Welcome back dear friends to the Extensive Guide For The Bahamas. Today is a special one because we are going to be talking about an excursion we did that my husband requested; Ocean Fishing. As you’ll soon get to know, my husband has a not so secret love affair with the fish in our waters. He has been fishing for as long as he can remember and I’m pretty sure the fish come before me in certain situations. It is okay, I’ve come to terms with it.
That being said, it was impossible not to schedule a fishing excursion on the beautiful Caribbean waters.
This post is different than the others because it is one of the only times that we had struggles. Today, we will end with a positive note however.
First up: Finding A Charter
Who knew that it would be so difficult to find a way to go fishing in a different country. Honestly, I didn’t. Around us in Wisconsin, if we wanted to go fishing… we rent a boat at the local harbor and you go on your marry way. We recently did this for my birthday last year and had a blast. However, we were on a lake and in the US.
My mom and I searched and searched the internet for boat rentals in the Bahamas and it is just a little bit more complicated then you’d think and here’s why:
- Some of the rental locations require a certain amount of people
- If you do not have that many people, you can still go but you will be paying for the minimum amount. For instance, if the minimum is 6 people (most common) and you have 4 (like we did) then you were required to pay for 6 people anyways.
- Originally, we were going to just have the boys go but then, we found out they we would be paying for the same amount of people either way so my mom and I decided to go with
- There are different types of boats
- Do you want a boat with a bathroom, a sitting area for extra people, a 26′ or a 38′, with or without a refrigerator and so on
More on finding a charter:
- What type of fishing do you want to do?
- Deep-Sea Fishing or Reef Fishing?
- How long of a fishing trip do you want to do and when do you want to go?
- There are two times for a half day that were given to us: 8am to 12pm or 1pm to 5pm
- You can also do part day which is 6 hours or you can do a full day which is 8 hours
- What do you want included in your purchase?
- Obviously, when you go to a different country you don’t always have everything you need. Meaning, unless you are going over there specifically for fishing, the odds of you having fishing gear is unlikely. There are also some charters that include food and beverages or docking experiences.
Good To Know: Certain charters will not allow you to keep your fish you caught. We considered trying to send our caught fish back to our home in the US because my husband wanted to eat some of them but it wasn’t allowed. I did a bit of research trying to figure out if any charters do this but I had no luck. Most of the information I found was strictly because you cannot take the fish out of the country. However, one thing that was allowed was that we could send the fish to a local restaurant to be made for us. I will tell you why we didn’t do this later on in this post.
Next Up: Booking With A Charter
Once you figure out what Charter you want to go with you have to book it. As you’ve read from my other posts like my Horseback Riding post, you will come to figure out that you will always want to make sure that your reservation goes through. You definitely do not want to get there and find out that you can’t go on your ‘scheduled’ excursion. Here is the charter we decided on and where we booked it:
Hunter Fishing Charter
Location: Hunter Fishing Charter, Nassau, Bahamas
Booking site: https://huntercharters.com/
Why we chose this charter: They mentioned that they could clean and filet the fish that we catch. Score! There were also three guys that were coming with us so they could teach my dad and husband specifics on ocean fishing which was a really great benefit!
What type of fishing we chose: Deep-sea fishing because Zach wanted to catch Mahi Mahi which is a deep-sea fish.
When & How Long: Monday, April 23rd from 1pm to 5pm
Type of Boat: Mornin’ Ride you can check out the details of this boat here: https://huntercharters.com/mornin-ride
Other: We chose to just include the bait and tackle because we didn’t want to fuss which lunch or food. It just wasn’t necessary for us because we were only going to be out for four hours.
Catching The Mahi Mahi – Trolling
Weather Mishap
Do you ever have that fear when you are traveling that ‘what if it rains’ feeling? Will you still be able to go on your excursion, will they reschedule it for you, or do you just loose out on your reservation and they still get the money? Maybe you don’t necessarily think of that for your traveling trips but my family and I definitely had to think about that when we were booking this fishing trip because well, you don’t want to get stranded out on the ocean in the middle of a storm unless you’re filming a really cool, epic fishing movie.
Here’s the story:
Like I mentioned above we were scheduled to go on our fishing trip on Monday at 1pm. My mom and I had our spa appointment in the morning while the boys just explored the island. Then we had lunch downtown and made our way to the dock where we were told to meet the boat. Prior to this day – my mom was is full connection with a member of the Hunter Fishing Charter team via email and text. Thus far there were no issues with this team.
When we arrived by all the other boats in downtown Nassau we could not locate the boat that we were searching for. We weren’t 100% sure of what we were actually looking for but we knew that once we saw ‘it’ we would know. So, we hung out, waiting. My mom decided to call the charter to see where they were at because it was passed the pick up time. And that’s when this charter really screwed up.
