Craziest place you ever fished

[leeccoll]

Whimsical thread about the place that was off the norm for your regular fishing.
I'll start lol
Watamu Kenya 1989. At that time it was the only place where the grand slam of billfish were caught on the same boat and same day.
I took a locals bus from Mombasa, was the only person on it that was a foreigner, so everyone was staring at me, but in a friendly way. Someone even offered to share their bananas.
We had to unload at a river crossing, and wooden barges pulled by ropes with human pull power got the bus across first then us passengers second. When we reached Watamu 2 hours later, I hopped in a local taxi. It was the back of a delivery truck, no light or communication until it stopped and the driver pointed to a dirt road. Walked for a half mile with a duffel bag until I saw the sign for Hemingways. It was just finished being built by a British Hotelier as a tribute to Ernest, as he used to go there too and fish for Marlin.
I was given a "local" room rate (much cheaper that non resident rates), and stayed in a simple thatched bungalow.
The boat charters were all spoken for (there was no internet bookings back in the day). Lucky for me, 3 kind tobacco farmers from Zimbabwe let me go out with them. They kept saying TAB (That's Africa Baby) all day long, a prelude to the movie Blood Diamond "This is Africa" line.
We caught 4 really nice sailfish, now I would say enormous in size.
You can tell this photo is authentic, as I am sporting calf high white socks n white sneaks, oh yeah and a wrist watch which I haven't worn for 20+ years.
Hemingways is still doing its thing, all the trophy fish are now catch n release.

Please tell your tale!~

 

[glacierbaze]

I got to see the African coast 20 years earlier. Not fishing. That was my longest Navy cruise in 1970, for almost 7 months. We crossed from Brazil to Luanda, then worked our way around the Horn to the east coast, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Pakistan, India, Seychelles, Madagascar, then the coast back around to Senegal, and Bermuda and Charleston. It was a 'show the flag' cruise, going from port to port, and we were never out more than 3 days at a time.
I am so glad that I got to see it when it still had some Africa look to it, before we started shipping all those bales of used clothing over there, and all the kids now look like they are Nike sponsored.
Was just reading this old thread(2009-2014) about fishing Ghana, on THT earlier tonight. The photobucket pics are blurred until page 5, but still some great fishing videos, mostly from 40-50 foot powered canoes. Video on posts:49,50, 51, 69, 73, 81, 85, 94, 96, 97, 98, 103.

Trolling and Spinning from African Canoe Ghana - The Hull Truth - Boating and Fishing Forum

SportFishing and Charters Forum - Trolling and Spinning from African Canoe Ghana - It has been a while since my last post in the forum, but we have been doing constant fishing every weekend in Ada waters with very low results. We got a small Mako, few tunas, barracudas and Mackarels. Therefore I...

www.thehulltruth.com

 

[imjus4u2nv]

Best place- PEI (prince Edward island).

What a trip, approximate 900lb Tuna caught and safely released!!!!! Yes 900lb!!!!!

For the last 5 years or so, instead of buying my dad socks for his birthday, Christmas or fathers day, I decided to give him credits/tokens towards a bucket list fishing trip. Well the time ultimately came for him to cash in, and after some careful research and planning, I booked our trip to Prince Edward Island back in March of 2016. Since this trip, my father has unfortunately developed and is fighting an aggressive cancer and I am glad we took the trip when he had the strength.

Day 1: We are out all day, marked a few fish but they didn't want to chew.

Day 2: Fish on on the first half hour. Fish peeled off about 300 yards and Dad did an impressive job fighting the fish for over a half hour, got it about 25 yards from the boat when it chewed through the line (200 lb test). Ohh man, hope we get another chance

A few hours later we starting marking again, and this time I jumped on the reel. After making one long run, I fought the fish for a few minutes before it chewed through the line. Ohh man hope we get another chance.

The rest of the day we marked fish, but couldn't get them to bite. Time had run out and the captain stayed out late. We tried a "hail mary" as the Captain called it, and if it didn't pan out we were heading back to the dock. We started marking massive fish under the boat, first one then two, then 5, 10.... they were everywhere but we couldn't get them to bite. After 15 minutes of frantically trying to get bite, we were afraid the captain was gong to have to call it.

