Campeche, Mexico

“Steve wake up! It’s 4am.” We had arrived in Campeche at 1AM after a 2 hour drive from Merida to save money on the flight options (next time we may fly in to Campeche regardless). Of course, since we always make the best decisions, we had decided to check out La Iguana Azul and listened to a local Campeche, Mexico band full of very round shaped and unshaven band members sing traditional songs, while we ate bbq shrimp on the open air terrace of the “Blue Iguana” restaurant until about 3am. 

After a hearty breakfast of bread, butter, and strong coffee we met guides Sam and Hollywood down at the pier in the pitch black of extremely early morning. Neither Sam nor Hollywood spoke much English, and some college Spanish courses were beginning to pay off as we chose flies and rigged rods on the ride out underneath headlamps. My fishing partner the first day, Steve, was stoked about the trip and he could have fooled me in to thinking he had just had 10 hours of sleep and spa treatment. After about a 30 minute boat ride we could see the outline of the mangroves we were passing and the dead still glare from the transition of moon to sun on the ocean surrounding it. We finally stopped. All we could hear was gulp…gulp… gulp… everywhere. On all side of the boat Tarpon were rolling and it was now light enough that we looked like we were surrounded by shark fins. I got about on the bow of the boat and casted a small size 1 Chartreuse Tarpon Toad. A tarpon slammed it, and I set the hook perfectly for any trout fishing situation. Sam our guide yelled at me to keep the rod down. Two cast later with the rod down and a hard strip set, all calmness of the ocean was forgotten, psycho aerial maneuvers from one upset tarpon disrupted the peace. 

The days following the first 20 minutes of our trip to Campeche are full of similar encounters. We had a great trip and can’t wait to revisit Tarponapolis.