DIY Fly Fishing on St. Lucia

 

For spring break this year, our family took a trip to the island of St. Lucia in the West Indies.  We have never been to this island before, and were excited to try out a new location.  As usual, I wanted to bring a fly rod, to see what I could find from the beach of our resort.  We stayed at The Royalton.  Most resorts have kayaks the guests can take out to get away from people swimming on the beach.  If you want to get some angry looks, try fly casting from a crowded beach!  Kayaks were the ticket this trip, I tooled around on a kayak just about everyday and walked the rock edges on the resort looking into the water for fish.  

 

El Bolso with El Ocho clipped on.

 

Gear List

El Ocho - 8 weight travel combo with sealed disc drag reel, ready for saltwater.

El Bolso - Sling Pack filled with pliers, tippet, and leaders.

Fly Box - Full of an assortment of random saltwater flies - Clousers are a must for DIY saltwater fishing, make sure to bring some with various weights as it can become necessary to get the fly deep fast.

 

 

 

 

I did plenty of internet research looking for people that have had success fly fishing adventures on St. Lucia.  It's been a long time since I've traveled anywhere and found so little information or success stories.  It's an island, right?  There's got to be some fish there, right?!

 

El Ocho drying out on the balcony

 

 

 

Most resorts have kayaks for people to go out and about near the beach.  Imagine the looks from the locals when I brought a fly rod over to check out the kayak.  One guy asked me what are you using for "bait?"  I smiled at him, showed him my rod, and he said I should go to the buffet and get some raw chicken.  I couldn't stop laughing when I was paddling away, wondering why I left my raw chicken flies at home.  

Fishing from the kayak was a blast.  I went out a total of three times, for about an hour each day.  Just enough time to slip away for a bit to relax.  The first two trips out resulted in no fish, however on our last day of the trip, we had some success.

I tied on a weighted white clouser minnow and began casting near the rocks.  After drifting quite far back towards our resort, I finally felt a fish.  After trying so hard to find a fish, any fish really, I was thrilled.  Completely thrilled...only to have the hook pull from a small jack right at the kayak.  Fortunately, I did hook up on the next cast, landing this little brown grouper looking fish.  It was an odd looking reef fish, mainly brown with beautiful blue dots all over it.  I'll work on identifying this one another day.

 

Reef Fish

 

Paddeling my way back to the beach, I saw some fish hitting bait near the surface.  There was a buoy anchored to the ocean floor the hotel used to tie up a speedboat.  These can be great little pieces of structure that sometimes hold bait.  I pulled out El Ocho and began casting.  JACKS!!!

 

Jack with El Ocho

 

 

Another Jack with El Ocho

 

 

Yet Another Jack with El Ocho

 

Pound for pound, I think Jacks may be one of the most fun fish to catch.  I ended up catching about 4 or 5 of these little guys, which was a blast.  Throwing the clouser just past where they were surfacing, and quickly stripping it through, got little beasts to hit almost every time.  They were definitely not the largest fish I've ever caught, but after striking out a couple of times before, it felt fantastic to land a few fish. Especially ones that can pull like these!  If you are heading to the Caribbean, or Mexico, having a great travel outfit that is built to handle saltwater is a must.  Check out El Ocho for your next adventure.

Make sure you check out our video up on YouTube to see some of the DIY saltwater fly fishing on the island of St. Lucia!  

 

El Ocho Outfit