By ROBIN SMILLIE

Ooohhh, this fish is heavy," grunted "Chefie" Rufus Sands as he pulled the 20-pound margate to the surface, fist over fist in the traditional Bahamian handline style. He glanced and smiled at the 2-pound mutton snapper splashing at the jig end of my high-tech, $500 combo, and chuckled, 1 got another handline in my box if you want to catch a good fish."

Not too proud to pass up a new fishing experience, I baited up a hook tied to 100-pound mono with an overhand knot, with a 2-ounce rusty steel nut positioned above, and slipped it over the side, letting fifty feet of line peel off of a plastic spool bouncing around the deck at my feet. No sooner had it bottomed out than I felt a fish sniffing at my bait. Taking no notice of Chefie's style of setting the hook, I reared back my arm in a half circle arc that nearly ripped my shoulder from its socket.

"No, no," scolded Chefie. "Just go hand over hand and start pulling it in. That will set the hook good enough."

Rufus is the chef at the restaurant at Chub Cay, where wife Cathy and I spent a week beachcombing, fishing and snorkeling on our summer vacation. During the late summer "off season," the many sportfishing boats that pursue billfish and wahoo in Tongue of the Ocean are nowhere to be found, owners and crew opting instead to ply their home waters, which, given the list of sports and business luminaries who belong to the club, could be anywhere from Narragansett to Houston. Jack Nicklaus has two bonefish skiffs here, and flies in on the Sea Bear. Dale Ernhardt's boat is named Sunday Money. So when I asked some locals at the dock who was the best reef fisherman on the island, the answer was not a globetrotting charter captain at all, but was instead the cook, "Chefie."

Chefie's unconventional advice on hooking bottom fish went against everything I'd ever been taught. But, when I flipped the smallish Nassau grouper over the rail, I understood at once how this centuries-old method of handlining had put many a reef fish in the pot for a Bahamian fish stew dinner.

The handline experience wasn't the only Bahamian first that Chefie guided me to. The day before, Chefie had baked a 3-pound slab of skin-on bonefish fillet for me to sample, covered in onions and peppers and dry baked in an oven. Halfway through the process, Chefie had removed as many of the bones as he could, and before that, the guide wielding the fillet knife had delicately cut several strips of bones from the fillet, while answering my questions about how to eat a bonefish with "at your own risk, that's how to eat a bonefish." But in spite of all their preparation, I still found myself picking bones from my mouth and piling them on the side of my plate in the fashion of stacking small branches to start a campfire. The delicate flavor was something akin to roast pork, and I wouldn't mind eating it again, if ever I find a "good woman" to pick the bones for me.

What gave rise to this bonefish-eating experience and talk of a good woman was a bonefish-catching experience with the island's top bonefish guide, Capt. Joe "No, I'm not a fighter" Louis. Joe's been fishing Chub and various parts of the Bahamas most of his life, and has had the pleasure of guiding the likes of Curt Gowdy, Bobby Knight, Andy Mills and Jack Nicklaus. He's also guided several record-holders, mostly in the fly classes. But summer is not the best season to fly fish for bones, given the prevailing northeast winds, which puts a mild chop on the water that cuts down on visibility.

"The best season is November to May," explained Joe. "That's when northwest winds make it easy to see-you'll catch fish all day long. Tide doesn't matter--these fish feed all day long. A good fly caster can catch 8 to 12 fish a day-7- to 12-pound fish." Joe's favorite fly pattern is "anything pink." His biggest fish was a 15 3/4-pounder, "caught by a guy from New York who already had a record on 8-pound tippet. Took him 45 minutes to land."

We got lucky on the summer days we fished, enjoying a mellow southeast breeze and ideal sight-casting conditions. Joe poled us over a great submerged desert of white sand, every square inch covered with tiny little volcanoes-clams-puffing white dust into the tide. Perhaps that's where the phrase "happy as a clam" comes from-they were all happy to be escaping the bonefish's crushers, those ridges of bone that go the length of a bonefish's head.

With only the shoosh of the wooden pole to break the silence, Joe listened to the breeze, saying that he hears bone- fish before he sees them. Hmmm. I wondered if it were true. We had a shot at several schools that morning, but my skills with a fly rod made for difficult catching. After I proved my ability with several errant casts with a 9-weight, Joe got out the spinning gear and turned to his secret weapons-conch "slop" and live crabs. "If they come within 20 feet of conch slop or crab, they won't pass it up," he said.

The harbor at Chub is home port to a commercial conch operation, and every evening, several Bahamian men are found sitting on the inside rails of the boat, hunched over a pile of fresh conch. The cleaned meat goes in a bucket, the innards and remains (the slop) go over the side. On the outgoing tide, bonefish follow the chumline up into the harbor, while the locals sit on the rocky banks of the inlet, fishing with the same slop. If Joe knows the following day's charter is on the amateur side, he bags up a pound or two of this slop, "just in case."

For the crab bait, Joe put us on an ex- posed sandbar and we went ashore with buckets and nets in hand, turning over rocks in search of juvenile blue crabs. For Cathy, being more the beach bum and snorkeler than diehard bonefish angler, walking around an exposed flat spotted with all sorts of flora and fauna was one of the high points of her day. That was, until we finally tied into a couple of 7-pound Bahamas bonefish. Our previous bonefish catches in Belize had been in the 2- and 3-pound range, and we soon learned that double size meant quadruple the fight. And Joe quickly understood that the bones spotted on this day, in this breeze, on this tide, needed to be stalked while wading, so we anchored the boat and went for a walk across the pure white sand. Cathy was connected first, while Joe stood close by giving instruction, happy that his charter had finally accomplished the day's task. A few minutes later, the day continued to improve as I tied into a 7-pounder.

