The Tribune

By Annelia Nixon

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

Grants and other investments being directed to the fly fishing industry should be used to educate Bahamians while protecting the sector from foreign involvement, a fisherman argued yesterday.

While grateful and excited about the funding being pumped into an industry with vast untapped potential, Curry Lewis, proprietor of Lewy’s Bonefish Adventure, warned that Bahamians’ lack of knowledge on fly fishing leaves the industry open for foreigners to exploit.

Speaking after the Government provided $150,000 to the Bahamas Fly Fishing Industry Association (BFFIA), and an additional $50,000 to the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC), Mr Lewis said: “We do have a lot of foreigners that come in and they put on fly fishing. One day I was out chatting, and I was with a client in the eastern area.

“And as we were manoevering in an area, I saw this white gentleman. He was on the beach and he was looking at us, watching us. And at one point, he ran up to the building where he was staying, and then he come back out with a fly rod in his hand.

“And so I said to the guy he’s going to come and try follow us and see what we’re doing. As we pass by, he started to talk to us. And he introduced himself. And then he said he don’t really fish in Nassau. He fish in Andros. He operate in Andros. So what he does is, there is a fishing lodge that’s in Andros owned by a Bahamian. But I guess they are not really operating it like it should be,” Mr Lewis added.

“So what he said he does is he rented that lodge out throughout the season. He would rent it out every time he gets a big group of clients coming in. He would rent it out and he would operate that lodge. Now, I don’t know what his legal grounds for doing it are or whether he has legal rights to it. I don’t know. I’m just saying that we do have foreigners that come tap into those potentials.

“They see the potential and they take advantage of it. So that is something that we do need to look at because we do have a lot of foreigners that come and they do those things. And again, I don’t know if they are straight. Who am I to walk up to you and say: ‘Hey, do you have papers to do that’ or ‘Do you have a licence to do it?’ I can’t do that.”

Mr Lewis added that there are not enough Bahamian guides, especially in Nassau. “I think it’s really needed - training for flat fishing guides,” he added. “Again, we don’t have a lot of flat fishing guides; not the amount that we should have.

“And not a lot of young Bahamians know much about fly fishing and flat fishing. Our focus was always on offshore fishing or doing some reef fishing or diving. So that’s what mostly has been known, especially among our young men. So when they talk about flat fishing and fly fishing, most of them don’t know about it.

“And even now, me here at Nassau going out, taking clients out fishing and sometimes I’m coming right in the local areas, the local beaches, because that’s where we should start fishing, inshore. And they see me coming in there and they’re just in amazement, like, what are you doing? What’s going on?” Mr Lewis said.

“Sometimes it even makes me kind of timid because I know their thoughts and I know what they’re thinking. They just have no clue. And I’m coming in and I’m fishing and they be like: ‘What the hell is he doing?’ They see me catching fish, and then sometimes they run up to me like: ‘What are you fishing for? What is that?’ And I have to tell them. So there’s a lot of potential in it.

“And a lot of Bahamians are clueless when it comes to that type of fishing and the potential for growth. Even for oneself in getting into the business and developing themselves, and making something greater of themselves. Its great potential. And I don’t think a lot of Bahamians are seizing those opportunities, especially here in Nassau and some other Family Islands. It is mostly known in Andros and a few other Family Islands. But when we come to Nassau and places like that, it’s not known. It really hasn’t been touched yet.”

Denward Rankine, the BFFIA’s vice-president, confirmed the industry sees many foreigners profiting from an industry they “would love to control” for Bahamians. He said it has been publicised that Bahamians “can’t handle it” and “don’t have the resources”.

“Documented last year, I think, they’re saying that fly fishing contributed about $169m to the Bahamian economy,” Mr Rankine said. “But that is just off-hand. In real reality, it’s well over half a billion dollars, because a lot of these [people that] come in don’t go through tourism. They’ll book a guide locally.

“And again, these guys not only pay for guide services, but they rent vehicles, they rent accommodations, they buy fuel, they buy stuff at the grocery stores. And so the spin-off effect is huge also. And we’ve been having some push back over the years because there’s so much money in it.

“We’ve had issues over the past few years where the foreigners have been pretty much putting it out there that the locals are not ready for it. They can’t handle it. They don’t have the resources and all that. It’s a lot of money. And this is something that they, again, would love to control, but we can’t allow that to happen. We’re not about to.”

Mr Rankine continued: “We have an issue in The Bahamas where most of the larger lodges are foreign-owned, and these guys have endless sources of funding and so they can afford what the little local guy can’t. So we’re trying to also position the local guys in a way that they can compete with the large operations, mostly foreign-owned, with proper equipment and all that stuff.

“So you know, they take out guys. You don’t want them to have shabby boats, shabby engines, shabby rods. You want them to be able to look good because they represent as ambassadors in the country. And we want them to look that way.

“We have this guides training programme and programme coming on now where they come in and get certified and shortly, you know, you wouldn’t be able to operate as a guide in The Bahamas legally unless you’re certified. And so that brings them up to international standards and makes everybody look good. We’re working on all that stuff,” he added.

“Over the past 20 years it’s been tough because this is an industry where we all feel like foreigners shouldn’t be able to guide in this country. There’s very few other places in the world that you can do this. And it’s one of the few industries that can be left for and controlled by Bahamians. And we’re trying to save that for Bahamians.”

Education on fly fishing, an unknown sector among most of the younger generation, as well as environmental preservation are a few suggestion, provided by Mr Lewis to bring fly fishing on par with offshore, deep sea and other forms of fishing. 

“Specifically, a lot of educational training is needed, not just from the lower level but from the higher level, come straight down,” Mr Lewis said. “Because what’s been happening now, especially in Nassau, we’ve been destroying most of our flats, most of our coastal areas, inland areas. And these are the areas where this type of fish thrive.

“They like inland, they like coastal areas. They like to get deep in the mangroves and different areas like that. And we’ve been destroying most of them. We’ve been developing and building hotels and wiping out all of the mangroves and all these different things. So we’re destroying thousands and thousands, even millions of dollars, of potential.

“And when they keep doing that, developing these coastal areas with hotels and different things and developments, the fish now move. And when they do that, most time, they don’t think of, ‘how can we develop another area for these fish to maybe transition into this area’ or something like that. We are not looking at these things. 

“That’s one thing you can do. Fly fishing is being impacted. We need to protect flats in our coastal areas and what [can] we do to enhance and try to boost that industry. Because to tell you the truth, if we can find ways to boost that industry and cause more fish and more growth in those areas, we’ll have something there, especially in Nassau.”