For the real stuff you have to be with the local guides. They know every rock and why fool around on the ocean if you do not know the area yet? It is time consuming and it will burn a lot of fuel. But I have someone tell you the things I know and learned during my time down there. My issue about fishing is we do this for sport so "Catch and Release" is my motto. Take home only what you can eat and release the others for our future generation. Thank you.
Fishing on Crooked you roughly can divide in these sections. Deep sea fishing, Inshore fishing (bottom and spinning), Bone - fly fishing and Spear fishing
Crooked Island has a 50-mile barrier reef ring around the entire island chain, offering drop-offs beginning at about 50 feet and plunging to 3600 feet in the Crooked Island Passage. If you look at the picture you can see that this is very close to the beach. You do not need to go far out to catch your record fish. This area is so remote with no commercial fishing so the area is loaded with fish. Almost every blue ocean specimen can be caught here. Deep sea fishing is mostly done by trolling multiple lures behind the boat. This can be plastic or wooden lures or life/dead bait. Crooked island is famous for the knowledgable fly fishermen who are able to catch almost anything on the fly. Even Marlin and Tuna. If you encounter a school or you attract a school by chumming you can take your lighter gear out like the spinning rods or your fly rod and cast directly to the school. Fish that you can catch on the ocean are tuna, wahoo, dolphin (dorado/mahi-mahi), mackerel, marlin, barracuda, and, of course, Sharks. From October to march wahoo and mackerel are excellent and from April to September it's tuna and dolphin time.
Bottom fishing is done all over Crooked island but, of course, there are several hot spots around. In most cases every rock has fish but in some cases. (like mutton snapper) you have to go with the guides to French Welch to find large schools of Snapper. In front of the beach near the drop off you find snapper also. A lot of fun is night fishing. The ocean is boiling with fish when the fish come out to eat. I catch a lot of fish after sunset just on the beach. Go to a rocky area and drop your sinker with a piece of squid or conch and catch Snapper, Crevalle Jack and, of course, Sharks. Not to mention the rays, pilot fish and others I had on my hook during bottom fishing. Rays are lots of fun, strong, but slippery hahaha. Very hard to get back into the water.
Crookedisland has its own bonefishing site made by a fisherman who visited this year. You might want to check it out.
Crooked island has the best flats in the Bahamas. The best spots can be found in the Bight of Acklins. The bight is a glassy lens of water lying between the pincers of Crooked and Acklins Islands. Although a few meandering channels here run eight or ten feet deep, for much of its 25-mile breadth the water is shallow enough to wade in. Strolling knee-deep in the bight is the closest thing imaginable to walking on water, water that seems to have no beginning or end, water that washes hazily off the edge of the earth at every point of the compass. Its color changes constantly, from turquoise to tawny to a tessellated green-gold when ripples on the surface cast reflections on the bottom. Here are the bonefish flats. The trick with bonefish is to lay the fly down right in front of them. Bonefish flies are made to look like a shrimp or tiny crabs, attractive to the fish grazing the bottom with their suckerlike mouth. When you feel a strike, you tug the line to set the hook, then stand ready as the fish peels off. Play him right, and eventually he will tire. Be prepared to see the fish go for 150 yards. I am not a great fly fisherman my self but there are guides on the island who know more about bonefish than you ever will learn in your entire lifetime. Look at the guide section. On the flats you will catch Big Bonefish, Tarpon, Permit, Barracudas and, of course, Sharks. Crooked Island fly box It has been known that Crooked Island bones took large weighted flies readily, and the two featured here were particularly successful. The Yarn Crab takes both Bonefish and Permit.
This is a thrill a lot of people like. Most Bahamians love to do it and they are experts at it. Kenny Scavella told me a lot of stories about it and he told me that when he was a little boy they practiced spear shooting at the beach with beer cans. One was throwing them in the air, and the other had to shoot them. Spear fishing is done with a Hawaiian sling. It is not allowed to use harpoons or even go spear fishing with compressed air. The sling is a piece of wood with a hole in the middle and a piece of strong rubber attached to it. You put the spear in the hole and pull the rubber backwards. Then you point at the fish and let the rubber go. That sounds easy. The only thing I caught with it was some piece of coral and a big 20 ton rock. So I gave up on spear fishing because it has some dangers also. See the info section chapter dangers. Do not worry. The island has several guides who can take you out for a day of lobster fishing and you grill them on the most beautiful beaches around the world. The lobster season starts 8/1 and ends 3/31 Turtle: Illegal to import: although legal to eat in The Bahamas. PLEASE.... do not eat them.
Be aware that Crooked Island does not have tackle shops. If you want to fish the best thing is to bring your own gear. The bigger boats for deep see fishing have all the stuff you need. If you want to fish on your own, bottom, spinning or fly fishing it is recommended you bring your own.
For light spinning I recommend 10lb class rods with up to 10lb mono. For the bigger job up to 20lb class rods with 15-20 pound mono or bait cast rods/reel with dynema line. I love to bait cast but the standard spinning rods will do the job. For bottom fishing you need a 20-30 pound leader test, some sinkers and hooks. I catch 30 pound barracudas with this outfit but in this case I use a 2 foot 150lb wire cable. Not that I would loose them on 20lb line but those teeth........
For fly fishing you need a weight 8 or 9 on the flats because it can be windy. For blue ocean fly fishing I would say a minimum of 10 lb. test line with plenty of backing. Bonefish can run over 150 yards if they are big. Not to mention a Marlin or Tuna. So my advice is at least 300 yards in this case. If you want to bring in your own stand-up gear for trolling I recommend the 30 - 50 pound class reels and rods for the general blue ocean fish. If you want to go for marlin and you are not an expert, go for 80-130lb. I have seen videos where world champions try to catch Marlin with 10lb or less. I would not recommend that because it takes an average of 1000 hours trolling to catch a Marlin so why take the risk and loose it on the first.... and maybe last strike. Now do not get discouraged because there is one man on the island, Carter Andrews, who was able to catch 20 Blue Marlin on 23 charters so ..... there is still hope. For tackle you can go to: Marlin Marine or Lightbourne Marine in Nassau. These two shops are just across the street of each other and carry all you need.