You always know where you stand on Andros.

Depthfinders are relatively unknown here; the locals judge the depths by studying the water’s shades of color, the bottom visible far below.

We also tried pulling bigger plugs that dive to 30 and 40 feet, the kind used so much on Florida’s Big Bend for gag grouper, but without luck. I left Ricardo a few of these plugs to try later, and he reported finding one spot where he couldn’t stop the grouper, even with heavy tackle. The neon-color plugs worked best, and he did power a 63-pound black grouper away from the coral and into the boat, before running out of plugs. Chances are good I’ll have a shoebox full of these plugs under my arm, next time the plane lands.

Andros in general reminded me of The Bahamas 40 years ago—very quiet, with little possibility of spring breakers or cruise ships looming on the horizon. All harbors appear to be far too shallow for bigger vessels. That’s a saving grace for Andros, an island that surely would have become the capital of the Bahamas 200 years ago, if it only had a deep and protected harbor for British warships. If it had, Andros’ vast tracts of dry land would likely have a large population now, instead of rush-hour crowded Nassau. Much of Andros reminds you of driving to Flamingo in the Everglades, with not a single structure on that savannah-like horizon. Only tiny communities of a couple dozen homes or so, along that well-paved road. This place seems locked away in time to, say, 1965.

The only troubling factor is that Andros is only 35 miles from Nassau, which has a lot of hungry mouths to feed. One wonders how hard it would be to keep a string of fish traps along the Andros reef, for marketing in Nassau. It’s too bad the islands aren’t 200 miles apart, but then we wouldn’t have had such a short flight (52 minutes from Fort Lauderdale). While Bimini attracts a lot of boating attention from Miami, Andros is a nice 140 miles from the mainland, which is self-limiting and again, good for fish of a great many species.

The old-timers who pioneered bonefishing had it right, when they began visiting Andros so many years ago. The island has always had a reputation for hosting the biggest bonefish in The Bahamas. With 1,400 square miles of shallow flats, many of them protected inland (as compared to ocean flats), it certainly should. On our first day we spent many hours casting at bones in a February north wind, and still caught a few. We were mere rookies compared to some who have fished here. A favorite picture I saw while visiting the Andros Island Bonefish Club, opened 17 years ago, showed a group of well-recognized anglers on the front porch, including David Goodwin, Billy Pate, George Hommell, Lefty Kreh, Mark Sosin, Al McClane, club founder Rupert Leadon, Duncan Barnes and Warren Brewster. There were a lot of years fishing time, among that bunch.

Back at the beach, visitors are trying to decide which boat to use that day.

Back on the beach, we waded ashore. Pete filleted the tuna and we carried it down the country road that very night, to Miss Sheila’s restaurant and bar at her little motel, Love At First Sight. It’s on Stafford Creek by the metal bridge, where tarpon wallow like hogs on many nights, and some sizeable mutton snapper and horseye jacks are frequently caught. Pete, who likes his fish rare, seared the small tuna chunks for less than a minute, and then we dredged them around in his mix of wasabe and soy sauce—very good while sitting at the bar with an icy Kalik, the local brew. The regular crowd shuffled in and sat around us, but they quickly became mesmerized by American television. That’s when I eased outside with the spinning rod and began casting from the spacious patio deck. While catching small mutton and mangrove snappers, I watched across that fast-flowing tidal creek a single Bahamian man, sitting in moonlit Australian pines, handlining jacks that would weigh around eight pounds. For some reason, the tarpon were absent that night, and we found out why the next day.