The weather: very sunny but rather windy. There was no rain or storms in the future but it was very windy with the waves being tremendously dangerous. (side note: there were boats on the water at this time so, we didn’t think anything of it)
After that:
When mom was on the phone with the charter – they proceeded to tell us that they had to cancel our fishing trip because of the weather. Problem is, they didn’t bother to tell us. Strange right? So, we were on the phone with them for a long time to try to figure out what our next step was. Sure, we didn’t want to go out on the water if it was dangerous that wouldn’t be smart. However, we pre-paid for this excursion so we were not going to let this go. My mom also verified with the charter the day before to make sure we were still going.
Outcome: We were able to reschedule it for a later date during our trip. Also, the charter did end up paying us the cost of our taxi ride which we didn’t ask for but we are grateful they did.
Tip: Schedule as we did. Booked your excursion early in the trip so that you have the ability to reschedule if bad weather comes up.
Our Fishing Experience Positives:
- We caught some spectacular fish!
- That was the whole point of the trip right? To catch ocean fish and that we did! Zach always tries his best to seek out different types of fish and this was such a great day because we got to see at least 7 new fish!
- Zach and Dad got to troll (a method of fishing) in the ocean!
- How cool is it to be able to say: ‘I was able to troll on the ocean’. I’m not a huge fisherman and I think that is so cool! I’m so glad we did because that is how Zach was able to catch the Mahi Mahi!
Our Fishing Experience Not-So-Greats:
- The charter failed to tell us that they were cancelling our trip due to weather complications.
- We weren’t mad at them for protecting us from the weather – we were mad because they failed to tell us.
- Our ‘guides’ weren’t actually guides.
- My dad and husband do know how to fish however, they don’t have the expertise to fish in the ocean. That being said, we were assuming that the guides would be able to give tips and tricks for ocean fishing and they didn’t. Perhaps we just got unlucky with who we got to guide us or perhaps it is just how this charter is. We were very disappointed about this part of our trip. I mean, one of the guys was on his phone and headphones more than fishing… :\
More Not-So-Greats
- Why we didn’t keep our fish to eat at a local restaurant:
- Zach and I catch and eat fresh fish quite a bit so we are very aware of the process. However, with this crew, when they caught a fish they threw it in a container with no water and no ice. I realize that maybe they do this all the time and maybe the fish doesn’t have to be put in water for the duration of the trip but that just isn’t how we do it at home. So, we didn’t feel comfortable eating the possibly spoiled fish after we got back to shore. The fish died really fast and lost their color. We knew they were going to take the fish so their death wasn’t wasted, we just didn’t want to eat it.
- I personally didn’t love the particular boat that we got.
- I didn’t like this boat because as a guest who isn’t fishing – it wasn’t easy to photograph the fish. I’m a lover of capturing moments through my camera and this was one of the harder ways to be able to capture this moment. One of my favorite things to do is take pictures of Zach fishing and the angle that I was sitting at was extremely bad. I also couldn’t touch the fish because I would have to climb down which I wasn’t about to do because I was wearing a dress, I was extremely sunburnt from Pearl Island, and the waves made moving on the boat really difficult.
- I also wanted to make sure that the boat was going to be good for fishing not for me.
- I didn’t like this boat because as a guest who isn’t fishing – it wasn’t easy to photograph the fish. I’m a lover of capturing moments through my camera and this was one of the harder ways to be able to capture this moment. One of my favorite things to do is take pictures of Zach fishing and the angle that I was sitting at was extremely bad. I also couldn’t touch the fish because I would have to climb down which I wasn’t about to do because I was wearing a dress, I was extremely sunburnt from Pearl Island, and the waves made moving on the boat really difficult.
Overall Fishing In The Bahamas Tips:
- Schedule your reservation early in your trip to account for cancellations/rescheduling
- If you want to keep and eat your fish – make sure that you are comfortable with how they treat the fish after it is caught
- Going with people who aren’t fishing? Make sure that you request a boat that everyone will be comfortable with. This also means that you should discuss what type of fishing you will be doing.
- Don’t expect too much from your guides. Pretty sure they are only there to drive the boat and do their own fishing [to make money].
- Have low expectations for what you are going to catch. You might not catch what we caught or you might catch better. Have low expectations so you will be happy with the experience.
- If you don’t do waves – you might want to purchase some Dramamine
pills to prevent you from getting sea sick.
pills to prevent you from getting sea sick.This is the last post of my Bahamas Trip. I really hope that you enjoyed it. Please comment below if you have any tips or additional information about the Bahamas. I’ll leave you with my highlight video.
Until next time,
