novice saltwater flyfisherman off to Tobago!

[Steve Pitts]

Steve!

Nice to see you in on a fishing thread.

We'll make an angling anorak out of you yet

[Robert T]

Well, well, well, Steve, to be honest I secretly hoped that you had never caught a barracuda any bigger than mine but reality proved otherwise. That's an absolute monster you got there in the picture so my hat is taken off to you. I can't even imagine what else you may have landed in the past years fishing off the coast of Tobago............................

[Steve Pitts]

Confession time Robert -

Hayley caught the big 'cuda on a trolled Rapala CD redhead when we went out for a trip with Kester Herbert. I would say that it was at least 40lb and as fat as a barrel.

Two days earlier she caught a 6lb bone fish and lost a good permit, when I have fished for them in several destination and had yet to catch one (still haven't managed a permit ).

I'd like to say that I taught her all she knows, but she is a naturally good (lucky?) angler, especially when it comes to big fish or species I haven't caught. She only does it to wind me up.

Cheers
Steve

[Joe Walker]

Great - thanks for the tide table pointer. It looks like the tidal range is really small Only a couple of ft or so)- is that right or am I interpreting it wrong? Also, is there much variation in the times around the island?

[Collins K]

Heads up to those heading to Tobago on the last weekend in May since its gonna be busier than normal. Reason for this is that its a long weekend with the holiday falling on Friday 30th and a lot of Trinis will be there. I was supposed to have been there that weekend but could not get a flight or even a seat on the inter-island ferries. Works out good for me since I prefer Tobago without the crowds.
Will be there to fish the next weekend from the 6th of June though till the 8th. If anyone is there on that weekend I will be @ Sandy Point for sure though since its prime time for fish...

[Joe Walker]

I get home just before then, so should miss that...I'll be fishing by Friday!

[Robert T]

Steve!

I really don't know what to say!! I'm just simply very jelaous!! Then I guess I better keep my fiancee away from fishing as far as possible. Luckily she hasn't tried it yet in a serious way apart from a few clumsy castings in Tobago. Thank God she did not get any further!!!

Robert

[Jonathan Richards]

Hi Joe

Try: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/get_pr ... gh,+Tobago

Good resource; wish I'd known about it before we went to Tobago last year (not that I fish, but I do like to have a clue about tides if I'm on the beach )
Perhaps Steve's link was from a 2007 bookmark. The 2008 tide data is at http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/currents08/ and from there one can get to the 2008 Tobago tables here.

The table is referenced to Scarborough; I'm guessing that there isn't a significant difference for other points on the coast of a small island like Tobago?

Jonathan

[Joe Walker]

Weell.....I'm back. Did I have a fantastic time? Yes....Tobago is a wonderful place and I'd love to go back! The house was superb, great location, the island beautiful, relatively untouched, the beaches mostly to ourselves, the wildlife abundant...but the fish entirely unco-operative! I'm ashamed to say that I only landed a handful of fish....and all less than 10 inches long!

Soooo....post mortem? Well to be honest, even with all the advice, it's like going anywhere for the first time; without a guide, it takes a while to suss the place out, and the choice is enormous. In fact it was the last 4 days where things started to come together. Grange Beach at Mt Irvine seemed to be the place - there were vast shoals of baitfish along the shore - and I mean hundreds of feet long by 40-50 feet wide, which simply turned the sea black! Large tarpon patrolled the seaward edge of the shoal, and pelicans and terns above, so there was a presence all along the beach. At Dawn and dusk, the shoals moved hard into the shore, and the trick seemed to be to wait until there was a blitz. Basically, whilst the terns picked off fish all the time, there seemed to be a kind of stand-off between the bigger birds and the predatory fish, each waiting for the other to make the first move, but when the stalemate broke, it was suddenly raining birds and then the jacks and tarpon hit....thrilling to watch but often only lasting 20 seconds so you seem to have to be very alert and moving all the time. I tried numerous lures. At Crown Point, several anglers (locals and regular visitors) swore by a small speckled bronze and green shad with red eyes (sold in packs of 6); this is imported from the US by the chap who owns the 'Ocean Experience' store on the right of the fork in the road heading to Pidgeon Point (the Mangrove Shop next door also does a reasonable range of lures). I met the owner at Crown Point several times but he said fishing had been hard and would improve when the rains came in June. Anyhow, back to Grange... This small shad here seemed ineffective...I reasoned quickly that with the billions of bait-fish on offer it simply didn't stand out. Switching to rapala's (j11 & 13) didn't produce any joy, but blue/silver poppers did in terms of follow-ups and takes....which was as close as I came! In the last three days, I had several big takes in each dawn and dusk session, but either failed to connect or lost every fish (the best being a spectacular somersaulting Tarpon!). Frustrating but the most exciting 'not catching a fish' I've had!! A word of warning though...in a real blitz, all the the action seems concentrated in a very small area.....including diving pelicans. Casting a lure into this melee is hazardous for the birds, and despite best efforts, on one occasion a jack hit my lure then dropped it whereupon it was immediately seized by a brown pelican. The front treble snagged the outside of it's bill sack and neck and I had to gingerly coax a very large and unhappy seabird to shore, whereupon it tried to remove my face! Up close, it is possible to fit your entire head into a pelican's mouth and it was like grappling with an enraged pterosaur! Fortunately I was well equipped and managed to carefully subdue the bird and delicatetly remove the barbs with wire cutters and slide the hooks free without further injury....though the pelican did manage to get a degree of revenge on me in the process! It was lucky though, with the hooks having cause very little damage, and though disgruntled it did rejoin it's chums. So, beware and take good cutters!

