“These trips are to go to a faraway destination to catch a fish that you’re just going to throw back,” he said as he was heading out one morning in a 26-foot skiff with a 115-horsepower Itec motor. “This is just for enjoyment.”

This group of fishermen came to “sight fish,” a style of fishing in which you stalk your catch before you cast. It takes patience, stamina, and acquired skill to be able to see and hook a bonefish in the shallow flats. Luckily, the fish in Los Roques are plentiful and don’t spook easily. Gonzalez says that while hooking 10 fish a day in a place like the Bahamas is remarkable, it has simply come to be expected in Los Roques.

“I love the hunting aspect of bonefishing,” Woodsum said one evening over beers with his buddies on the porch of the Mediterraneo Fishing Lodge, just before heading to a four-course meal including ceviche, roast chicken, Spanish wine, and Cuban cigars. “You have to see the fish first and cast in the exact right spot. You can see it take the fly and that makes it very exciting”

Woodsum and Shaw scored a record catch on just their second outing, the same day they managed the “double.” By the afternoon they both looked like fishmongers, having caught and released so many that their clothes were covered in scales and sludge. At one point Woodsum was pulling a bonefish out of the water every 10 minutes.

In the evening the men arrived at their fishing lodge tired, dirty, and sunburned. For many, this style of fishing would be considered hard work. But for these anglers it’s leisure at its best.

“There’s nothing like bonefishing,” says Curt Chesley, the chef, who from New Hampshire. “You just get out there and relax.”