WE GOT ANOTHER CHANCE!

I was hand feeding baits down to the fish but having a hard time getting the bait down into the strike zone (50 feet down). Pop was able to rig a bait with a weight, I hooked it on the line and hand fed it down to the 900 lb tuna we ultimately landed. The fish hit and immediately peeled off 150 yards of line, and then another 50 yards - the fight was on. The other rod goes off about ten seconds later - DOUBLE HEADER! This was short lived as the the second rod went slack and the fish was gone before we could even get to the pole. Back to the fish we hooked - dad and I switched off and on a few times on the fish we got together, the fish made some blistering runs, 20,40,60,80,100 yards. You fight to get a few inches or a foot back and it would take it back x2. The power of these fish is unreal, peeling off line with a 100lb of resistance like a dog dragging a leash (we were fishing with 130w reels to give the fisherman out there some perspective). Finally the fish started to wear out and started circling under the boat. We finally brought the fish boat side after about 45/50 minutes.

The feeling was unimaginable, from thinking we were out of time and it was all over to landing a fish way bigger then our expectations, the fact that pop modified the bait to get it into the strike zone, and that I hand fed the bait to the tuna, and hooking ad fighting the fish fighting together - it could not have gone any better as we did it together!!!!!.

I think we were both trying to catch our breaths for about two hours after that, partially from the fight and also from the adrenaline of accomplishing the unthinkable, in overtime and checking one more item off of our bucket lists.

The rules and regulations in Prince Edward Island mandate catch and release (among other strict regulations), except each captain gets a 'tag' to harvest one fish commercially. Our captain harvested a 500lb fish the prior week (500bs is the dresses weight = no head or tail, making this fish closer to the 650 lb range), and he sure wished he waited for our fish.

We also had some issues with our gopro camera and have apparently lost the footage of us landing the fish, posing with the fish, and me jumping in the water with the fish (yes this really happened) so we don't have as great of pictures as we would like, but the memory will never fade on this once of a lifetime bucket list trip!

 

[SkunkBoat]

Hmmm... Crazy places....In the 80's... Fished the pier in GITMO with 2 little rods. Caught little pinfish, grunts and snapper on pieces of hot dog. Then put em out live and fought cudas and sharks till they broke off and we ran out of hooks.

Really wish I had some trolling gear back then. We spent a lot of time in the Caribbean going slow.

I worked a couple months in Ghana in 99. Wish I had done some fishing but nobody else was into it so we just drank and watched the boats fishing with nets from the beach.

When I did field service I always had a little spinning rod in my "parts & tools" case. I caught bass in roadside ponds and creeks in Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, PA, NJ & NY.
Best day was in downtown Watertown NY, just below the falls at the Mill. Crazy whitewater thinking theres no way a fish could bite in this... walked the rocks casting a spinnerbait. First cast, 2 pound smallmouth. Second cast, one pound smallmouth. Ended up catching 7 bass to 4 pounds before I lost the spinnerbait.

 

[RussGW270]

Hrm,

No pics. Was in the Bahamas.. fishing with a "loop" that had line on it.. catching and cooking right off the beach.

Gitmo....only went diving, do not remember fishing.

Africa.... I fished off the side of the ship a little, but, again, too many years back. Don't think I kept the fish.. or caught any.

I wanted to fish in the MED.. but the water was so bad close to shore, it sorta kept you from wanting to DO it.. heh

Navy, all times.

R

 

[Bloodweiser]

Most interesting place... I snook fished the Rio Bajabonico in the Domincan Repulic in the early 90's. Fishing wasnt great I only caught one. But scenery was awesome, guide barely spoke english, his little boat leaked some, the more i think of that trip the more I wonder if he even knew what he was doing...haha. I remember they had these scrawny boney dogs running along the banks that liked to eat coconut. I also remember the guide got a little upset that I wanted to throw my fish back, I think he planned on feeding it to his family..

 

[Keeldad]

Off the deck of a submarine moored in the middle of Holy Loch, Scotland.

 

[leeccoll]

Best place- PEI (prince Edward island).

What a trip, approximate 900lb Tuna caught and safely released!!!!! Yes 900lb!!!!!

