Tropical Trolling

My May Cod fishing trip out of Weymouth was cancelled due to the gales, so it was inevitable that withdrawl symptoms would get the better of me whilst on a family holiday to Jamaica!

I had done some research before hand and had found a charter company offering in shore reef fishing and Dave Proudfoot at PlanetSeaFishing.com had also found a review on the guy. When I arrived however it turned out he has stopped operating so I was back to square one. I decided to bite the bullet and book a half day charter to go trolling for blue water monsters. Now I have done this a couple of times before with little success and with even the charter company admitting this wasn't peak season my expectations were quite low.

So despite the odds being against catching that fish of a lifetime, I can't think of a nicer environment to go fishing from (not exactly Penarth on a wet January Sunday!).

Montego Bay Water Front at "Doctors Cave"

"Doctors Cave beach"

What suprised me most about fishing in Jamaica was just how organised the whole event was. I booked directly with a firm called "No Problem" charters that were well reviewed with a couple of US fishing web sites. By going direct I saved $100 on the price the Hotel was charging for a similar trip. They arranged for a driver to collect me and return me when we were done. The trip would be for four hours and ran exactly to time all day. The boat collected me from a beautiful private beach club called "Doctors Cave". The boat simply backs up to a long concrete pier, you step on, and off you go. There were lots of beautiful coloured fish around the Pier but sadly a big sign saying "no fishing"!

The charter company is owned by a locally reknowned Reggae singer called "Chokey" Taylor and his wife Denise. Apparently they own two fishing boats (one in Ocho Rios) and two sailing boats for charter as well as Denise running a catering business - hardly conforms to the laid back stereotype!

http://www.worldwidefishing.com/jamaica/b1613/index.html?page_type=salt&state_page=jamaica&company=No+Problem

My boat for the day was the 39' E-Zee crewed by skipper Billy and his two assistants, Catfish and Wire.

"The E-Zee Approaches The Dock"

As soon as I boarded the boat Catfish gave me a tour, showed me the heads, the bridge and the drinks cooler. He gave me a 10 minute run down on the type of fishing we would be doing, the lures and the pattern they would use to present the baits. He and Wire then set up six trolling outfits whilst the skipper set a course more or less due north of Montego Bay. Using the outriggers the rods were set up so that the 6 baits were presented in a "v" formation behind the boat with the outer baits furthest behind the stern. Each of the lures intermittently skips across the surface and then dives creating a large bubble trail.

"A Large Selection of Lures"

Now the E-Zee is not the most modern of vessels but it was imediately apparent that the fabric of the boat was well maintained with not a spot of rust anywhere and a very healthy sounding engine note. The tackle provided was much the same. The rods and reels had certainly seen some service but were in good order with no signs of corrosion. The rods and reels were all from the Penn Senator range and were set up with 80lb Mono main lines. The most encouraging sign was that all the lures were equipped with new (and very sharp) hooks. Standard patterns were 12/0 hooks, some double rigged with a 10/0 facing the reverse direction.

"Captain Billy"

After some 15 minutes of steaming my doubts about this form of fishing started to set in. It goes against the grain not to have any part in the fishing process other than to reel in a fish if it takes, and frankly whilst you troll the sea looking for your trophy you are very much a passenger. Catfish had explained (as many will have seen on TV) that they would be looking for signs of activity on the surface such as sea birds to locate the fish. Well in all my 30 years of fishing I have never been to sea and not seen a sea bird......except for this day. So I settled in to watch and wait.

"The Fighting Chair"

After about an hour and a half of a straight run, with no bird activity observed and certainly no fish contacted we reached an offshore weed bed marked by about a mile long stretch of weed rafts running parallel to the shore. At this point we started to troll along the edge of the weed. When we reached the end we came back down the other side. At the very end of the run, about two and a quarter hours in to the trip the crew suddenly burst in to life. Wire grabbed a rod out of the holder and struck several times in to a fish. Now I didn't even see the take but leapt straight in to the chair to be passed the rod. After a few minutes of pumping and reeling (and feeling like I was slightly over playing this) I saw colour, and aboard came this small barracuda. Now this was not really a sporting contest as I had 80lb gear and the fish was something like 10 to 15lbs, but I was so relieved to have caught something! I only wish I had one of my lightweight solid carbon rods as I suspect it would have been great fun on 20lb class gear.

"A Fish....At Last!"

With the fish in the locker we then started the long troll back towards the harbour with a couple of twists and turns on the way, but with no further takes.

I suspect to be succesful at this type of fishing you need to plan your trips meticulously around the seasons and then spend a lot of time and money covering as much water as possible just for the chance to have one good fish. I also suspect that had I been on a full day charter we would have spent another four hours at the weed beds with better chances of contacting more fish than on the troll out and in. That said, I can see from the adrenalin rush I had when we had a take (not knowing whether it was a monster or not), why people do this.

As a foot note on the three or four occasions I have tried this type of fishing over the last decade I have always caught Barracuda. I suspect that the Barracuda is to tropical game fishing what the dogfish is to Bream fishing.......better than nothing but only just!

Madpolka Publishing

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