Castaway Cay Abaco Flats Fly Fishing

[chrisrunty]

Has anyone ever done this excursion at Castaway Cay? I just signed up my father who loves fishing. I couldn't find any reviews on it.

 

[quickcat]

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3244104&highlight=abaco

My DH and DS did this- I wrote about it in this thread

 

[KEF]

We just returned from our cruise with Disney aboard the Dream and my son and I did the fly fishing charter at Castaway Cay. I'm doing this very detailed review because I searched the heck out of it before we went and found nothing posted anywhere to prepare for this experience. I hope this review helps and I truly hope that Disney reads this to help them on how to improve on a very unique experience.
This is our 5th cruise with Disney and we have loved them all, regardless of the weather.
I'll start with saying my son and I are avid fishermen from Ontario, Canada. I've fished for over 44 years now. We originally wanted to go with the back country fishing tour but it was full. That tour is a larger bay style boat and can take 4 to 6 guests. They use spinning gear which is more friendly to the less experienced fisherman. I haven't fly fished since I was 20 and even then I wasn't very good at it but I could work a fly rod and understood technique. We still wanted to fish so we booked the fly fishing tour. Its a smaller skiff and holds the guide and two guests.

In the advertisement that Disney has on their site there should be a caveat about your skill level when taking this charter. If you are not an avid fly fisher then you best not take this tour. The gear is provided for you. Its a shorter fly rod than I ever used. but not a bad quality. Its a Redbone two piece fly rod. (Amazon for 75 bucks) and a Cortland large arbor fly reel with floating fly line. The leader was about 7 feet and had several knots in it. You could feel the frays in it and I knew it would not last the assault of a decent game fish. The fly was a small shrimp presentation. We did the morning tour and the winds were were low and the sun bright. Perfect for seeing the flats and performing a cast. The guide was super polite and would answer any questions we had. Very nice but not a conversationalist by any means. He was very experienced and a local from the Abacos, as all the guides are for the various fishing tours.

The fishing takes place on the other side of the island and you can see the cruise ship which makes for great pics!. We told him our skill levels which for my son is none. He did take the time to show us the basic cast technique but as I said before, if you don't fly fish you better not expect to learn this skill on the day of your trip. This is not a class. The guide is busy enough on the poling platform and searching for fish for you. Only one person can fish with a fly rod at one time so he had a spinning set up for my son with a hook and a piece of conch on it. This is important as you could be paired with another person you don't know and you have to take turns and both your skill levels could vary drastically. We were targeting bonefish that day which is what we really wanted. The tide was high, about 4 feet depths and less so wading is not an option. I'm not sure you would want to if you could, we saw all kinds of lemon sharks and bonnet head sharks within only a few feet of the boat. Very cool! We saw lots of schools of bonefish. I'd venture a guess in numbers to be around 100 plus. They were in schools of 6 to 30 fish at times. I couldn't get the fly out fast enough or far enough to make it count. And as the day heated up and the winds increased you back cast would be knocked down which really limited distance. They didn't care for the conch on the spinning gear either. On that topic, the spinning gear was substandard. The rod had no name on it and was soft from tip to but. To get distance out of it was not easy and the conch would fly off if you tried to make a hard long cast. It was braided line and no leader.

The add says drinks and snacks will be provided. This is not accurate at all. There are NO snacks of any kind and NO drinks. There was no cooler on board. My son was getting dizzy from the heat and the guide had a couple of warm water bottles in the bottom of a storage locker. I was very displeased with this.

In all we fished for 3 hours. Bring your camera! We took lots of pics! We saw no tarpon or permit but we did see lots of bonefish. All kinds. We also saw lots of barricuda of various sizes and also rays. The scenery is spectacular.
How many fish did we catch?..........0. Yes, not one fish. But, we were targeting a specific species and we knew that going in. After all, its called fishing....not catching!

Would I do this again? Not unless I become a truly good fly fisher. I would, however try for the backcountry fishing tour and bring my own travel gear and baits after doing some decent research on tips and techniques for spin fishing for bones.

I do hope that this review helps folks in deciding what tours to take.

 

[Bbgorman562]

I just returned and have to say I wouldn't spend the money on the fly fishing again at castaway cay. For starters its high dollar for the amount of time on the water. I have been fly fishing for about 13 years and found it dissapointing. The equipment while being the right weight rods was just junk. My son was given a spinner rod to use that I wouldn't pay 20 bucks for at Walmart. I landed one small fish but no bonefish or tarpon. Now I have been on water long enough to know you don't always catch fish, but this was just slow from the start. The guide was decent but never changed the fly and had very few suggestions. For four hundred bucks a little help,and a decent rod wouldn't be asking to much. Lay on the beach don't bother with it.

