TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Fishing Gear

Good Morning,

I'm doing my first charter in the Spanish Virgin Islands next month. Hoping to do some trolling while we are sailing. However, unlike the BVIs, there is nowhere to rent fishing equipment. Does anyone have any thoughts on any kind of portable fishing gear that would work for this? Lots of handlines advertised on the internet, but I don't think they would be any good for the 20lb+ tuna I'm hoping to catch... Any thoughts on appropriate lures would also be appreciated. Thanks.

Regards,

Matt

Your charter company should have rods and reels.
The squid lures work fine.

Not sure who you're Chartering with, but I don't think CYOA (for example) had rod/reel combos for rent.
I usually bring a rod and reel (Penn 330 on a travel rod with 30lb test). This is adequate for most fish you'll cross paths with in casual trolling. I use a combination of lures, Hopkins, stretch lures, parachutes, top-water lures, squid, etc. We don't hook a lot of fish because we don't specifically target them... we just drag a line or two while we're sailing along. I also bring a couple of Cuban yo-yo's (hand lines) but never seem to catch anything on them.

Anything will work occasionally dragging behind boat for fishing. For "catching" rigged ballyhoo greatly increases the odds and action.

I bought my dad an Okuma Nomad travel rod and a small Penn reel few years back for his birthday. The Nomad is very nice, well built and comes with a good travel case. He likes it a lot and pretty much takes it everywhere he goes that there might be fish.

We catch a lot of fish including several mahi-mahi's every trip. Here's the list of our gear that I put together:
http://bvibound.com/gear-take-fishing-british-virgin-islands/

Great website ...perfect for newbies <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />...love all the tips

Thanks! It's fun to talk and write about the BVI when you can't actually be there.