Fly fishing was hard - it was very windy indeed out on the flats making life for a novice caster like me very difficult, and the tides just didn't fall into place for the times I was able to fish there. I did put in quite a few hours though. Fishing close in against the shore and mangroves at higher water did produce small snappers and grunts, and inquisitive bites from houndfish, but the closest I came was hooking and losing a Permit (which was clearly visible and I almost cried!!!). A small (size 6) pink & white clouser produced all the bites. I think getting the tides right was crucial here and next time, I would devote more specific time to this (family will have to fend for themselves ) and would conentrate on certian areas as there's alot of ground to cover.

Crown point for lure fishing, where I spent alot of the first few evenings, was quiet and the few locals who came caught no more than I did. In fact, it's of some consolation that no-one was catching much anywhere during my stay. Some discussion was that there were in fact too many baitfish around but who knows.

The thing is, that by the time I got to the end of my stay, I was beginning to get the hang of it. Another couple of days would undoubtedly have seen success and I think I was frankly a bit unlucky not to have had a good fish landed in the last few days. Next time, I would be able to get right into it, having explored the flats widely, sussed out the features and access, and knowing what to look for and what to use. So, NEXT time......

[Steve Pitts]

Joe

Thanks for the report'

Sounds like you almost had it cracked by the end of your trip.
Another week and you'd have caught something better for sure - ain't that always the way.

Cheers
Steve

[Collins K]

Excellent report. Sounds like you had a great time regardless. Sometimes with the abundance of bait at this time of year to catch anything substantial requires a lot and I mean a lot of casting. Will report on my trip next week on another thread.

[Graham W]

Hi Joe,

Great report Joe,it echoes my experiences over the last 4 years of fishing in Tobago in July/August, you come back home convinced that the next year will be the one that everything slots into place and you
"bag up".Crown point can be especially frustrating because you can see the Tarpon in a feeding frenzy but get no takes, then Collins K introduces himself and promptly catches a 4lb Snook .Tobago is a lovely place for a holiday and great for fishing i'll keep going back until i,ve cracked it.

Hi Collins K,

Good to see you're still fishing at Crown Point, please post fishing reports, reading about fishing in Tobago is the next best thing to being there.

Graham

[Steve Pitts]

I've got to echo what you say Graham

Fishing around the coast of Tobago isn't exactly easy.
I have noticed over the years that many people go there expecting great things and a good many come home disapointed, having almost succeeded.

It took us 3 or four trips (several weeks in all) before we had any real success from the shore and we (3 of us) fished a hell of a lot.

However - once the first few pieces of the jigsaw fitted together, the rest seemed to fall into place and now I really do rate Tobago as one of the best places that I have ever fished and I always feel confident of a good trip, as long as you are prepared to adapt to the circumstances that you find once you get there and it's a great place to combine a family holiday with some DIY fishing.

Within the group of friends that I have fished with over the years our best of each species is recorded as -

* Bonefish - 10.5lb
* Tarpon - 65lb
* Permit - 8lb
* Snook - 8lb
* Crevalle Jack - 15lb
* Horse-eye Jack - 18 - 20lb
* Barracuda - 45lb

Apart from the 'cuda, all of the other species were caught off the beaches or flats on spinning gear.

I certainly hope to better that bonefish 'record' one day, accept that I will never beat Hayley's cuda and have yet to catch a permit....but I live in hope

Cheers
Steve

[Collins K]

Hi Graham,

I will most certainly be posting reports and maybe even upload some pictures upon my return from Tobago next weekend. I like reading the reports from other anglers that visit Tobago myself since it is as you rightly put it 'the next best thing to being there'. I am always eager to return to Crown Point whenever I do go to Tobago since I have fought and lost many large fish from this section of the island including tarpon which I am certain was close to the 100lb range and cavali or jacks which I assume from experience to be upwards of 30lbs. I have been spooled of 250yds of mono by these fish as well sometimes even venturing into the surf up to my chest in my bid to stop these creatures but when they reach to that size they sometimes have the advantage when you are using 20lb tackle. I have caught Jacks which weighed up to 34lbs in Toco (Trinidad, which you can see from Crown Point btw) so I am hoping to catch one of these in Tobago soon. Got snook up to 21inches in length as well from that stretch of coastline in Tobago.

Still waiting on Mr. Pitts to confirm the exact GPS coordinates for Jack Bay though

[Steve Pitts]

Still waiting on Mr. Pitts to confirm the exact GPS coordinates for Jack Bay though

Perhaps one day we will be on Tobago at the same time and I'll be pleased to take you there - but you'll have to wear a blindfold