Aruba Island - South Caribbean

[CiaranMcFish]

Managed to somehow find myself in Aruba for a weekend, was supposed to be in New York on lads weekend away but got railroaded into this trip at short notice, tough life. Aruba is about 15 miles off Venezeula and is surrounded by relatively deep water (450ft) close inshore. I had looked at a few charters before going however some were charging $400 for 4 hours so i didnt book and managed to find a boat for $300 for a 5 hour trip for 4 people. Aruba has a decent fleet of trolling big game angling boats and they catch wahoo, barracuda, blue marlin, albacore tuna and sharks regularly with autumn the hot months. We managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 5 for an early morning boat trip, it was mardi gras carnival on that Sunday and many of the boats were not running because of that. We fished on the Jeliray and our skipper and crewman were a father and son team and the son was more than happy to discuss tactics and local fishing whilst setting up on the way out. We were trolling with 4 rods, 2 on outriggers and 1 on downrigger and also deployed a weighted handline!! We had 2 hours of fruitless trolling in bright sun and pretty choppy conditions, bit like malin head in october at one point (without sun obviously). We managed to hit into a few wahoo and it was a bit hectic for about half an hour with one 25lber boated on a sporting outfit using 20lb braid and an estimated 50lber lost on the handline. All in all an interesting morning out and i'd be tempted to try for the larger species if ever i got the chance somewhere again. I think there are other locations for big game fishing that would provide a better chance however if you ever find yourself in Aruba on a cruise stopover etc it would be worth a go, also stop by Moomba beach for a bottle of balashi beer and few rum cocktails and your set!

[Sweetwrasse]

Very nice Ciaran! That's a fine specimen in the first photo!

[CiaranMcFish]

Aye certainly is Rob, however it did seem like false advertising to us as this was definitly nothing like the locals we saw on the beaches we visited!!

[SirSquiglum]

Very nice, That first photo is a beauty, Looks very top heavy IMO, double figures at least