Good Times Off Grenada

The Caribbean’s Island of Spice serves up tasty big-game fishing opportunities. The aggressive sailfish came up in the spread and first struck the far port outrigger lure, the biggest bait behind the boat. It didn’t know – and cared not – that it hit the huge 12 1/2-inch Moldcraft Wide Range we trolled in the hopes of attracting a blue marlin.

Bait in mouth, the fish popped the clip as it shot through the boat wake and across the spread like a rocket. Suddenly, a second lure popped from the clip on that side. The mates screamed “double, double” as one mate rushed to the outrigger rod, and the other hustled to clear the cockpit of rods. Captain Graeme Cearman, better known by his nickname Captain Badger, figured we faced a double-header, and he called on me to put down the camera and grab the second rod. The mate turned to hand me the rod just as the line went slack – no fish.

The choppy seas and white caps knocked the lures around a bit, and the tangle meant a lost opportunity for me.

My friend Shaun Diehl still faced a battle with a large sailfish. It grey-hounded away from the boat and then battled mostly below the surface. The sail, estimated to be 70 pounds, jumped three or four times and wore out in about 10 minutes. Shaun cranked it to the boat and when the fish appeared at the stern, we noticed the second lure indeed tangled in the leader. Controlling the fish by the bill, one mate slid it into the cockpit through the transom door. The captain moved quickly to place a tag in it.

After removing the hook, both mates slid the fish into the boat’s wake for a little rejuvenation. It soon kicked away and quickly swam off in perfect shape. Captain Badger mused that it’s highly unusual for a sailfish hereabouts to go for a marlin bait.

“I put that lure in the spread to act as a sailfish teaser as much as to entice a marlin,” he said, noting other smaller lures sported ballyhoo.

A total of six lures in our diamond-shaped spread focused on sailfish and tuna. We trolled a smaller lure off each outrigger about 25 yards back, and two more small ones with ballyhoo skipped on the choppy seas on flat lines from the corners of the cockpit. We fished another lure off the fighting-chair rod so it ran beside the teaser on a very short line.

The captain’s shotgun rig normally places the mid-size lure 60- to 100-yards back depending on the seas and the intended species. On relatively calm waters that morning, the shotgun rig for these fall sails were placed at the maximum distance. In choppier waters or when focusing on marlin, Captain Badger shortens the line down the middle from the fly bridge. The marlin spread also changes slightly in the cooler months, using six larger baits with mostly 80-pound tackle and a couple of 130s.

“When after marlin, we try to make as much commotion behind the boat as possible,” said Badger. “We troll big lures that generate rooster tails behind them and mirrored teasers that reflect the sun’s rays.”

Grenada (pronounced Gruh-NAY-da) offers consistent shots at a number of big-game fish. Yellowfin tuna wreaked havoc during the time I fished there, but we only saw one school at a distance. They went down before we could troll up to them. We circled a couple of times and the tuna never came back to the surface. After a couple of hours trolling a glassy surface with only the one sighting of a school of tuna, Captain Badger noticed through his binoculars a very strong wind break with white caps heading right for us. In only a few minutes trolling into the newly found choppy waters, the sail action took place. Such is the hide-and-seek game of fishing.

Captain Badger said that he took a 195-pound yellowfin a few days before. A friend of his on another charter nailed many big ones, including a huge 215-pounder. Normally when a good round of tuna action is found off Grenada, it continues for a couple of weeks. Badger recounted a recent trip when his four anglers hooked a quadruple – the three tuna ultimately landed weighed between 120 and 140 pounds. They finished out that windy day with two additional big yellowfins including a nice 160-pounder.

Ideal sea conditions for Grenada fishing will generally entail five-foot waves. That’s a little rough for the average offshore angler perhaps, but just right for active fish. To deter entanglements and present the lures better, baits should be trolled more slowly in seas in excess of three feet. Captain Badger runs his 38-foot Surf-n-Turf charter boat at around 6 1/2 knots in rougher water – about the same speed when the big sailfish hit the marlin lure and we missed the other.