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S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 61 B elow the bright sun, blue sky, and puffy white clouds there wasn't a breath of air anywhere. The water's surface was mirror- slick, and though it was a full moon, the dropping Bahamian tide moved slowly and gently like its people. The pelicans, palm trees, and work-boat hulls painted in vibrant colors made me smile. I thought briefly, only briefly, about the bone- chilling 43-degree water back home. On this same moon phase the 12-foot tides whoosh with water. Snow was falling when I left, and I was happy to get away. The water that flooded the mangroves a few hours before now moved across the flat. Ultimately it would drain into the channels and remain there until the tide turned again. The turquoise-green sea wasn't the only thing bailing off the flat. Bonefish, permit, tarpon, sharks, and practically everything else headed toward the deep water. I never quite understood how when giant schools of gamefish mixed with predators there was safety in the channels. Somehow they worked out their differences, but that's seldom been the case back home. When a school of bluefish and striped bass connect with a baitfish ball off my backyard beaches, they blitz and turn the water white with frothy foam. Sun, no wind, and clear water was just what the doctor ordered. My skin tightened from the combination of the rays and spray while I searched for fish in the shallows of the flat. Sometimes I bore witness to a silver flash caused by the sun reflecting off the side of a fish that had turned into the current. Other times there was only a sliver of silver, with that telltale sign coming from the tip of a feeding fish's tail. For much of the time, flats fish blend in magically in even stellar conditions like today. When that's the case, you look for their ghostly shadows that come from their silhouette against the bright sky. Some anglers prefer singles or pairs of fish, while others yearn for the vee-wakes of nervous water caused by a big school on the move. I prefer both. This water was low enough to make it Destinations by tom Keer You'll see some whackY stuff while bonefishing in the bahamas. difficult to pole around for a couple of old footballers like Tim Patterson and myself, so we ditched the boat to walk the firm, white-sand flat. The depth was skinny enough to leave the anchor stowed in the hatch. I trimmed down the outboard until the skeg dug into the sand, and when the bow came about we gathered our gear and left. Our Bahamian morning was good, as good as I can remember, with time traded back and forth on the bow. We found lots of bones, big and small, and they were hungry, too. We took our time with the fish, picking 'em off like sharpshooters during rifle season. And now we walked. The sun was off my shoulder, and after a short while I saw the first wave of bones. The school was large, so large that its sheer size made for an easy spot. "Good school coming our way, bud . . . fifty yards, two o'clock," I said. "I see 'em," said Tim. "You'd have to be blind to miss these fish." "There must be fifty or so in the school. Maybe more behind; I can't tell rainer von branDis/istocKphoto.com