The Turneffe Atoll is the Belizean wall against the wild tumult of the Atlantic Ocean. It is an impressive place. Storms, tides and waves slap against this fragile portion of the world’s second-largest barrier reef—pounding, feeding and irrigating a 620-mile stretch from the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula down to Belize, past Guatemala and the Bay Islands of Honduras, finally terminating in Nicaragua. It is fine, vast and wild country that provides shelter to bonefish, tarpon, permit, triggerfish and more than 500 other species. This sliver of the huge Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System allows the notion of the Caribbean. It is a fecund, heady region that grows fish and attracts anglers from everywhere.

Most of those anglers have a plan. Curry and I have something like a plan—a mini, three-day plan. But after that plan, the plan is no plan—always a fine plan. We’re in Belize, after all, and it seems like the right thing to do. But first, we must execute the easy part of our skimpy plan.

We land in Belize City and hop in a cab. Two hours later we are sitting on the deck of a boat headed to Turneffe Island Resort. We have three days of fishing in front of us. We have been promised a permit. This seems reckless. Plans or no plans, you cannot promise a man a fish. Period. And a permit? C’mon…

Subscribe to start your collection of the world’s best flyfishing publication