Not one boat has left the docks here in Casa De Campo ( CDC) for the past few days. The NE winds have blown at 25 knots each day and kept the fleet dockside. The crews have been using these days to repair things that were broken and ready for the calm weather to come the end of this week.
Fishing out of CDC is unique. Most places we fish along drop offs or areas where currents collide. These types of places tend to hold bait concentrations and thus attract predators like Blue Marlin. Here in the Dominican Republic, The Local commercial fishermen have figured out that they can place FADS off shore to attract fish. FAD stands for Fish Attracting Device. These are built by anchoring a buoy in 2500 feet of water and attaching things like Tarps and Palm fronds to the rope just below the buoy on the surface. The buoy is normally a large drum or chunk of foam. By attaching the palm fronds, they create a place for small fish to seek cover. Small jack and tunas then gather to feed on the bait fish and then Dorado, Wahoo and Marlin then aggregate around the same area. The local fishermen sit off shore around these FADS fishing for all of the larger fish. They remind me much of Hemingways Old man and the sea. They go out for a few days at a time with no cover to protect them from the elements on small but seaworthy boats. They fish with hand lines and use small jacks or tunas for their baits to try and catch Marlin. Yes they kill every marlin they can catch. This is a poor country and one, two hundred lb marlin can bring a lot of money to someone living in this economy. It is sad that the government has not seen the light as far as what a marlin brings one time when killed for the market, as opposed to what that fish and a healthy fishery can bring to the economy for tourism. So with that said, One of the things we deal with here as an American boat fishing around these commercial FADS is, That the commercial boats want the fish we are catching. It is nothing for a 25 foot panga boat to rush in on a sportfish fighting a Blue marlin and grab the line as an angler is fighting the fish. The Dominican boat will then handline the fish the rest of the way to their own boat and kill the fish. I have added a few pics of one such an event that happened to the "Gear up" this past week. Make sure you look real good inside the panga. There are Tails and Bills sticking out from inside. They had four dead blue marlin in that boat.
Now I am not going to place judgement on these guys that are out just trying to make a peso. But If I hook a fish, it should be my right to release it healthy if I want to. Then again we are fishing on the Dominican comercial guys FADs. He toiled and worked to build them and we are hooking fish he could catch....... It is a weird situation. The fishery is good here. But how long can it last when the locals are killing all of the sportfish.
The bite here has been pretty good this last few weeks. It peaked on the last full moon and subsided a bit now. But even on this waning moon and before the winds blew, boats were still catching 2-5 marlin a day. As the moon comes back fuller over the next 2 weeks, The bite should turn red hot again. On the last moon, boats fishing the FADS were getting as many as 10 shots at Blue Marlin a day.
Sitting dock side for the last week was a shock to Kyle and I. Mainly because we had basically fished or traveled nearly every day for a month. Now sitting at the dock waiting for the boss to arrive has been strange. But we used the time to take good stock in what we had broken or dirtied over the last month. My girls got a good looking after. My girls are my engines. Kyle and I spent an entire day in the engineroom Changing oil and fuel filters and replacing fluids. The girls were happy to have had some good quality time with us.
It has been a few days since my last post. There just has not been much going on to blog about. There is not much to do in CDC in off time. We did go to a movie at the cinema on property. We We also have been to Alta Chavon a few times. There are a few little bars there. Alta Chavon is a town perched on the bluffs of the Chavon River that was built for the movie Apocalypse Now. Much of the movie was shot on and around the river. The village blows away anything that you have ever seen as a movie set. It is not just building fronts. It is a full blown rustic town that looks like it was built 300 years ago. I will post some pics of it in the near future.
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| Four wide |
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| Drinks at Alata Chavon |
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| Our transportation while here at CDC |
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| Commercial boat pulls right up on the Gear Up fighting a Blue Marlin |
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| They grab the leader and pull the small Blue marlin aboard. You can see the fish is still hooked by the Gear Up. |
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| That Blue made a total of four in this Panga. |
The crew of the Due Course rented a house on property for the time they are here. The Due Course is a 44 foot Garlington. While a very nice boat, there is not much space for a crew member to live on board. For that matter two crew members. So they have a nice house and their boss is not here right now. It has been nice of Capt Bucky to invite Kyle and I up to the house the last two afternoons for some time off our boat. Even a 60 foot boat gets small after a few weeks of living on board. We played poker and just relaxed. It was a nice diversion. Bucky has a Mexican deck hand from Isla Mujeres Mexico named Mario. Mario and the Mexican deck hand, Darwin off the Gear Up cooked some authentic Mayan Chicken Mole for us yesterday. Man was it great. I want more.
Looking forward to the boss arriving this week to go out and see what these rough seas and winds have brought to the fishing on the FADs.
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