Bahamas.”
Prescott sees large-scale development as harmful to the environment and the economy, because when high-end lodges are built, Bahamians don’t typically profit from them. In addition, the large-scale development is destructive to mangroves and rookeries on Andros. He says that the issues can’t be avoided if tourists and Bahamians want to continue fishing and traveling on Andros.
His father, however, sees things a bit differently.
“Some things you touch and just stir up trouble,” he said of his son’s attempts to change the way tourism and fishing are run on the island.
Charlie doesn’t feel the need to raise awareness, because he knows the fish will always be around, the ecosystems always intact. He says that some years fish may be plentiful, and other years they are harder to find, but they’re always there.
“If the water was black, I could find a fish,” he said.
For now, Prescott must continue to run his lodge, taking out clients as his father does, and hoping to make a difference on the island he loves so dearly.
Leadon’s dream come true
“One, Two, One, Two, One, Two.”
The coaxing voice of Rupert Leadon as he teaches a client to fly cast is as smooth as a line falling to the surface of the water. His arm reaches back, sending 20 feet of line behind him before he shoots it forward, counting ones and twos as he goes.
Standing between his house and his bonefishing lodge, Rupert strips the line from the reel; never taking his eyes from the exact spot he wants the fly to land. With precision, the fisherman casts his line forward; displaying the technique he has been teaching his clients for the past 23 years.
The motion of his arm, covered by his long-sleeved turquoise fishing shirt, combines with the rhythm of his voice to create a work of art – the song and dance of a bonefish guide.
As he demonstrates on his front lawn, one of his 16 children prepares a skiff for an afternoon on the water. Another is inside, booking future fishing trips. While many of Rupert’s family members are on other Bahamian islands, where work is easier to find, three sons and a daughter work for their father at the Bonefish Club. In addition, four of Rupert’s brothers work as guides.
In 1984, Rupert decided to make his dreams of becoming a lodge owner come true. He bought land in Cargill Creek where the lodge now sits, and built the first guest cabin himself. With the help of legendary fishing writer Lefty Kreh, and Rupert’s own talents as a guide, word spread fast. Eventually, the lodge expanded to what it is today, bringing its worth to $7 million.
Today, the lodge sits on 20 acres of waterfront property and has 19 guest cabins, painted in multiple shades of purple, yellow and red. Twelve of those cabins are reserved for the fishing lodge, while Rupert leases seven out for the Coral Caverns Dive Resort. In addition, Rupert’s home and staff cabins are located on the property.
Outside, a bar and picnic area create a relaxing atmosphere for guests. At the bar, the usual gentlemen are lined up on shelves – Jim Beam, Jose Cuervo, Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker. Baseball caps line the walls of the pagoda-style structure, left behind by fishermen who have passed through over the years. Sitting on the patio looking out from the Bonefish Club, fish sprinkle the water – a Queen Angel here, a Snapper there. Rupert overlooks the fish, which he has deemed his pets.
“Andros is a lucky place to fish,” he says, his smile broad, a gap between his two front teeth. A gold chain hangs around his neck, complete with a bonefish charm – it’s eye the same bright blue shade as his shirt. The same charm is seen on the necks of the other staff and family members, little reminders of Rupert’s influence.
“Here, I have the opportunity to meet the greatest, richest people in the world,” he continued.
The success of the lodge has to do with the fact that Rupert has made a name for himself as one of the best guides on Andros. Like Charlie Smith, he learned to fish from his father and is sought out for a quality fishing experience.
It’s easy to see how customers find the Bonefish Club appealing. Even in October’s quiet season, the lodge is bustling with employees and Leadon family members. Rupert makes sure to stay involved, going back and forth between the lodge’s office and the dock.
Rupert says clients continue to flow into the lodge because of the experience they have there. He says that treating people right, making sure they have a quality guide and a lot of fun have proved to bring repeat customers.
“This should be a home away from home, and that’s the bottom line,” he said.
For Rupert, home is important. His legacy will continue through his 16 children and 30 grandchildren, all of whom are represented in numerous picture frames hung around his house. He points out children and grandchildren, past wives and girlfriends. Today, he has a Cuban girlfriend whom he visits monthly, and he says he is very happy.
Rupert sits on the dock, feet dangling as he waits for his clients to come back from their guide trip with his son Brian. His face lights up, waiting to hear about the fish retrieved from the flats. Knowing that he has placed his clients in good hands, he is at ease listening to the tales of the day. Tonight, he will shark fish from the patio behind his bar, sharing laughter with his family and his new friends.
On Andros Island, there is a motto that states, “We have nothing and we want nothing.” However, the island isn’t lacking in renewable resources, nursery systems or marine life. The ecosystem replenishes, and bonefish help hold everything together, displaying the importance of the fish and the industry, according to Prescott Smith.
“Andros Island is the richest island in the world,” he said. “We’re the untamed spirit of the Bahamas, and we need to bring people back to fish here.”
Bonefish are slender, silvery fish with round bodies and long snouts.