Sport fishing suggestions?

Coconuts · Post by **Coconuts** » Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:36 pm

We'll be on island in a few weeks, and will have a visitor who has expressed an interest in sport fishing. I mentioned the rod mount on my sailing kayak, but that didn't seem to cut it. Who do forum members recommend for sport fishing? I was thinking that these might be different operators than the favorites for power boat snorkeling trips. Is a half-day enough, or should it be all day? Our visitor would be likely to stay topside, but I would happily snorkel if the opportunity arose. What types of game fish do people catch, and what is the likelihood that you get skunked? Thanks.

[Edit: I just saw a post on Trip Advisor by stjohnjulie that recommends Captain Cleve and "Local Flavor" (http://www.localflavorcharters.com); very cool that he is Vie's son.]

All the best,

Kevin

psufan · Post by **psufan** » Sat Jan 04, 2014 9:43 pm

Kevin,

My husband and son have gone out with Double Header for full day trips 3 times. Each time they have come back with lots of fresh tuna and/or mahi. They have also caught a white marlin and a black marlin on 2 of those trips. They both comment that those trips are the highlights of their vacations. Double header runs out of St Thomas but picks up St John clients at the National Park dock.

DonnaM · Post by **DonnaM** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 7:26 am

We are going out with Double Header next weekend so I will report back!

michigancouple · Post by **michigancouple** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:09 pm

II 2nd Double Header. Never went out with them, but when we used to stay at on STT at Sapphire we enjoyed walking to the marina when their boat came in at the end of the day. The guests really seemed like they had a great time. And they always had a catch of some sort to show off. Once the guests left we were sometimes lucky enough to buy a fresh filet from the captains. They were super nice guys.

Capn Dan and Ruby · Post by **Capn Dan and Ruby** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 6:56 am

You might check into this, I think I remember a post where someone said that they only let you keep part of your catch. That may not matter to him but it is good to know.

PA Girl · Post by **PA Girl** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:39 am

Capn Dan and Ruby wrote:You might check into this, I think I remember a post where someone said that they only let you keep part of your catch. That may not matter to him but it is good to know.

I think I posted about this a while back. My husband wanted to go fishing and it was a surprise to him that some/most boats let you keep 10 pounds and then they sell the rest. My husband wanted to freeze his catch and wasn't thrilled with that restriction.

Double Header and Mixed Bag were recommended to us by a trusted island source. We are booked with Mixed Bag for our upcoming trip. I wish I would have seen the link for Island Flavor before we booked.

augie · Post by **augie** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:01 am

Ocean Surfari on St. Thomas is another good one. They are flexible about making the trips combo fishing/snorkeling/surfing, etc.

Tracy in WI · Post by **Tracy in WI** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:15 pm

If anyone cares to join in, I am taking my father and sister out on double header during the week of March 19-26. No date selected yet, but we plan to do the afternoon trip from 2-6 and they take six people, so three more are welcome.

PM me if you're interested!

DonnaM · Post by **DonnaM** » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:19 am

We had a great time yesterday! Eric and Matt were our captains and we were on the 40' boat bc there are 6 of us. They said they have had rough seas and have only gone out deep 3 times in the last month. We went out and it was 6-8' seas and we were bobbing around pretty good. We all felt queasy and should have taken something before we left. They caught 2 barracuda and one black fin tuna. Not much was biting so we decided to go inshore. We also saw a school of pilot whales which was cool. We ended up on the north side of STT. We caught a lot of Bonita, and a bunch of other fish. My son caught some kind of big mackerel, around 20lb and my husband caught a horse eyed Jack close to the same size. Our goal was to have fun and catch fish and we did. We did take home the tuna. The captains were great; fun to talk to and worked hard keeping everyone catching. At one point, 4 of us had fish on lines.
I would definitely recommend Double Header. I don't think there would have been any opportunities to snorkel. I think Cleve is a better choice to try to do both from what I have read and would probably cost less.

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