Dominican republic

**andy dee** · 14-12-2005, 23:21

Hi , Has anyone fished the Dominican Republic ? I,m heading out there in july and was wondering what i could expect to catch both of the shore and boat .

Thanks Andy

**Dave Godwin** · 15-12-2005, 19:24

Hi Andy i fished from the boats there a couple of times when i was there on holiday once from a place called Boca chica i seem to remember.
Bascially i was not impressed, nice boats, average prices below average fishing, maybe the wrong time of year!!!

**jon_dav_uk** · 16-12-2005, 02:51

Have to agree with Dave am afraid, have fished from boats on both north and east coasts of Dom Rep and not seen one fish caught, boats are decent but skippers not up to much. Both times were in July so maybe it was the time of year am not sure.

Depending on where you are going you might get some decent fish from the shore on light spinning or float fishing gear. Beach I was at last year had a nice reef with shoals of yellowtail snapper upto about 10lb within 20ft of the beach. Wish I had took me rod instead of me fins and snorkel........

**PanamaJack** · 19-12-2005, 17:03

Hi Andy
I can't recall any of our members having 'seriously' fished there. Those that have, as the other two respondents mentioned, have just tagged a couple of days on to a family holiday and had similar results offshore - decidedly average.

Looking at one of the local's web site - http://www.mikesmarina.info/pages/9/index.htm it suggests that July is Blue Marlin time. But the images of billfish on his site shows only very small and very dead Marlin. His operation appears very much geared up to taking tourists for a 'boat ride'.

In the absence of any other replies it might well be worth posting to one or other of the 'Stateside forums. Here're some suggestions - http://www.sportfishingmag.com/, http://www.floridasportsman.com/ or http://www.reel-time.com. Whilst the latter focuses on salt water fly fishing you'll find its respondents are very knowledgeable and well travelled and, providing you mention you're from this side of the Pond, they're likely to forgive you for not being an exponent of the 'long rod'! Seriously, in terms of fishing from the shore, they're likely to provide you with the better quality information on species and locations.
Kindest regards
Dave
http://www.scbi.org.uk

**boycey 32** · 01-02-2006, 21:36

Originally Posted by andy dee

Hi , Has anyone fished the Dominican Republic ? I,m heading out there in july and was wondering what i could expect to catch both of the shore and boat .

Thanks Andy

i went to domrep in may last year in caberete was going to go out on charter boat
but the bus did not turn up so went with flippers an snorkal to a place called paradice illand loads of fish there but well gutted about not going fishing.

**Hawkeye** · 12-02-2006, 22:23

Hi
I was their a few weeks ago and went out from the north east coast of
dem -republic. Booked a big game fishing day , their was 5 fishing on our boat and we never caught anything all day.
Another boat from the same resort caught a 60-70 lb sail fish the same day tho , I was told that we were a bit early in the season. It was a nice boat and the skipper was ok but not sure if it was worth the money. ( about £ 50 for 4 hours )

We saw a shoal of small tuna surfacing by the boat a few time's, thats about as exciting as it got .

**Mike Fisher** · 23-02-2006, 17:58

hi to all, esp. to Panama Jack,
who attacked (verbally, sorry man no offense) the fishing in the dominican republic very global, without knowing the extreme big differences between serious outfitters and non insured or service providing dead boat charters. it's true that the north coast has no big quantity of fish to offer and the problem of the caribbean south side (boca chica, bayahibe, la romana) is the wide flat area in front of their local waters, so for real deep water they have to run over 30 nmls offshore before getting a line wet, most don't do it. i am fishing over 10 years on the east side, located in the center of the area known as Punta Cana and Bavaro, and for not to seem to reply to this topic only to do promotion for my company, i want to mention also competitors doing serious good service in the same area on the east:
-Mike's Marina Fishing Charters S.A., i am the oldest on the coast
-Marlin Sports Center S.A., now partnered with we
-Blue Sky fishing, they use a nice 35 ft Bertram
-Gone fishing, my hardest competitor, but i have to mention him too because they give good service to their clients, too

i know fishing is sold right on the beaches by so many, there are dozends of boats in the area looking for a couple of hundred bucks fast, before you trust somebody(including me) check it out with people who know the outfitter really, beeing fishing with him before, there's some reason why those salesman are not even allowed to enter a hotels area, not even on the beach. i work with 35 touroperators and 9 watersport center companies without any trouble all those years in the area and the website i brought up around 8 months ago had the only idea to give information to clients interested in fishing our area before they arrive in our country, a lot of clients, mostly american/canadian told me there's poor information on the net about our area, so i started the site and i am not angry that this thing gone up like an explotion, today i have two charter boats running only with clients which contacted me by e-mail or on the website www.mikesmarina.info .
July/August/September are our main time for blue marlin, we get them 10-25 nmls offshore, that's very close besides other marlin destinations on the world, and yes, they look not monster big on the pictures, because an average blue marlin for our part of the atlantic ocean weights 200-300 lbs, sure we got 600 pounders over the years, but that's not a regular size for our area, so bringing up pictures of record fishes would not be what i call a serious promotion.
what puts our local waters on the east coast on top of all destinations around here is our white marlin season, top of the heat May and June, we get them only 2-8 nmls offshore and in big quantities, it is not rare to get white marlin hits less than a mile offshore.
i hope nobody feels offended by this post, because that's absolutely not the reason why i posted it, but it heats me always up to read about our fishing like all outfitters are the same, we are a third world country, sorrily still no catch and release, so we have absolutely no regulations about the fishing or the services which has to be offerd to sell a day on the ocean.
for example all of the above mentioned companies pick their clients up in insured airconditioned vehicles, or by speed boat if the clients hotel is close to base, the crew speaks english, sure not perfect, but you can do conversation with them and ask about what's going on right now, and every serious company has an every day operating office with english spoken stuff, e-mail contacts and 24/7 cell phone contact number in perfect english.
i wish all the biggest one
take care
Mike

