Life without employee schedules, QuickBooks sessions, deep database dives, and a steady stream of emails has simply been…AMAZING! As most know by now, I used to own Fins & Feathers of Bozeman – a fly shop that I started in 2000 and sold to Yellow Dog Fly Fishing in late 2022. While growing up in Texas, a “big” fishing adventure was hitching up the Ranger bass boat and trailering it to Lake Fork. I spent most of my youth dreaming of a life in the Rocky Mountains, never imagining that I would ever want to go anywhere else if I ever made my way there. The fly-fishing life eventually took me to Alaska, then to Mexico, then to New Zealand, and from there I have seen a nice chunk of the world – in the name of fly-fishing. The more I travel and the more I fish, the more apparent it becomes to me that it is the fishing that I love the most.

I recently returned from my first trip to Punta Gorda (PG) in southern Belize where I fished with friends of mine while staying at Garbutt’s Fishing Lodge. Primarily known as a Permit destination, the diversity of this fishery includes an extensive lagoon system, reef flats, pancake flats, and an extensive islands system with small outside flats that one could spend a lifetime exploring. The Garbutt family runs the only fly-fishing guide service in the area and are some of the best Permit guides – if not, the best – on the planet.

Permit are an odd fish that nobody truly understands - they move around a lot and rarely stick to a pattern for more than a few days at a time, if even that. The diversity of the fishery around PG ensures that there is always someplace you might be able to find some fish as the changing weather and tides often make one type of fishery more productive than another. There were several days, on our trip, when we could not find fish on the flats or in the lagoons, but we able to find them out on the islands or the reef and vice versa. In general, Permit aren’t easy to catch in the best of conditions and finding them is often just as big a battle as getting the fly to them in the wind. Having quick access to all those different types of flats – and the knowledge of the guides to know which ones to go look for fish on when conditions change – makes PG an ideal destination if Permit are on your list.

We landed three Permit the week I was there – two of them were very small (very small) – and had several shots each day, despite a couple days of heavy rain and week full of big winds. I have done enough Permit fishing to consider that a “great week” as I have more blank weeks under my belt than not, over the years. I have found that the key to having fun while Permit fishing is to be ok with being disappointed!

This trip was a stellar one in my mind, and I look forward to heading back there as soon as the dust settled from my next round of adventures to northern Belize, Brazil, and hopefully back to Turks and Caicos (in between guiding here in Montana). I would recommend reaching out to Matt Kelsic at Yellow Dog Fly Fishing for more information on the lodging options in PG as well. The Garbutt family guide anglers out of their simple fishing lodge as well as guests that opt to stay at the “higher-end” lodging option at Copal Tree.

As always, feel free to reach out to me via e-mail for help planning your next fishing adventure and I hope to share a day or two with you fly-fishing in Bozeman this coming season.