For the last 5 years or so, instead of buying my dad socks for his birthday, Christmas or fathers day, I decided to give him credits/tokens towards a bucket list fishing trip. Well the time ultimately came for him to cash in, and after some careful research and planning, I booked our trip to Prince Edward Island back in March of 2016. Since this trip, my father has unfortunately developed and is fighting an aggressive cancer and I am glad we took the trip when he had the strength.

Day 1: We are out all day, marked a few fish but they didn't want to chew.

Day 2: Fish on on the first half hour. Fish peeled off about 300 yards and Dad did an impressive job fighting the fish for over a half hour, got it about 25 yards from the boat when it chewed through the line (200 lb test). Ohh man, hope we get another chance

A few hours later we starting marking again, and this time I jumped on the reel. After making one long run, I fought the fish for a few minutes before it chewed through the line. Ohh man hope we get another chance.

The rest of the day we marked fish, but couldn't get them to bite. Time had run out and the captain stayed out late. We tried a "hail mary" as the Captain called it, and if it didn't pan out we were heading back to the dock. We started marking massive fish under the boat, first one then two, then 5, 10.... they were everywhere but we couldn't get them to bite. After 15 minutes of frantically trying to get bite, we were afraid the captain was gong to have to call it.

WE GOT ANOTHER CHANCE!

I was hand feeding baits down to the fish but having a hard time getting the bait down into the strike zone (50 feet down). Pop was able to rig a bait with a weight, I hooked it on the line and hand fed it down to the 900 lb tuna we ultimately landed. The fish hit and immediately peeled off 150 yards of line, and then another 50 yards - the fight was on. The other rod goes off about ten seconds later - DOUBLE HEADER! This was short lived as the the second rod went slack and the fish was gone before we could even get to the pole. Back to the fish we hooked - dad and I switched off and on a few times on the fish we got together, the fish made some blistering runs, 20,40,60,80,100 yards. You fight to get a few inches or a foot back and it would take it back x2. The power of these fish is unreal, peeling off line with a 100lb of resistance like a dog dragging a leash (we were fishing with 130w reels to give the fisherman out there some perspective). Finally the fish started to wear out and started circling under the boat. We finally brought the fish boat side after about 45/50 minutes.

The feeling was unimaginable, from thinking we were out of time and it was all over to landing a fish way bigger then our expectations, the fact that pop modified the bait to get it into the strike zone, and that I hand fed the bait to the tuna, and hooking ad fighting the fish fighting together - it could not have gone any better as we did it together!!!!!.

I think we were both trying to catch our breaths for about two hours after that, partially from the fight and also from the adrenaline of accomplishing the unthinkable, in overtime and checking one more item off of our bucket lists.

The rules and regulations in Prince Edward Island mandate catch and release (among other strict regulations), except each captain gets a 'tag' to harvest one fish commercially. Our captain harvested a 500lb fish the prior week (500bs is the dresses weight = no head or tail, making this fish closer to the 650 lb range), and he sure wished he waited for our fish.

We also had some issues with our gopro camera and have apparently lost the footage of us landing the fish, posing with the fish, and me jumping in the water with the fish (yes this really happened) so we don't have as great of pictures as we would like, but the memory will never fade on this once of a lifetime bucket list trip!

That's an awesome story there imjus4u2nv!
I'm sorry to hear about your father's health. You need to update that t-shirt and check off the lower box
Lee

 

[Doc Stressor]

Fishing for catfish in the upper Hudson River at a sewage outfall.

Yes, I remember it well! Saint Patrick's Day, 1973. We lived in Troy NY at the time and I was so Jonesed out to go fishing by the time March came around that I had to catch something. Anything. The river had just iced out and the catfish were hungry. C&Red a bunch on worms.

I would not recommend this trip to anyone.

 

[imjus4u2nv]

That's an awesome story there imjus4u2nv!
I'm sorry to hear about your father's health. You need to update that t-shirt and check off the lower box
Lee

Thanks for the kinds words. We actually have a video of us after the trip checking off the box on the boat, and both wore the shirt on a recent striped bass fishing trip (he loves telling the story, and I love how he gets excited like it was yesterday. although I am pretty sure most jist think its a fish story bc dont jave a picture of the fish hanging - I just laugh as I know the truth). Best money ever spent is making memories like this.