 

[Rexfly]

I agree with everything said above but would add a couple things. You should definitely be an experienced fly fisherman to go on this excursion but also just to fish for bonefish anywhere. I have fished for bonefish on Andros Island with some of the best guides and this guide Tony, from Abaco is comparable. All Bahamas guides expect that you will bring your own equipment and flies. A full days guide on Andros and Abaco is $500-600 so the price for this excursion is actually pretty good for 3 hours. BRING YOUR OWN FLY ROD. YOUR LOCAL FLY SHOP, NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE, KNOWS WHAT YOU NEED FOR BONEFISH. Or find a buddy who has fished for bonefish and borrow his gear.

Depending on the tide you should get good shots at schools of bonefish your guide will see long before you ever do. I brought my own 8 weight fly rod and reels spooled with tropic floating line and a tropic sink tip. You must have tropical line, your coldwater fly line will be a limp noodle that will not cast well at all. Next time I'll bring 2 rods, one rigged up for bonefish and one for barracuda.

The best time would be a rising tide whether morning or afternoon. I fished the afternoon on a falling tide. Bonefish started getting spooky and hard to catch. I also brought heavier weighted fliess which were not so good for skinny water and a coral bottom. Bring an assortment including unweighted shrimp flies and those with bead chain eyes. Also bring leaders and tippet.

Also remember that during summer months, the water may get too warm in the afternoon for bonefish to come in to the shallows.

When I went in April, 2015, I was amazed by the numbers of bonefish, turtles, sharks, barracuda, rays and triggerfish I saw up close - something people snorkeling in the lagoon don't get to see.

I for one will definitely do it again and bring my own drinks! Here is my video from my excursion.

 

[TheLanes]

Great reports from these folks! Nice

 

[jplee3]

Curious if anyone else has gone on the fly fishing or backcountry excursion at Castaway Cay since this post and if things have improved as far as gear is concerned. The main thing that would hold me back from even considering this now is the fact that Disney currently does not allow you to bring any fishing gear on the ship. That's OK if the gear provided on these fishing excursions is top-notch, which is what I would expect if I'm going to pay that much and not have the option of bringing my own rod/reel. But if the gear provided on these excursions isn't even up to par or well maintained (where they change the lines and leaders out frequently or service the reels regularly), and I'm spending that much $$$ for the excursion, it's a waste of money IMHO.

 

[Southern Pirate]

Curious if anyone else has gone on the fly fishing or backcountry excursion at Castaway Cay since this post and if things have improved as far as gear is concerned. The main thing that would hold me back from even considering this now is the fact that Disney currently does not allow you to bring any fishing gear on the ship. That's OK if the gear provided on these fishing excursions is top-notch, which is what I would expect if I'm going to pay that much and not have the option of bringing my own rod/reel. But if the gear provided on these excursions isn't even up to par or well maintained (where they change the lines and leaders out frequently or service the reels regularly), and I'm spending that much $$$ for the excursion, it's a waste of money IMHO.

My daughter and I have done the bottom fishing for the last couple of years. I have not tried the fly fishing. The gear on the bottom fishing would have been thrown out of my boat. I once had to fish with a broken rod and line that had seen better days, years ago. My daughter (13 at the time) broke not 1 but 2 reels while trying to land a medium size fish. I felt bad about the old broken gear so I tipped heavily thinking it would go for new gear. The next time we went I got the same broken rod. That was our last time.

 

[jplee3]

My daughter and I have done the bottom fishing for the last couple of years. I have not tried the fly fishing. The gear on the bottom fishing would have been thrown out of my boat. I once had to fish with a broken rod and line that had seen better days, years ago. My daughter (13 at the time) broke not 1 but 2 reels while trying to land a medium size fish. I felt bad about the old broken gear so I tipped heavily thinking it would go for new gear. The next time we went I got the same broken rod. That was our last time.

Thanks for the info! Sounds like a pretty cruddy tour given the gear invested in is so terrible. Did you end up complaining to DCL about it? I think it's probably worth a complaint. Especially when they *up-charge* on these tours compared to what you would pay elsewhere and through a non DCL/DCL-affiliated vendor, and those vendors are usually well-equipped with good gear. It's a disservice to DCL guests but perhaps they figure not enough people sign up for their fishing excursions so why bother. On the flip-side, when gear sucks and breaks, word will get around and those excursions that could have brought in more revenue will get less popular and not worth offering in the future.

 

[mikeboul]

Not sure if it's useful for you or not, but if you're interested in fishing trips, a good idea is to rent a boat with an experienced captain. You can try tomscatch.com