PS to Jack:
the fishes on the pictures on my website do not only look dead, they are, it would be to much work to take fotos on the beach when they are still alive. i would really appreciate to communicate to you and others by mail about what you/we are doing, at the moment i started a little campaign for catch & release in our local waters, i really need guys like you to heat such a theme up, it's seriously a very hard job to bring such ideas in the minds of boat owners/crews in a country where most of a captains salary is done by selling the catch, every catch. please take a look on the topics "catch&release" on the very small forum page on my website.
thanks
Mike

**PanamaJack** · 24-02-2006, 15:32

Mike
In responding to that first posting on the thread, about what Andy could catch in July, I tried initially to make clear that our two members who’d fished on the island hadn’t been on dedicated fishing trips but had just tagged a couple of days on to a family holiday. And I also commented that their results, offshore, had been decidedly average.

It was really to offer further suggestions about what he could catch in July that made go into Google and search on ‘Dominican Republic, Fishing’, and I came up with your site. So, be assured that part of your advertising strategy is decidedly working. And it was there that I picked up the reference to your prime Blue Marlin season covering the period July through September. But the site does contain pictures of small, very dead Marlin, hence my comment.

I have to say Mike dead Marlin hanging up on gantries and pictures of dead Marlin smacked to me of aiming at attracting an essentially tourist clientele. Nothing wrong with that but it suggested the type of ‘market’ you were operating in where you’re trying to encourage people ‘off the quay’ to go out the next day on your boat rather than the one moored next to you.

Now this is me speaking from my perspective as the Chairman of a fishing club whose members have fished literally around the world, in virtually all the game fishing hotspots. I similarly have fished in a reasonable number of places recently – most of which can be described as being in the ‘Third World’. That's places like Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Cape Verde Islands. But Mike in all of those areas and similarly places like Kenya which are extremely poor the norm is to fish ‘Catch and Release’ for Billfish.

I guess though there crews are paid sensible wages, vis a vis the local economy, and are given reasonable tips by their clients. They don’t need to sell the billfish ‘commercially’ to supplement their income. However I guess in the case of the Dominican Republic where as you say ‘most of a captain’s salary is through selling the catch’ it’s very difficult to turn around a whole industry.

So Mike, a couple of things in concluding.

The Internet is an extremely powerful and cheap means of advertising, but a site’s content can work both ways – it can attract business or worringly force clients away.

In my opinion the ‘enlightened’ majority of that client base of Americans and Canadians (and I guess increasingly Europeans) you’re trying to attract through the web will find pictures of dead Marlin a complete turn-off. These are the clients that are going to book not just the single day but multi-day charters. (But others, the ‘one day-ers’ are similarly and increasingly becoming conservation minded.) Try looking at the American sportfishing magazines and you won’t, any more, find pictures of dead Marlin. They’re commercial operations as well and patently find dead fish don’t sell magazines.

So perhaps it will be worth replacing at least some of those pictures on your web site with action shots of Marlin? After all that’s the buzz as anglers we get, the lasting memory of big fish jumping and throwing white water everywhere. Any rate, that’s your decision.

Then, in terms of ‘Catch and Release’ if you’re serious about it then I’d suggest you contact the IGFA in Florida – http://www.igfa.org. They’ve certainly proved in the way they’ve influenced the Costa Rican government to introduce statutory Billfish release, and limit commercial fishing for them of their powerful credentials. That say, it’s not as far as I'm aware American economic pressure, the Costa Ricans have been persuaded of the powerful positive effect of Billfish release on the important tourist sector of their economy.

The chap to contact is their Conservation Director Jason Schratwieser. Also the IGFA have appointed two (unpaid) representatives on your island – Dr Eduardo Read and Lowell E. Fernandez Whipple – both of whom live in Santo Domingo. I’m sure they would be able to help you think through an approach.

Finally Mike, lots of Brits and others that read or subscribe to this forum doubtless view your island, amongst a range of other destinations, as a place to consider for a family holiday. Why not use the forum to post details of what your boats are catching every month or so? You never know it may just be the thing that convinces someone to influence their wife into going to the Dominican Republic for their holiday. And, of course, once they’re there they’re going to want to go out fishing on your boats.

Hope I've been constructive.
Dave

**Mike Fisher** · 25-02-2006, 05:20

hello Dave
yes, you've been constructive
do you have mail or phone of the igfa representatives in santo domingo?
anyways i go to inform myself on igfa.org
you really gave me some hints to think about
thanks
Mike

**PanamaJack** · 25-02-2006, 16:50

Hi Mike
Unfortunately the IGFA don't publish contact details for their representatives in their yearbook. However Jason will willingly provide that and talk you through the issues associated with release fishing. His e-mail address is JSchratwieser@igfa.org.

Going back to your early posting you mentioned the White Marlin. Now certainly I, and perhaps others viewing this thread would be interested in those, there're an excellent challenge on light or even fly tackle. Could you perhaps drop a note of typical catch rates?
Thanks
Dave