In the 1960’s tournament was virtually unheard of in the Caribbean. A man named Jim Needham, the owner of the Flamboyant Hotel. Jim fell in love with the coastline of Grenada, an in his little 14 foot open boat “Mambo” and raised and caught dozens and dozens of Billfish. In 1964 he met my father, Martin Mathias and together with Louis Rostant they dreamed up the Spice Island Billfish Tournament. The tournament took off, and his still held to this day, celebrating its 40th anniversary in early 2009.
“He just had to share this love with someone and so in 1964, he called his friend Louis Rostant (Trinidad) and they met in Grenada with Martin Mathias, owner of a beautiful sports fishing vessel named “Bahari”, to formulate and stage the first ever Grenada Fishing Tournament.
Sadly, no records have been available but we do know that less than 10 boats (Grenada & Trinidad) participated in what was essentially a gentleman’s tournament. No formal rules were in effect at the time.”
Flash forward to the seventies. Short shorts, aviator glasses, bikinis and mustaches were all the rage. I wasn’t even born yet, but my soon to be parents were living the good life down in the Caribbean. My dad was was charter boat captain, specializing in catching big game such as tuna, sailfish and marlin around the island of Grenada.
The year was 1976. A woman by the name of Sue Gallibrand stepped aboard the mighty Bahari a mere mortal, and stepped off a legend, setting the womens world record for yellowfin tuna at 138 lbs (62.5 kg) using 20 lb test.
Sue Gallibrand (center) and Martin Mathias (far right)
While the record has not stood the test of time, I’m certain the story will live forever.
I remember the first time I ever saw a roosterfish, it was just a few years ago. When you’ve seen a roosterfish, you never forget it. The defining characteristic of a rooster is their unusual dorsal fin, composed of 7 very long spines. While they feed near the surface, often all that can be seen are these spines.
The roosterfish can be found from southern California to Peru and is known for mostly as a sport fish rather than an eating fish. The current all tackle world record roosterfish is 114 pounds and was caught in La Paz, Mexico.
I think it’s pretty safe to see that the Baja offers the best chances of a new world record and it wouldn’t surprise me if the next world record was caught by a client of Fishermen’s Fleet (They already hold the record for snapper). Word on the street is, a new record has already caught, by a man named Bill Mathias (no relation to me, I think) but it was released to swim another day. Bill has been a longtime client of David’s Fishermen’s Fleet and is said to be one of the best rooster-fishermen in the world.
“It crossed my mind that maybe I ought to keep it,” Mathias said of his 124-pound all-tackle breaker. “It was an obvious world record. But, then I decided I just couldn’t. I have a fixation on those stupid fish. They have such a nice surface strike.” – Bill Mathias
A massive roosterfish, just 4 pounds shy of a world record.
I’ve caught a few blacktips in my day, but none anywhere near as big as these guys!
North Carolina blacktip sharks
Just wanted to say I love the site. Wanted to share some pictures of a recent fishing trip we had off the coast of NC. Me and four friends chartered a boat, same guys that we always use out of Little River, SC. I had the feeling that they didn’t feel like going to the Gulf Stream that day, so they talked us into shark fishing. None of us had done it before and let me just say it was one of the most fun 10 hours I had on a boat. We caught some nice blacktips, got boarded by the coast guard…you know, just a typical day. Hope you enjoy them.
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!
Im currently in the process of importing all the old content from the previous website, including videos, but I probably won’t be finished until tomorrow. For the time being however we do have a new feature.
My good friend Micheal Leary has recently moved here to La Paz to work as the head chef for an [...]
