THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

407
What we had not expected was either
the numbers of oil fish we would
eventually encounter during our
stay, and more especially their size.
Their power too once they felt the
pressure change around half way up,
which during later encounters on
much lighter tackle, saw them
repeatedly fast stripping line from
the reel.
Great fish while on the end of the
line in the water. Wild fish when
they hit surface where they would
immediately go nuts, and dangerous
Yellow Fin Tuna at the surface
fish with all but the smallest of
specimens carefully held in gloved
hands brought inside the boat on account of the sharp bony tubercles between their scales, their spiky
fins, and their teeth.
These tubercles have hard razor sharp pointed tips which are well capable of removing skin and cutting
in to flesh. As if that was not enough, at the business end, the mouth is huge and full of sharp teeth. Not
the best of fish to attempt to pose for the camera in light of their insistence to wriggle and crash about
generally while out of the water.
Once we were aware of the presence of oil fish after dark, we deliberately started fishing for them with
10/0 hooks tied to 200 pounds bs monofilament droppers. One evening Graeme found a small chemical
light stick in the bottom of his box and attached that to the trace, taking three out of the four we had that
night.
Unfortunately, it was the only one he had. The locals on the other hand tend to see them as nuisance
fish. But for us, getting pestered by hard fighting fish averaging 60 to 80 pounds, and occasionally
topping the hundred, was just the kind of nuisance we could happily live with while waiting for the tuna
on the chunks.
The shore fishing around the more accessible parts of the island is perhaps best described as frustrating.
Absolutely world class at the right spots when it's on song. Painfully boring when its not. And
sometimes both within minutes of each other at the same place on the same day.
The quality of the shore fishing along the beaches and at most rock marks almost completely comes
down to the presence or absence of 'fry' shoals, which are actually scad being pushed in close by
predatory fish marked by flocks of diving frigate birds. No frigates or fry, then no fish. But even more
frustrating is that even this doesn't always hold true, so it can be a hard situation to read at times.
A good example here is a day when we had driven down to Pan Am beach, which is a series of three
short beaches separated by rocks close to the American base. Along one of these beaches the frigate
birds were going berserk, so we quickly tackled up our popping rods armed with shimano saragosa reels
loaded with 80 pounds bs braid, tied a short length of 200 pounds monofilament to the end, then fished
a variety of poppers, dexter wedges and lead-heads with soft rubber split tails, and bingo, it was every
egg a bird. Mainly hard fighting black jacks and almaco jacks. But there were also some tuna mixed in
there amongst them as evidenced by the sizes of some of the surface boils.
But every so often the birds would stop diving, and either continue circling high up over the water, or
sit it out on the rocks and wait. Correspondingly, the regularity of takes on the lures would fall away.