On the way back to the dock, the skiff passed within sight of a submerged wreck of a small airplane, and Joe drifted along as Cathy and I donned mask and snorkel. Just the week before, John F. Kennedy Jr. was lost at sea in his small airplane, and I have to admit to a rather eerie feeling and lump in my throat as I held my breath and flippered under a wing.

"This one went down in the `70s," explained Joe. "A woman was the pilot. She came in for a landing and didn't make it just right, so she took off again. But then, the plane ran out of gas and she ditched it. She and her husband walked ashore- boy, was he yelling at her. Lots of small plane wrecks in the Bahamas. Good lobster spots."

Back at the dock, Joe explained that bonefish have so many bones to support all that muscle. At my suggestion, he cleaned one of the bonefish for my dinner and laughed about an old Bahamian saying: "You know when you find a good woman to marry, when she cleans the bones from a bonefish for her husband." I asked him if he has found a good woman and he said, "Not yet, but I'm still looking. Still haven't found a good woman." Cathy remarked that I too have not yet found a good woman, not by Bahamian standards.

After leaving Chub Cay, as the plane banked for a final photo of Chub, I thought of what a club member with a beach house overlooking the ocean had told me about Chub: "Nothing to do, but not enough time to do it in."

The Family Islands

Chub Cay is part of the Berry Islands, also known as the Family Islands to many of the people who come here with their children for summer vacations. Robert and Pamela Vaughn of Tavernier, with their children Ryan, 17, Catey, 15, Casey, 10, and Ray, 7, come here every summer, and the day before I introduced myself to them on the dock, they were trolling a foot-long Rapala Magnum over a reef patch in 50 feet of water when a 45-pound black grouper hit. They invited me on board for grouper fingers and conch fritters, and what a meal. They also speared two hogfish and numerous snapper. They've been coming over for five years on an annual summer vacation, piloting a 48-foot Pacemaker sportfisher and pulling a 15-foot Whaler.

"Chub is one of the few places you can take kids and let them have some freedom," said Robert. "And it's an easy one-day trip for us so that only knocks two days off our vacation. There is such a variety here-fishing, diving, beachcombing. But mostly it's an opportunity to be a family. It's only 35 miles from Nassau, just a couple of hours, so we always run over there for a few nights and see Atlantis."

If You Go

Chub Cay is one of the Bahama Out Islands, located at the southern end of the Berry Island chain, east of Bimini, 125 miles from Fort Lauderdale, 35 miles from Nassau, and 1/2 mile from the indigo depths of Tongue of the Ocean. Lots of boats spend the night at Chub on their way to places like Eleuthera, Spanish Wells, Harbour Island, and Cat Cay, to take on fuel and eat at a good restaurant. For years, Chub was a private club with membership listing some of the most elite names in business and sport and private jets landing on its 5,000-foot runway. But after Hurricane Andrew--that's how many conversations start in Chub, "after Andrew" or "before Andrew"--club owners decided to turn the island into a resort, with many of the owners renting out their dwellings and boat slips to vacationing fishermen. Chub now has dockside hotel rooms and villas and condos from 2 to 3 bedrooms for rent. The island's new slogan is, "Once a place along the way, now a place to come and stay."

Cathy and I stayed in a fully equipped beachfront cottage, with gently lapping surf just a few feet from our door. We sandaled our way to the restaurant for every meal, just up the lane a bit, passing private homes, rental units, tennis courts and a huge swimming pool. The Harbour House Restaurant and Lounge serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and offers everything from hot dogs to world-class cuisine. Chefie will cook your catch, and when the tab comes, it will read, "Own Catch Done." Also available is a gift shop, island store, and a full-service dive shop. Chub Cay's power plant is equivalent to that of a small city, and the reverse osmosis water is tasty enough to sell in those little plastic bottles. The marina features a surge-proof harbor with 96 newly wired slips, each plumbed with r/o water and big enough to accommodate ocean- going craft.

Three small airlines offer air transportation to and from Chub. Most of the flights are on small, propeller-driven airplanes- our flight back to Ft. Lauderdale was on a five-seater, so don't expect the usual cocktails and peanuts while en route. The only regularly scheduled flights are on Sandpiper Air, which flies from Nassau on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, phone (242) 328-6577. Two airlines fly to Chub from Ft. Lauderdale, but only on a charter basis: Bel Air, (954) 524-0115, and Bimini Island Air, (954) 938-8991.

Chub Cay is a port of entry for air and sea arrivals into the Bahamas. Customs and Immigration are at the Chub Cay airport and U.S. citizens can enter with either a passport or birth certificate. Customs at the airport monitors VHF channel 71; the marina stands by on channel 68. If arriving by boat, check into the marina office and they will call customs for you. Skippers should be ready to fill out the necessary documentation and pay $100 cash for a Bahamas cruising and fishing permit. The club bus runs between the airport and the Chub Cay Club with a $3 fee, free for club members. Club telephone (242) 325-1490, fax (242) 322-5199.

I found Chub Cay to be scant on charterboats and guides during the summer, with no charterboat association calling Chub home, but there are a few private large offshore boats available for hire during the season. Capt. Scott Gelok runs a 57-foot Jarrett Bay, a Carolina boat, and is available from mid-March through mid-July. He also runs a bonefish skiff and a 23-foot Mako for diving and snorkeling. Best season for billfish starts with the Chub Cay Invitational Billfish Tournament the end of March and runs through June, but resident fish can be caught year-round. Wahoo are said to be thick November and December. Gelok can be reached at (242) 328-3756.

Joe Louis runs a bonefish skiff out of Chub Cay. His phone number is (242) 325- 5388. Chefie, unfortunately, is not available for hire, but he will cook your catch at the Harbour House Restaurant.