Fishing the Bahamas?

[garyd]

We have a 41C. More than likely the motly crew will be me the admiral and two kids 10 & 11. THe 11 year old girl goes ewck when she sees anything to do with fishing so shes not much help. The boy is gun ho.

We do a fair amount of fishing but we would like to target at least a 40 - 60 lb anything. We have some excellent fishing gear short of ball bearing rollers on the eyelets. Stout Hatteras rods and penn 300 gold reels. We have planners and lures out the ying yang.

What do you'all suggest? We will be around Guana for a good part of a week then up and down that area. I want the boy to latch on to a big one anything and land it for supper. And maybe even let the admiral and 11 year old bring one in. We have an electric rod and reel for the girlys out there.

have fun boating garyd

 

[thoward]

Is for the May trip? If you have some spinning setups that will be good for casting if you come across a weedline with dolphin. Tuna, wahoo and dolphin should be there if you troll and will rock his world. Wahoo is not the safest catch but I would run a dark Yozuri Bonita way back out of the center. If you catch one I would put the kids on the bridge when you bring it aboard. I would try Ilanders, lipped divers, Mold Craft (Wide Range, Chugger, & Bobby Brown), tuna feathers, and maybe some naked dead bait. Half the fun is the kids learning to rig. All the rods should have a safety line attached, we use 10' dog leads(you could go smaller) wraped around the fighting chair. If you put your son on a 40-50 pound fish make sure you have a bucket harness for the fighting chair or a standup harness. I really like the Aftco's Maxforce AFH-1 Stand Up Harness and the Braid Baja Belt. I do not know how stout your son is but I will tell you our 12y/o still does not have the umph to land one that big. The reels you have, are they the Penn International 30TW?

January: wahoo, kingfish and grouper
February: wahoo and kingfish
March: wahoo, kingfish, dolphin, tuna and blue marlin
April: dolphin, white and blue marlin, sailfish, wahoo, tuna and bonefish
May: dolphin, white and blue marlin, sailfish, wahoo, tuna, bonefish
June: dolphin, white and blue marlin, sailfish, wahoo, tuna and bonefish
July: dolphin white and blue marlin, tuna and bonefish
August: bonefish, tuna and blue marlin
September: bonefish and tuna
October: wahoo, kingfish and bonefish
November: wahoo and kingfish
December: wahoo, kingfish and grouper

 

[garyd]

Thanks for the advice. Yes it's for the may/june trip. I believe we will need some sort of stand up harness. We have two 30TW Penns on hatteras rods.

Two good diawa laguna's on ugly sticks and two more black penn rod and reel combos.

I believe we could handle 40 - 60 lbs. after that I'm not sure. We would probably get spooled or snap the line. Since I'd have to run the boat and that leaves either the 10 or 11 year old on the fish or the admiral. Course the fish would know it was the admiral and would give up immediately and swim to the boat LOL.

 

[thoward]

Ok, the black Penns, are they the 330gti, Levelwind, Baja or the Long Beach? Either way they should be 30# class, but make sure you can clip on to the rod/reel with a safety line and the harness clips. You may have to add a plate to do that. I would put fresh high quality line on before you go, no reason to lose the fish of a lifetime due to old line. You may also want to look at using braid with a top shot of mono because the diameter is smaller on the braid. You could start with hollow core braid(Jerry Brown) and attach a high vis mono top shot but only fill part way followed by a windon leader. In the excitement of a big fish kids forget to move the line back and forth on the spool and this way they will have a little more room to fudge it. For lures I'd start with the following 3; a cedar plug, a blue/white Ilander and a Wide Range. All proven fish raisers as well as being easy to deal with. You could add a strip bait to the skirts for more appeal. Run the plug way back in the middle and the skirts on each side. You can troll the reef with a couple Stretch 30s for Grouper as well. You want the standup harness to go across the back and under the butt. It will make all the difference in the world.