Words by Cal Collier
The Ascension Bay Super Slam is part of a series of annual Redbone events that started in 2011, when Ian Davis and I came up with the idea of a rotating-venue tournament series that would raise money for Redbone and Cystic Fibrosis research. After three years each at Grand Slam Lodge (2011-2013), Swains Cay, Bahamas (2014-2016) and El Pescador, Belize (2017-2019), and a couple years off for Covid, we have now been back at Grand Slam twice (2022, 2024). The events are always a great time, thanks to Ian and the Yellow Dog team. And the events have raised a lot of money for cystic fibrosis, a cause near and dear to many of us. The following is an overview of this year’s event.
New Tulum Airport
My son William and I took a direct flight from our home in Atlanta direct to the new Tulum airport. I highly recommend it vs Cancun as everything (transfers, immigration, security lines, etc) is much easier than Cancun. From the airport, it is almost exactly 2 hours and 15 minutes door to door to the lodge. The ride from the airport to the dock south of Tulum takes about 50 minutes, and after 10 minutes of loading luggage and taking off, the boat ride to the lodge takes just under an hour. (Special Note: Once a road is completed heading south from the Tulum airport, transfers will be even shorter with a one-hour ground transfer, and a thirty-minute boat ride). The airport has plenty of restaurants, new clean bathrooms, and seating. Upon arrival, there is also a liquor store next to the baggage claim. Be aware that customs/immigration were stopping and checking most people’s bags so pack as if your bag is going to be thoroughly checked.
Tournament Recap
Just prior to our trip, the area had received a huge amount of rain due to a series of tropical waves. On the ride down from Tulum most of the lagoon was red and the water levels looked to be about 2 feet higher than normal. There were even “waterfalls” flowing into the bay in some places. As we got closer to the lodge and Ascension Bay the water cleared but still had more cloudiness to it than normal. The water cleared up significantly, and by the time we left the red color in the lagoon was gone and the water was almost completely back to normal.
On Wednesday (practice day) the weather was slick calm and sunny. We started in the back of the bay looking for snook and tarpon. We jumped a tarpon and saw a few more rollers. Once the sun got high enough to sight fish we ran out to the oceanside of the bay to look for permit. We found a couple schools of permit, where William caught two and I caught one, all on a size 4 mantis shrimp pattern. After that I got out and waded for permit and bonefish while William fished from the boat. We didn’t catch any more permit but did catch 10 nice bonefish on a Justin Rea green-eyed lady before lines out at 3:30 pm.
On Thursday (tournament day 1), we had dense fog in the morning that began lifting around 11 am. The wind was less than 5 knots the entire day. In the morning we fished way north in the lagoon not far from the Tulum dock we left a couple of days before. We saw a couple of fish, but by and large, the huge amount of fresh water had pushed the fish out. After lunch, we ran south and then out through Boca Paila to the ocean and permit fished our way back to the lodge. We had a couple permit shots and picked up a few bonefish before lines out at 3:30pm.
Thursday night we had the live auction, MC’d by the master himself, Ian Davis. Huge thanks to Rob Neher, owner of East End Lodge in McLeans Town, Bahamas, who donated three 3/2 packages to the auction. As always, thanks to Neville Orsman, owner of Thomas and Thomas fly rods for his sponsorship and donation of his “work of art” fly rods for the auction.
Friday we had another slick calm day, with mostly sunny skies. Again, the high temps were around 87 degrees. This day we started on the ocean about a mile north of the lodge, where we caught a nice 15-20 pound tarpon on a 1/0 black and purple toad. We fished our way north along the deserted beach (beautiful) and had 3-4 really nice permit shots (follow-follow) throwing white ragheads with yellow eyes in size 2. Around noon our guide told us to get out our baby tarpon rod and we pushed back into a bay off the ocean. In the far back of the lagoon, we found huge numbers of rolling baby tarpon and fished them for about 40 minutes, catching one on about every third or fourth cast. After that, we ran back south to the lighthouse to look for permit, and then to a lagoon to the southwest of the lighthouse where we caught several bonefish in the 2-3 pound range, and saw several flamingos wading among the tailing bones.
After fishing we all rode into Punta Allen to see some of the work of the Yellow Dog Community and Conservation Foundation in the town. We toured a house they built for teachers coming to Punta Allen, new public bathrooms, and a public park complete with pirate pirate-themed play area. We also stopped by for a drink at Ascension Bay Lodge and stuck our nose in to see Jose at Kay Fly (everyone was resting so we moved along). It was great seeing the impact fishing can have on a community like Punta Allen.
