East Bay and South Cays

To the South of Bottle Creek lies East Bay and a series of small cays that each has flats adjacent to channels that empty to the ocean. The flats are dry at low tide, but early on the rising tide can be very good for large fish coming out of the deeper water and onto the flats. These channels and flats continue through to the ocean side where the East Bay flats offer huge open shallow water that often hold large fish on a falling tide early in the day. There is a good flowing estuary back into Bottle Creek at the North end of this flat that may offer productive fishing when the prevailing Northeast wind overpowers the fishing in East Bay.

Hewes Flats Fishing
Hewes Flast Boat

A flats boat with a good shallow draft and a Captain that knows the channels well is really a prerequisite to fish these reas as they are not well marked and a running boat can go from feet of water to inches in just seconds – at the expense of a new prop or lower end ! The flats adjacent to the cays are best waded as it is difficult to get a boat high enough onto them to reach the productive flows, but the East Bay flats ocean side are set up perfectly to pole or drift over the gin-clear water looking for schools of meandering bonefish.

There also some small reefs lying just of the cays that offer opportunities for snorkelling and one of the areas in particular is well known by locals for collecting live conch for dinner. The cays and East Bay can be reached either from the ocean side via North Mouth in Bottle Creek or by coming all the way around the South of the creek – unfortunatley there is no direct route that is navigable except on the highest of tides, and even then only with significant care and local knowledge.