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September 29, 2026

No Seagrass, No Fish: A Fly-Fishing Guide’s Perspective

 

Our Sea, Our Stories (Part 3)

Seagrass beds are nurseries. Juvenile bonefish, permit, and countless other species spend their earliest, most vulnerable stage of life hiding and feeding in these underwater meadows before they’re big enough to survive in open water. Strip away the seagrass, and you strip away the flats for the next generation of fish before they’ve had a chance to grow into the ones anglers travel to Belize to catch.

“Without these pristine flats, you don’t have a commercial fishing industry, and you don’t have sports fishing, and you simply won’t have a clean and vibrant ocean,” said Eworth Garbutt, fly fishing guide.

You might easily overlook seagrass. Just a patch of grass underwater. Nothing much. But that’s where the assumption is incorrect.

It’s a short sentence that carries a lot of weight: No seagrass, no fish.

No fish, no guiding.

No guiding, no income for the guides, boat captains, and lodges who depend on healthy flats.

And without all of this, there’s nothing to pass down to the next generation.

Despite everything he’s seen change, Eworth isn’t just watching from the sidelines. He’s one of the most vocal fishers in southern Belize and amplifies his voices with fishers around the country. And he’s bringing the next generation with him.

Eworth understands that the water he guides on today is the same water he hopes to hand off to future guests, and eventually, to the next generation of guides.

Watch Eworth’s story in the video below.