Day 3 we had tougher conditions with slick calm and overcast all day. We found several groups of nice permit in our first spot and were actually throwing a modified gurgler at them since it was so calm (and too early to see bodies). We had one permit get its mouth out of the water and nip at the tail of the gurgler – pretty incredible. We then fished near Culebra where we saw dozens of large permit floating in the current, and every once in a while a migratory size tarpon roll. While we didn’t get any permit eats, we did hook and land a small migratory tarpon of about 40 pounds on a black and purple toad. After checking for permit near Tres Marias (water was too low) we ran over to a shoreline to look for snook. The second we pushed up near the bank we started seeing groups of fish swimming in less than a foot of clear water. This shoreline was somewhat rocky but had hardly any mangroves, so it was possible to wade fish for them. William hooked and lost a snook in the 40 inch range, and then over the next hour we caught six nice snook on Midnight Mullet patterns, the largest being 31 inches. The fish did not seem tippet shy at all and we went from our standard 40# shock to 60# shock at the guide’s request.
Gear and Flies
Counting the practice day there were 10 permit caught, the largest by John Kammerer (measured 36 inches). With the slick calm conditions it was very difficult to approach them, even wading. That said the most popular flies this week were white or tan ragheads, Puglisi spawning shrimp, gurgler-style floating crab/shrimp, Veverka Mantis Shrimp. For tarpon we had great luck with 1/0 black and purple toads and chartreuse and white toads with 40# shock for the babies and 60# for the larger migratory fish. The bonefish generally were not picky and would eat most of the permit flies we had on.
For snook we did well with white baitfish flies tied on 2/0 hooks. Seaducers in red/white also did the trick. Since it was so calm we did almost all of our fishing with 8 weight and 9 weight floating lines. Most of the boats have a total of 6 rod tubes (3 on each side) so I’d reco bringing no more than that, and even putting a colored piece of tape at the butt ends of each denoting what it is because once they’re in the tubes all you can see is the reel and the butt of the rod. While we were there the ideal set of rods for the day was 1 8wt with a shrimp pattern like a mantis or Puglisi, one 9wt with a raghead or similar permit crab, one 9wt rigged for baby tarpon (black and purple toad, 12 ft leader with 40# shock), one 9wt rigged for snook (white baitfish fly like the Midnight Mullet 2/0, 10ft leader with 50# shock), one 10wt rigged for larger tarpon (black and purple toad with 60# shock) and one 10wt rigged for permit with a raghead, flexo or similar (for windier days).
Tournament Results
There were 10 teams fishing in the three day fly fishing only event. As with all Redbones, winners are determined by most of the four target species caught, with points being the tiebreaker. Bonefish = 25, tarpon = 100, snook = 100, permit = 300. During the event there were 7 permit, 21 snook, 42 tarpon and 136 bonefish over the size limit caught and released.
- Team Grand Champions: Vittorio Kier and Miguel Garza
- Runner Up Team Champs: John Kammerer and Capt. Champ Smith
- Grand Champion Angler: John Kammerer
- Runner-up Grand Champion Angler: Miguel Garza
- Most Tarpon: William Collier
- Most Snook: Vittorio Kier
- Most Bonefish: Dave Collier
- Most Permit: John Kammerer (on time)
- Largest Snook: William Collier
- Largest Bonefish: Andy Phillips
- Largest Permit: John Kammerer
- Top Guide: Miguel
Lodge Conditions and Food
This was our 5th trip to Grand Slam and the lodge continues to be in very good shape. The A/C in the rooms worked perfectly. The wifi near the office was consistent but it was on again/off again at the lodge itself. We were in room 142 (upstairs, near the office) and had good wifi there the whole time. Coffee followed by made to order breakfast (bacon and eggs, breakfast burrito, fruit) was ready every day at 6:30am.
Lunches were packed for us each day – we went with fruit and steak tacos each day. I would say the bar was stocked at a basic but serviceable level. If you have preferences for liquor in particular, I would say buy at the airport (or at the duty free in the US before you take off) and leave at the bar when you arrive. The most popular mixers at the bar are soda, tonic, coke and orange juice (and margarita mix). If you want something special you may want to reach out well in advance to see if they can get it for you, or stop in Tulum on the way. Dinners were served family style at 7pm each night with all 20 of us at one table. Lobster, pasta, steak, salad, etc. Afterwards we played ping-pong/beer pong, darts or hung out around the couch outside. Overall fishing in Ascension Bay seems to be getting better every year. The guides there all agree there are more and more tarpon each year, the snook fishing is really great, and there are lots of bonefish. The number of permit shots seems to be steady or increasing as well. I think with a little wind we would have done much better on them (in 2022 we caught 21 permit during the tourney).
We have the same super sponsors for this tournament every year: Morningstar Marinas, Thomas & Thomas, East End Lodge, Simms, Yellow Dog Community Conservation Fund and Grand Slam Lodge.
