Veteran Anglers of New York
Adventure in the Abacos, Bahamas
December 3 – 10, 2011

On the final evening of our trip, we enjoyed a feast prepared by expert saltwater fly fisher, FFF certified casting instructor and VANY volunteer, David Blinken. We called it “Bahamian Thanksgiving” with native conch salad, sautéed grouper, brown rice with chicken from the Abaco Big Bird poultry farm and spiny lobster or “crawfish” tails. We were packed and ready for an “0 dark-thirty” run back to Marsh Harbour Airport for our return to New York City after a week of fly fishing for bonefish on Abaco Island.

Robert “Nicko” Gill, the youngest of our four veterans who, like Andrew Roberts, a West Point graduate, served in Iraq, Exer Quinonez, and Manuel “Manny” Vasquez, a Green Beret during the Vietnam War, thanked the three VANY volunteers, David, Phil Shook, outdoor writer and FFF certified fly casting instructor and Richard Franklin. Nicko spoke about one of our two guided days on the trip when he was perched upon the bow of a skiff as Kendall, our Bahamian guide, quietly poled the boat and, in hushed tones, said, “OK, we are going to meet a single bonefish. He is at 11 o’clock about 120 feet. Get ready. Do you see him? 80 feet coming straight at us, start casting…drop the fly! Start stripping, strip, strip…do not worry, we will find another one but that was a big fish”. Nicko struggled to execute; all the practice casting in NY City’s Central Park was forgotten, a nervous anxiety evoking some difficult experiences from the past pervaded him. “I just can’t do it”. “Oh yes you can and you will; stop standing on your fly line and get ready for the next fish”.