If you’ve ever fished for tarpon, you know just how challenging it can be. I spent several months in the BVI chasing these prehistoric beasts and I know as little today as I did the first day I fished them. I managed to catch my fair share of fish, but there were days when there were 50+ tarpon feeding within casting range, and no mater what I tried, I could not get one to bite. Even live bait failed to produce fish!
Matt from This River Is Wild managed to get some awesome footage the other day, showing just how tough it is to convince a tarpon to bite.
If you followed this site for any amount of time you’ve probably seen me write about the British Virgin Islands. I was born on the main island of the BVI, called Tortola, and it one of my favorite places to fish. Its been a few years since I’ve been back and every winter it kills me that I’m shoveling snow while other people are capitalizing on the great fishing to be had. Luckily there are a couple of people documenting their BVI fishing experiences as I did. So if you are looking for some awesome tropical fishing photos to keep you warm this winter, check out This River Is Wild. An make sure you read back a few pages, there is a ton of great reading! One of the authors, Matt, has managed to do what most visitors fail to do, consistently catch tarpon on the fly!
Seriously, we forgot our own birthday, we must be getting old! Fishing Fury began on June 8th 2004 when we purchased the domain, and that following July we launched our site and personalities on the intertubes and earlier this year we took a look at the changes the site has been though over the years.
Many things about Fishing Fury have grown over the last five years. We started this site to cover our own fishing antics and legendary ability to catch fish. Early on we were both young and single, every weekend was spent fishing without question. As our readership grew we expanded our coverage outside of our own personalities and in to news and events that we found interesting or incredible, everything from current events to videos and photos, while still publishing our own 100% original editorial content. We’ve also started our own community forums where readers and contributors can talk about anything.
These days we’re both approaching 30 and our tastes and ideas of the world have matured, well Clive’s probably have. Clive is now living in Nova Scotia with his lovely wife Gillian and their totally awesome son. Clive has grown a beard, forgoing the handlebar mustache, and still makes fun of me for not even being able to grow either. I’m still living on my own, happily employed doing what I love, and living in Ontario.
We’ve got a lot of great things planned this year so keep your eye peeled for updates. Here’s to another 5 years!
As some of you know, I was born in the British Virgin Islands. I haven’t lived there since I was a little boy, but I did enjoy a prolonged stay there in 2006. I still feel homesick whenever I think of the islands and maybe one day, my family and I can move back. For now, I resort to watching old videos we made while we were there a few years back. Lots of warm weather and lots of excellent fishing, it doesn’t get much better then that.
PS. If anyone needs an island fishing guide and has the cash to cover my expenses to get there, I’m all yours!
I’m not certain when I started to dislike Canadian winters. To be fair, it isn’t winter itself I hate, its the cold. I mean, I love Christmas and the holiday season, I love snow, and I love winter sports like hockey (which I just started playing again). I remember the first time I saw snow, I was about seven years old and we were temporarily living in British Columbia with my uncle and fisherman extraordinaire, Stephen. It was one of those heavy snowfalls that rarely occur on the west coast and we played for hours in the snow, making snowmen and snow angels. It was incredible. Until that day, I had no idea what snow was. My sister and I grew up only knowing of white sand beaches and turquoise colour oceans. From that day forward, I looked forward to every winter and the first snow fall, that is until I grew up.
On really cold days I ask myself, why would anybody want to live in a place like this? Why not live somewhere that has warm weather all year long? In 2005, in the middle of the winter I decided that I had had enough of winter, and packed my bags and headed south to La Paz, Mexico to meet up with Jon and fish the Sea of Cortez.
I’m glad I did, it changed my life. After a month in the desert I met my wife to be, Gillian, but after almost six months we both agreed that La Paz was not the place for us. We headed back to Canada, specifically Mississauga, Ontario – the town I grew up. I had friends and family there, and got my old job at the bank back right away. By the time the chill of fall was in the air we both decided that staying for a freezing winter was not an option.
September 2005 marked one of the happiest time in my life, my return to the British Virgin Islands. Since my sister, mother and I left the BVI when I was five, I had only visited a handful of times. We arrived with nothing more then the shirts on our back, a tent, a camera, a laptop and of course, my fishing rods. We spent our first several weeks camping near the beach at Brewers Bay during hurricane season while we looked for an apartment to rent. After a few months settling in, things were going great. We lived in a small apartment on a mountain top with a brilliant panoramic view of several islands. Best of all, the ocean was a five minute drive from our apartment, and the sea was full of tarpon!
British Virgin Islands tarpon
Our time in the Virgins Islands had a lot of ups and downs. In the end, financial difficulties and health problems ultimately caused us to leave. We returned to Canada, and spent a year in Ontario, and have since relocated to beautiful Nova Scotia. I currently have two jobs, (three if you count Fishing Fury, but this is a labour of love, and as you can see by the lack of advertising, this doesn’t exactly bring in any income). Things are going great since we moved to the east coast, but it’s winter, and it’s cold and I don’t like the cold.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about life in the BVI. Since I can’t experience it in person, the next best thing is to read about others enjoying the sunshine and fishing. There is one blog that I check regularly to get my BVI fix, The Captains Log Blog. If you plan to visit the BVI or the Carbibean, these site will give you a taste of what you will get to see. And if you are looking for a sailing charter (with fishing), look no further!
It’s been over 5 years since we last visited Mystery Lake and just as long since we’ve fished with our good friend Mike Westlake. Mike would definitely be considered a founding member of Fishing Fury, in our first year he joined us on many of our trips and witnessed us catch trophy fish in every [...]
