Fishing in BVI - anything to eat?

[Hoosierdoc]

We will be in BVIs in march, I know ciguatera is a risk on the reef fish, but is there much to catch and eat without going to the deeper areas?

We may run outside since the deep water is so close, looks like about 5nm trip from Norman Island. What I've read is you need to hit the shelf to troll for the top water fish.

What can we eat on the inside that's accessible though? I got really hungry looking at all those tarpon under the boat

[JeffDPT]

Check the regulations. Recreational fishing is very limited.

[Hoosierdoc]

Originally Posted by JeffDPT

Check the regulations. Recreational fishing is very limited.

Having a hard time finding restrictive limitations. Of course the official page seems to be down.

What I do know is...

• license for the boat
• license for each person over 18
• species restrictions such as billfish
• 30lb of fish per boat at a time

do you have examples of other restrictions? I assume there are some national parks and preserves you can't fish through. That is what I'm nervous about.

https://www.bvitourism.com/activities/fishing

I have supplies for hand lines. Excited to get down there and troll. probably catch/release for the kids when we get to destinations.

[Lihuedooley77]

Hossier,

Good fortune for your fishing day.

Should you decide that you would like to pick up some fresh fish....

Our faves were

Koloa Fish Market, more toward Big Save

Fish Express , across from Wall Mart Area, mauka side of the street.

[Flagman101]

Originally Posted by Hoosierdoc

Having a hard time finding restrictive limitations. Of course the official page seems to be down.

What I do know is...

• license for the boat
• license for each person over 18
• species restrictions such as billfish
• 30lb of fish per boat at a time

do you have examples of other restrictions? I assume there are some national parks and preserves you can't fish through. That is what I'm nervous about.

https://www.bvitourism.com/activities/fishing


I have supplies for hand lines. Excited to get down there and troll. probably catch/release for the kids when we get to destinations.

Honestly, the area you will be sailing in is not a good fishing ground.
You would have to go a bit offshore to catch anything worth it.
Fish market is your best bet.
The kids might enjoy swimming with the fish more then catching one
You have tons of sardines close to shore and mostly parrot fish. Tarpons come out at night.
You best bet to catch an edible fish would be if you sailed to Anegada. But even then...

[Lihuedooley77]

Please excuse my previos post, the markets I listed were on Kauai, Island...

12 years of posting on the kauai trip advisor board, and absolutely loving Kauai and the BVi, well, done mucked up the water.

However, should you ever be visiting the beautiful garden island of kauai in the future, you have da scoops on the fresh fish markets.

[NPCampbell]

Species that live in open water typically don't carry ciguatera. However, almost all species carry parasites like nematodes and spaghetti worms. Cooking kills almost all parasites (ciguatera isn't a parasite) though. Lastly, some fish, like the tarpon you mentioned, are edible but the number of fine bones in them makes preparation tedious.

[Hoosierdoc]

Looking at depth charts we’re going to try to head south around Virgin Gorda where it drops to 3500’ and end up in Gorda sound in the afternoon. Hopefully that will give us a tasty snack and some incredible pictures. I’ll post if we catc anything and where.

Just bought some egg sinkers. Hoping to experiment a bit. Also have some bird teasers

[Hoosierdoc]

We tried to sneak south of VG by cutting through fallen Jerusalem rock. BIG chop as the current opposed wind and swell there when we tried to leave. Whoops. Turned around and apologized to my spouse

Anyway, we caught some jacks and a cero mackerel in the straight south of Tortola. All on ballyhoo. One jack had worms and looked disgusting. I read they are safe but no one would have eaten it.

Thursday we left anegada for Jost but headed north first tondeeper water. About a minute after hitting 200’ had a mahi strike my lure on a handline with a teaser bird. I grabbed it and started hauling it in when the second mahi hit our trolling rod with ballyhoo. Wow!

My first got on deck and then flipped off the hook. Our gaff man was reeling in the other fish. I didn’t think to jump on it but it was fairly small. The one we did reel in was 36” long and tasted lovely. Then nothing for hours as we were in 4000’+ depth. Got a third mahi on ballyhoo when we cut back shallower, was about 80’ small fish, we let that one go.

Manual rigging ballyhoo was an interesting experience. The rigged ones are so expensive. Next time i’ll Buy six and probably 24 frozen ballyhoo and just rerig them.

[Hoosierdoc]

Also, we swear we saw fish trailing the lures several times that did not strike. Very cool. I had one lure that came up missing the hook and a decent amount of the skirt. Marlin? Barracuda?