Well, I leave for my honeymoon in a few days and Patrice has encouraged me to bring my fly rod but I am going to decline. I am however, thinking of taking her up on an offer to do a little traditional big game fishing. Has anyone had any positive experiences with a particular guide in the area?
Patrice and I arranged to do a 1/2 day trip with Cannon charters. They picked us up from the hotel and brought us to the boat. We were on the water at about 8 a.m. and had our lines in the water just outside of the harbor. Barbados is very fortunate to have deep water just about a mile off shore. We were trolling for about an hour when all of a sudden when one rod on the downrigger and one on the outrigger doubled over and started losing line. Patrice and I were in the chairs and reeling. I have never felt the power of an offshore fish and it took me a few minutes to get the technique down. After a few minutes we brought aboard a 30lb Wahoo. I looked over at Patrice and she had given up and handed the rod to one of the mates. He handed the rod to me and I brought in the second fish of about the same weight. We landed one more fish of about the same weight about an hour later. With about a 1/2 hour left on the charter I was up on the bridge chatting with the captain and the head mate when we heard a loud pop. The head mate slid down the latter and I followed. This fish was talking a lot of line and the mate said its a girl. I soon realized that meant a bigger fish. For a few minutes it was a stale mate as I could not gain any line. I was eventually able to start gaining some line and after about 15 mins a 45lb Wahoo came aboard. The fish was still pretty green and was thrashing all over and Patrice got splashed with a good amount of blood. She took it like a champ and said all she wanted to do was protect the camera. All in all it was an awesome trip with a great crew. Attached are a few visual memories.
for the congrats. The wedding was awesome and the honeymoon spectacular.
Doogue,
I was hoping for a few jumps myself but none of the fish left the water during the fight. In fact the big one went down deep and it was very tough to bring her up. I can't imagine landing one on a fly rod.
I've done three wahoo up to about 25 or 30 pounds on an 11 weight, also on my honeymoon. It's doable, but that large fish in your last pic would have had me rubbing the beads off of my rosary.
How did you hook the wahoo? Were you using a bait and switch technique? It seems like it would be hard to locate a school since they seemed to be runnning a ledge at very fast speeds and you would need to have your bait/fly in the water at all times to capitalize. There were some 80lb fish in the area with the numbers of them growing according the the crew. Apparently the fish come in to spawn in late October down there with the large ones arriving last. We may need to change the date of our anniversary to accomodate another trip in a few years. :hehe:
Thanks Quentin. Maybe we will see you this weekend.
Sean
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Fly Fishing Forum
163.8K posts
38.8K members
Since 2000
A forum community dedicated to fly fishing and sporting enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about safety, licenses, tips, tricks, rivers, reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more!