Booked a fishing trip. $150 a pop. Two of us.
The drags weren't set right, lost about 4 bigger fish. Landed a yellowtail snapper. A small, delicious fish. I was happy about that. What I wasn't happy about was the dysfunctional crew, the two deckhands did not seem to be regulars. The captain blamed our poor fishing on the weeds in the water, which i understand, but let me tell you something:
I speak Spanish. Hearing the deckhands talk about how the captain didn't know what he was doing, pretty much summed it up for me. When my girlfriend hooked into a big fish, only to have the rod bend and the line just SNAP without any line coming out by the drag, was just disappointing. I asked the captain about the drag, and he started yelling at the deckhands. Telling me "I'll check the damned drags myself". Great, only, he never did. He didn't know where his gear was, he didn't have any contingency plan if there were weeds in the water. At one point one of the rods was set up after snapping the line, and upon closer inspection, you could see that the deckhand had missed an eye on the rod. Hadn't run the line through it. Terrible. I think anybody who knew the water a little better would know to go a bit more offshore, or to stay closer to the dropoff to stay out of the weeds, but Captain just stayed the course, pushing us farther and farther along the coast, without ever trying different depths or switching up the technique. Hell, bottom fishing would have been more fun.
I feel like there were definitely fish in the water, we hooked up probably 6 or 7 times, only to lose them all. All we caught were one barracuda, and the two Yellowtail snapper. I am stoked I caught a fish in the Caribbean, but no more than if I had caught bait off a pier.
The whole experience was a little gross too. The seats were dirty, the lunch consisted of a soggy, wet ham sandwich, and the snacks were old. Captain was a mess, the deckhands were sketchy at best, and I really feel like I'll spend my money elsewhere next time. read more