Photo - Shadow River Media, Cameron Miller
If I were to guess, Norman is probably in his mid-thirties. It’s hard to tell though, as most guides on the island are in pretty g’damn good shape. When he’s not hunting Walter on the Westside, he owns and operates a nightclub just south of Congotown. You can’t miss it – it’s the plywood-walled shack on the left side of the road as you head to South. It’s the one with the fifteen-foot-long neon Heineken sign just left of the door. The one with music so loud “you can’t hear anything but the bass, mon.” Norman, like all of the guides, works hard. During the season, three hours of sleep is par for the course. He’s also a commercial fisherman targeting conch, lobster, and sponge that can sell for up to fifty bones a pop. The dude is diverse. But, there’s no doubt - hunting bones is his first passion.
He’s been fishing since he skipped school in favor of it as a kid two to three days a week. Even though it pissed his mom off, he didn’t skip a beat. The punishment was worth it – which is saying something, as most of the Bahamian women I met were just as sour as they were sweet. Norman knew he’d be a guide since he was a young pup.
Now, he spends a majority of his time polling the smaller flats, creeks, and mangrove ponds on the West side. If he’s on the water 200 days a year, 175 of them are out West. Rarely does he wade. And, like a seasoned steelheader, Norman reads water. Specifically big fish water. Norman ain’t like everyone - he avoids huge flats with big schools of pound-and-a-halfers and sticks with skinnier stuff adjacent to deeper channels. Because in his eyes, deeper channels are Walter-friendly environs.
I fished with Norman twice last week. One day delivered the right sun, wind, and tide. And, with that, it delivered plenty of happy fish. On day one, I heard him chirp the phrase “bonefish, 12 o’clock, 40 feet” at least 25 times. And, if you’ve ever had coordinates barked to you by a Bahamian guide, you know damn well that’s a cast-friendly scenario that puts you in contact with shrimp crushing lips more often than not. The second day with Norman wasn’t as perfect – shitty sun and 15 to 20 mph stiffness all day. Bonefish, 7 o’clock, 20 feet was par for the course. And, no one was more frustrated with it than Norman. It didn’t matter though. We still connected on plenty of casts – even if most of them were five feet off the stern. We were still smiling at the end of the day. Including Norman – who cleaned up and tied up the boat, got in his car, and drove off to the nightclub to work the party. All on three hours of sleep.
Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 12:00AM 
