OMG the road has gotten bad again. Would somebody please tell me why I keep going?
Oh, right. I'm a blue collar guy with a blue collar budget. I've got to put up with long, nasty van rides through the great, buggy beyond if I'm going to get a shot at bonefish ((and tarpon (of the baby variety, emhasis on baby,) and permit, (don't get me started on the permit bullshit; think chasing steelhead is a low percentage game? Try permit in Yucutan MX))
Still, I like Punta Allen because I don't usually run into the gaggle of perfectly turned-out 1% ers who flourish on Andros and the boats off the Seychelles. Excepting the douchebags who go to Casa Blanca and Playa Blanca, which they like not because the fishing is good, but because they feel safe in places developed by Mexican oligarchs and where the prices ensure that guys like me won't be there.
Ok, ok, I admit, I'm getting a little political here. But why wouldn't I? I'm a latter day fly fisherman, for god's sake, and the guys behind what's ailing just about every watershed I've ever fished are the same guys who don't want you on "their" river in Montana, or Wyoming or BC, or their flats in the Bahamas, etc., etc.. The guys who tell you their pipeline, deep water port, super tanker, logging or mining operation won't adversely affect the fish I like to go after, and the water I like to drink. Yet the fish keep disappearing and the water gets funkier.
So I'm saying that Ascencion Bay is a great place for blue collar saltwater flyfishermen, but I'm not saying that it's a picnic. That road is a *****. Certified. Right now it hasn't been graded in at least two years. That means that the 40 kilometers from Tulum to PA takes 4 or even 5 slow, nasty, bouncy, tire-blowing hours. I fish places in BC (Trout Alley on Babine Lake, anyone?) where you go 40k on forrestry roads in an hour! And then, in the morning, you get in a boat, and, depending on the weather, you punch through heavy water for 45 bone-shaking minutes before you get to waters where you have "only" another 45 minutes of easy planing before you get to where you're going to fish.
So yeah, it's too far. From where I am in the western US it's an hour long flight to my airline's "hub" where I wait around for an hour, then I get on another flight that takes four and a half hours to Cancun, where I take a half hour to get my luggage, then another hour clear customs (always getting the red light and bag search--what's with that?). And then the real torture begins. We pass all inclusive luxury resort after all inclusive luxury resort on our way to Tulum, where the endless line of hip, coolio, ecolodges begin, before we get to the entrance to the "ecoreserve", where the endless, jungle shrouded, rocky, buggy road begins.
It's also not cool. In Cancun and Tulum, the beach is packed with Euro bodies who decorate the beach and the beachside bars in ways that the folks back in Duluth wouldn't believe. In Punta Allen, there's nobody and nothing to make you think you're in a beachy paradise. Hell, the swimming sucks; onshore winds, itchy seaweed, littered beaches, coral and rocks. There are no shops, maybe three restaurants; even buying a six pack of beer is a production--and often the only beer available before the next deliver arrives (delivered by a driver who wishes he was on any other route) is light, I repeat, light, Corona!
So don't go. Like every other fishing destination on the planet, it's either on it's last legs, or you're one of the guys who's going to put it on it's last legs. Maybe you should take a golf vacation.
Punta Allen: Too Far, Not Cool, Don't Go!
Oh, right. I'm a blue collar guy with a blue collar budget. I've got to put up with long, nasty van rides through the great, buggy beyond if I'm going to get a shot at bonefish ((and tarpon (of the baby variety, emhasis on baby,) and permit, (don't get me started on the permit bullshit; think chasing steelhead is a low percentage game? Try permit in Yucutan MX))
Still, I like Punta Allen because I don't usually run into the gaggle of perfectly turned-out 1% ers who flourish on Andros and the boats off the Seychelles. Excepting the douchebags who go to Casa Blanca and Playa Blanca, which they like not because the fishing is good, but because they feel safe in places developed by Mexican oligarchs and where the prices ensure that guys like me won't be there.
Ok, ok, I admit, I'm getting a little political here. But why wouldn't I? I'm a latter day fly fisherman, for god's sake, and the guys behind what's ailing just about every watershed I've ever fished are the same guys who don't want you on "their" river in Montana, or Wyoming or BC, or their flats in the Bahamas, etc., etc.. The guys who tell you their pipeline, deep water port, super tanker, logging or mining operation won't adversely affect the fish I like to go after, and the water I like to drink. Yet the fish keep disappearing and the water gets funkier.
So I'm saying that Ascencion Bay is a great place for blue collar saltwater flyfishermen, but I'm not saying that it's a picnic. That road is a *****. Certified. Right now it hasn't been graded in at least two years. That means that the 40 kilometers from Tulum to PA takes 4 or even 5 slow, nasty, bouncy, tire-blowing hours. I fish places in BC (Trout Alley on Babine Lake, anyone?) where you go 40k on forrestry roads in an hour! And then, in the morning, you get in a boat, and, depending on the weather, you punch through heavy water for 45 bone-shaking minutes before you get to waters where you have "only" another 45 minutes of easy planing before you get to where you're going to fish.
So yeah, it's too far. From where I am in the western US it's an hour long flight to my airline's "hub" where I wait around for an hour, then I get on another flight that takes four and a half hours to Cancun, where I take a half hour to get my luggage, then another hour clear customs (always getting the red light and bag search--what's with that?). And then the real torture begins. We pass all inclusive luxury resort after all inclusive luxury resort on our way to Tulum, where the endless line of hip, coolio, ecolodges begin, before we get to the entrance to the "ecoreserve", where the endless, jungle shrouded, rocky, buggy road begins.
It's also not cool. In Cancun and Tulum, the beach is packed with Euro bodies who decorate the beach and the beachside bars in ways that the folks back in Duluth wouldn't believe. In Punta Allen, there's nobody and nothing to make you think you're in a beachy paradise. Hell, the swimming sucks; onshore winds, itchy seaweed, littered beaches, coral and rocks. There are no shops, maybe three restaurants; even buying a six pack of beer is a production--and often the only beer available before the next deliver arrives (delivered by a driver who wishes he was on any other route) is light, I repeat, light, Corona!
So don't go. Like every other fishing destination on the planet, it's either on it's last legs, or you're one of the guys who's going to put it on it's last legs. Maybe you should take a golf vacation.
Punta Allen: Too Far, Not Cool, Don't Go!
