Puerto Rico Fishing

[psychojohn]

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Went to Puerto Rico for CEU training and two days of fun. Thought I'd share the highlight for me which was a 1/2 day charter in a bay off of San Juan Island. That's me with a 9 lbs mutton snapper I was told was trophy worthy, myself and my clinical assistant and friend Greg with 6 lbs, 5 lbs and two 3-4 pound snapper and a 25-30 lbs barracuda I caught and released at the boat. we also caught a bunch of red snapper. Great trip once we started playing !

Now, back to reality ! Ouch !

John

[Greg Rappleye]

Sweet!

I haven't been fishing in a long time. Too long!

Congratulations!



Greg Rappleye

[Dru Edwards]

Envious of the weather .

Looks like a great time, John. What did you do with the fish? Eat it?

[psychojohn]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Envious of the weather .

Looks like a great time, John. What did you do with the fish? Eat it?

Hey Dru,

The captain provided bait and tackle. Didn't pay attention to tackle brand. Generic looking open-face spinning reels with the big deep spools for lots of line, generic 6 to 6 1/2 foot medium heavy to heavy weight poles.

The captain made it a point to point out rigging. Depending on pole we were fishing with 50 lb fluorocarbon leader attached to 12-15 lbs test line (for barracuda it was a wire leader, but other wise light line for big fish). He took pride in this as he felt it created a level playing field between angler and fish. His clients' also own most of the regional light tackle records because they catch heavy fish on light line and break many records in the process, because most charters will use 25-50 line and just haul em in without needing to finesse the process.

For smaller fish (I called them red snapper but I think they were sub-nose snapper) leader test was down sized, but same poles and anchor line. We drifted with the wind over weed beds in 5-10 feet of water dropping a jig tipped with a ballyhoo tail and bounced it off the bottom.

Most interesting and challenging was the fact that his jigs and bait hooks were all rigged with circle hooks. This dramatically reduces fish mortality as if the fish swallows it deep, it doesn't get hooked deep, but gets lip hooked. These hooks, however, also increased the risk of captain/guide mortality as you don't set the hook like you would traditionally, but crank in the slack and the fish hooks themselves'. The increased guide mortality risk comes from hard core bass fisherman like myself who have long practiced a quick and forceful hook set, which when applied with circle hooks, literally jerks the bait out of the fish's mouth causing me to miss the fish and want to ring the captains neck for using such contraptions. Had a hard time overcoming years of muscle memory for setting hooks and lost more fish than I caught as a result. On a serious note, it's my bad, not the guides' as the increased survival rate using these hooks are well documented, but just haven't caught on with the bass fishing crowd.

Eat 'em ? As small business owner, I have to catch what I eat, so we ate what we caught. We ate what we could which was more than we should have. He (the captain) got two big skinned filets off of the 6 lbs mutton snapper and we took 3 snub nose snapper he cleaned and gutted. Gave him the rest (Mutton and snub nose snappers) for his family as we were leaving the next day. He put our fish on ice and directed us to a local restaurant. You'll note Greg and I don't miss too many meals and we walked into this restaurant with what I thought was a small bag of fish filets and three small whole fish. Didn't think it would sate us. Boy was I wrong !!! One of the filets was simply breaded and deep fried into the best fish nuggets I ever ate. The other filet was sautéed in a garlic, onion, pepper and butter sauce (emphasis on garlic and butter) which was then served on top of the big filet now cut into 2 medium size filets. The snub nose snappers were scored on each side, dredged in a spiced flour and corn meal mixture and deep fried and served whole. Our bag of fish was enough to serve 6 people or 4 people who eat like us. We had a lot left over to take back to the resort for dinner.

Peace

John

[KevWind]

Looks like a fun day on the water nice to have been able to grab that on business trip. Well done

[gjd100]

John. Where in PR were you fishing? My Connecticut based company has a couple of plants in Ponce, which I travel to from time to time. Obviously, I really try to solve their issues in the winter .

I usually go hiking in the forests when i can get the boss to let me stay the weekend....But will try to book a fishing trip next time. I love the island and the people..

[psychojohn]

Originally Posted by gjd100

John. Where in PR were you fishing? My Connecticut based company has a couple of plants in Ponce, which I travel to from time to time. Obviously, I really try to solve their issues in the winter .

I usually go hiking in the forests when i can get the boss to let me stay the weekend....But will try to book a fishing trip next time. I love the island and the people..

I was staying on San Juan Island, Puerto Rico, at El Conquistador Resort which I believe is on the northern tip of the island. I booked my 1/2 day trip with Captain Marcos Hanke' ("Captain Marcos") over the net (independent of the resort) and highly recommend his service. Locals all knew him as the best on the island and he didn't dissapoint despite tough fishing conditions (high winds and muddy water, big trough waves even hiding behind island wind shadows). The resort chose me by nature of it being a annual national conference for Neuropsychology and it is a big pain to stay at any other hotel, but the marina where Captain Marcos keeps his fleet of fishing boats was a two minute drive from the hotel/resort.

Peace

John