On This Day in 2006: BVI Fishing

I was lucky enough to be enjoying a prolonged stay in the British Virgin Islands four years ago today. Life was pretty damn good. The fishing was tough, but rewarding. I started a Tuesday night fishing outing appropriately named Tarpon Tuesday, in which a group of my friends and I would meet on a bridge from some night fishing. During the height of our Tuesday expeditions, as many as 10 fishermen would line the bridge peering into the darkness for a glimpse of the silver king. The fishing was often too slow for the average fishermen, and we would spend our time drinking beer and eating pizza while our baits dangled in the water below.

After several Tuesdays had passed only a few brave fishermen remained. We had been in a serious slump and only myself and two of my friends, Colin and Nick, had joined me this particular night. Neither of them had caught a tarpon yet or anything of good size, but on this fateful night that would all change.

The night started as any other. I was the first to arrive at the bridge and I started out by trying to catch some live bait. Colin and Nick arrive not long after, and Colin was armed with his big offshore reel. We had seen some large sharks in the area recently and thought it best to be well prepared. Colin dropped his bait straight down from the bridge, and it wasn’t look before he hooked up with a big tarpon. I had promised Colin a big fight and some serious acrobatics, but this large tarpon did neither. Of course, he was using a massive reel spooled with 80lb mono. The fight was quick and apart from a few close calls with the bridge pilings, the silver king did little to escape. I went down to pick up the fish, and to my surprise it was much heavier then the previous tarpon I had caught, and I could barely lift it out of the water. Colin’s first tarpon, an honest 100 pound fish!

Colin kept just a single scale to remember his first tarpon!

It was no more then a beer or two later when I hooked up. Another Tarpon! This one was clearly much smaller, but it fought well and showed off its acrobatic skills.

After catching two quick tarpon, things got quiet. This was often the case with night fishing for tarpon. If you weren’t around during the small window of opportunity, the fish simply would night bite. We sat around for quite some time watching the tarpon sit perfectly still in the dark water below. It was clear that they were no longer feeding and seem to gather just to be social. In a last ditch effort we let about a hundred yards of line out of the big reel to drift down in the current. We had no idea what was out in the darkness, but we would soon find out. We all sat back finishing the last of the beer. The big rod leaning against the rail in front of us with the line alarm engaged. There were no cars passing at that moment, and everything was quite. A lout click broke the silence and we all peer at the rod, the tip started to bend and both Colin and I looked at Nick. “Your turn.”

He lunged for the rod, and as soon as he picked it up, the reel started screaming. He set the hook and we waited for the sound of a splash, a telltale sign a tarpon was on the other end, but we heard nothing. Whatever it was, it was big. We all thought it had to be a shark, we had never seen anything else besides a tarpon that was big enough to pull that kind of line in the area. As cars drove boy they saw Nick fighting the fish and they stopped. All traffic was at a standstill in either direction as people got out of their cars to watch. Not long after we got a glimpse of something orange, clearly not a shark, and not as big as we had believed either, but this fish fought like it was six feet long. Nick got the fish to shore as the crowd applauded when they saw the big snapper. The hook popped out with alarming ease. I tried to pick up the fish to get a photo with Nick, but the brute still wasn’t done fighting and with one last thrash of its tail, it flew out of my hands and into the water, disappearing into the darkness.

Tarpon Tuesday continued until once again I was the only fisherman. I spent my last night on Tortola alone at the bridge that had brought so much joy and excitement to me and my friends and I promised myself I’d return.

Mocked By BVI Tarpon

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.

Read his report at This River is Wild.

I Love the BVI

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!

Here are a few of his catches from the BVI!

Check out more at thisriveriswildflyfishing.blogspot.com/
Keep it up bro!

BVI Dreaming

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 Hate Winter

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!

images via Sail Dive BVI

Fishing Fury Helps You Catch Big Fish

I am always delighted to hear about people catching fish thanks to our site. We take pride in creating reports that help people determine the best locations and tackle to use for catching fish. I was recently browsing flickr and came across a photo of a big tarpon. After taking a closer look, I was sure that I knew the location – my favorite fishing spot in the British Virgin Islands. The fisherman in the photo later sent me a message to let me know that Fishing Fury helped him catch the tarpon!

Hey Clive…believe it or not it was your fishing fury website that alerted me to their presence! Cheers, Wayne

If you have any stories or photos about how Fishing Fury helped you catch fish, let us know!