Fresh Sint Maarten Fishing Reports

A couple of Ohio natives, Bob and Paul came out with us on a short day charter. For both, it was their first time out on the salt, deep sea fishing. We departed Simpson Bay Lagoon via the 10am bridge and headed out to the drop-off. Once we were in around 300 feet depth we dropped in 4 lines. It was a nice sunny day and we rigged 3 lines with fresh ballyhoo and 1 with an artificial deep swimming lure. We trolled the optimal depths for around an hour or so but there was just not much happening. It wasn't exactly the optimal time of day to be trolling but we gave it a shot. Switching to deep dropping we found a likely spot in around 1,000 feet and setup the electric reels. It didn't take long before we pulled in our first silky of the day. They kept coming in at a regular pace although we did have to continually re-position as the wind was blowing us shallow. On one drop, there was nothing happening for about 20 minutes. so we decided to pick up and move deeper. Just as I said to bring em in, our guest Bob got a nice bite and reeled in a good size, a 2lb Snapper - the biggest catch of the day. All in all, not one of our best hauls but still, not bad either. We ended the day with around 7lbs of fresh red snapper to take back to the dock. Plenty of good fishing. Kept us all busy enough and I hope our guests got the experience they came for. Of course, it would have been nice to get big Wahoo or Dolphin but I guess that's why they call it 'Fishing' and not 'Catching'. Until next time....

Yesterday we took out a party of 7 for some deep sea fishing off the island of Anguilla.Our trip out to the drop-off was a nice flat down-swell run and we had rods water within an hour. We ran a mix of Tuna and Wahoo rigs in our spread. A long shotgun down the middle using a squid/bird teaser and cedar plug. Two wahoo rigs on the inside corners and another squid teaser with a plug on the end on the outside corner. Within about 10 minutes we spotted the water boiling of our bow and a quick starboard detour resulted in our first hit for the day. A nice little tuny of about 4 or 5 pounds. Not great eating but he put up a nice little fight. A short while later the birds showed us another little patch of activity which we made full use of the pull in a small Alby. Continuing to run along the drop-off in about **hidden content** feet of water, we hooked up a couple of more times but lost the fish on the haul in. We swapped out one of the cedar plugs at this point for a bare hook lure. One more tuna hooked and landed about 20 minutes later. Then it went quiet as we headed out into Wahoo territory. We swapped out for some high speed lures and bumped up the knots. Despite the lines going quiet, we did manage to run right alongside some dolphins for a short while. The two youngsters we had on-board were delighted. We ran faster for a while but the wind and swell had picked up and we were just beating up the boat and passengers so we turned around and headed back to more sheltered waters. We rigged back up for tuna and waited. The birds had all disappeared and we were not seeing much activity at all. Everyone was giving up hope a little and starting to concentrate on the deck dancing and adult beverages when of course, our shotgun line went off. With the big teaser on the line, Penn Senator reel and 8 knots of speed, it was a tough fight until we pulled back the boat speed. With two guests on the rod, they managed to haul in our biggest catch of the day. A football sized Big Eye Tuna, maybe 10 to 12 pounds. One other small Tuna hauled in after that we called it a day on the drop-off and headed back to shallow water. The wind and swell had picked up a bit for our trip into the swell back to St Maarten so it was a bit of a wet, bouncy ride back across the Anguilla channel. To give everyone a rest we stopped in at Long Bay where the water is calm, clear and warm for a short swim and snorkel. After our short swim stop we head over to a couple of reef spots for a little bottom fishing. Despite a couple of small reef fish pulled up, the action was a little on slow side unfortunately. The slow ride back over meant we were a little pressed for time so we headed back to Simpson Bay to make the 5 p.m. inbound bridge. Of course, early March is Heineken Sailing Regatta time here on St Maarten. The bridge channel was entirely congested with sailboat traffic. It's always chaos with so many boats needing to get through the bridge in a short amount of time. However, it's also fun. The incoming boats and crew dress up on the inbound run and lots of silly antics ensue. A big crowd also gathers at the yacht club adjacent to the bridge to watch the incoming fleet. We got our guests to pull out the catch and show it off to the onlookers. Plenty of cheering and applause ensued. A fun ending to a good day out on the water.