Dominican Republic

[Mackem]

Hi,I am going on holiday to the Dominican Republic in August on the north coast,seeing its a family holiday i will limit myself to fishing from the shore,question is,is there anything worth fishing for and what type of rod trace and bait would i need,i have a 12ft beach caster and some heavy and medium light spinning rods,plus a 9ft uptide rod,the beachcaster for holidays is telescopic.If i need a spinning rod i suppose it will have to be telescopic cheap job.:unsure:

[PanamaJack]

Hi Mackem
And firstly, welcome to the forum.

I don't know yet whether you've had an opportunity to read the posting against this thread - http://www.worldseafishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13389 - covering the Dominican Republic? If not it's well worth reading as a starting point - even though most of the observations relate to the east coast - just click on the url link.

You mentioned that, in that it was a family holiday, you were planning to restrict yourself to shore fishing. Just a point, many of the boats do organise half day charters. Something that you may be able to fit into the structure of a family holiday? On that point though, just a warning, there seem to be at least some skippers who're just there to take tourists out for a 'boat ride'. Look and see what they've been catching and, if there're photographs of previous catches, look carefully at the dates.

In terms of that previous thread you'll notice that I took a guy - Mike Fisher - to task about killing billfish. In the months since that though I've corresponded with Mike a lot about essentially the offshore fishing in the Dominican Republic through another, German, forum. He comes over as a really good bloke and, in that he doesn't seem to post any more to this forum, it might well be worth contacting him either through his web site - there's a link on that previous posting - or sending him a Private Message (PM) through the facility on this forum. Although it's not an area he necessarily fishes he might well be able to give you some further advice on the fishing on the north of the island. Alternatively, if no one else responds to your request for information, try PM-ing those who responded against that early thread. They similarly may not be regularly checking the site.

Hope that gives you a starting point.
Kindest regards
Dave

[Mackem]

Hi PanamaJack, The info is much appreciated,like you say i think its best if i contact Mike fisher for some more info. Regards Martin

[andy dee]

Hi Martin , i head out next week so will hopefully be able to fill you in better when i get back home ,

Andy

[cupboardlad]

elo mackem , one of my mates went there last year ( hese not a seriouse angler )
and he had a good few days fishing using nothing more than a waggler float and an 8 s hook , his rod was one of those telescopic things you get in spain,
he used bread on the hook and he caught fish ( dont know what sort ) all day,he fished off the rocks by the way,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
cuberd

[Mike Fisher]

hi to all and an extra big one with a big thanks to Dave(Panama Jack).
like Dave mentioned we run in each other on this forum, the thread is still public(dominican republic), and we figured it out, having nice and specially very helpful(for me) conversation since then.
catch and release is sorrily done by a few boats only on our island, but at least i started it and stay on that way.
july is still full with white marlins and will bring lots of blue ones, too, we started blue marlin season yet.
first weekend of june we hosted again ESPN2's blue caribbean marlin tourney, clips are on since last week every day, i just don't know if you can see the same ESPN2 program in europe, our satellites bring in the US-channels.
charter boat quality varies a lot from outfitter to outfitter, from beautiful sportfishing yachts to "better don't go offshore too far with it".
i operate myself at the moment a 40ft Searay, a 42ft Post and a 42ft Bertram, all in great shape and best equipped, run by english spoken professional tournament skippers, we even run airconditioned if requested and pick our customers up by our own airconditioned 10-seater vans. this summer i will move the 42ft Bertram named Shekinah to operate her by myself only for 8-10hrs charters from the Punta Cana Marina with breakfast and real lunch on board included to reach the next service level.
thanks to all Forum members for their patience with our sometimes not that european fast moving changes, at least we work on it and we apreciate all recomendations about it, positive and negative ones, to better our service.
good luck to all
Mike
Mike's Marina Fishing Charters S.A.
Punta Cana
Dominican Republic
to the question about the shore fishing on the north coast, i have no connections to over there, the same to the south west in the boca chica area near santo domingo, that's 3 very different worlds even being located on the same islands different coasts.
my last visit to the north is over 5 years back and to the south i drive 3-4 times a year for one day for the need to do paperwork for the business.
in General, shore fishing is not bad on the island. the negative on our east coast(punta cana) is the all day long heavy inshore traffic, speedboats pass close to the beaches in that not very wide areas, the reef is only a couple of hundred yards from the beacges. on the more quiet spots, like at the punta cana marina, cabeza de toro or in front of the passage at the old tanker wreck "Astron" besides the hotel resorts Riu and Iberostar shore fishing in the early morning hours with the sunrise is great.

[Davie L]

Hi Mackem

Well my personal expercience of the north coast of the dominican republic puerto plata area would be dont waste your dough!! I was there last year with the lady for 2 weeks and done a couple of excursions being diving/mountain trail e.t.c then i was asked if i would do a fishing trip on this "super" boat which cost me $125 dollars for 6 hours 12pm till 6pm the boat was a aproper fishing boat with penn stand up rods penn game reels etc but not even a trolling rig on board! we were trolling for the full 5 hours or so at about 2 metes below the surface with about 3oz ball weights! i estimate the water to be about 100-125 ft deep with 4 rods we caught s**t!

Needles to say all 4 of us who paid the fee were not very happy but didnt get out money back my opionon that they were literally just after your cash and didnt have a clue how to go about catching fish!

A would be seen there again!! but any ways enjoy your holidays lol

Davie